Reading and parsing email from Gmail using C#, C++ or Python

Question

I have to do a Windows application that from times to times access a Gmail account and checks if there is a new email. In case there is, it must read the email body and subject (a simple text email, without images or attachments).

Please, do not use paid libs, and in case of any other libs used, give the download path.

And I need the email body and subject only. So if the long and complex message that comes from Gmail could be parsed and only two strings containing the subject and the body, it would be perfect.

Finally, I only have to get the new messages arrived since the last execution. So the read messages could be marked as "read" and only the new ones (marked as "new") are considered.

The code can be written in Python or C++, but I prefer it in C#.

Related question:

• Properly formatted example for Python iMAP email access?

Answer 1

This prints the subject and body of unseen messages, and marks those messages as seen.

import imaplib import email  def extract_body(payload):     if isinstance(payload,str):         return payload     else:         return '\n'.join([extract_body(part.get_payload()) for part in payload])  conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com", 993) conn.login("user", "password") conn.select() typ, data = conn.search(None, 'UNSEEN') try:     for num in data[0].split():         typ, msg_data = conn.fetch(num, '(RFC822)')         for response_part in msg_data:             if isinstance(response_part, tuple):                 msg = email.message_from_string(response_part[1])                 subject=msg['subject']                                    print(subject)                 payload=msg.get_payload()                 body=extract_body(payload)                 print(body)         typ, response = conn.store(num, '+FLAGS', r'(\Seen)') finally:     try:         conn.close()     except:         pass     conn.logout() 

Much of the code above comes from Doug Hellmann's tutorial on imaplib.

Answer 2

Use one of the many C# IMAP libraries.