Mail.dll. How to get multiple messages by UID in one call?

Question

Based on search I get a result as UID list. But I can only get one message at a time using the GetMessage calls.

Is there a way i can get multiple messages in a single call using a UID list?

Answer 1

You need to use foreach loop for that:

using(Imap imap = new Imap())
{
     imap.Connect("imap.example.com");   // or ConnectSSL for SSL
     imap.UseBestLogin("user", "password");

     imap.SelectInbox();
     List<long> uids = imap.Search(Flag.All);

     foreach (long uid in uids)
     {
           IMail email = new MailBuilder()
                .CreateFromEml(imap.GetMessageByUID(uid));

           string subject = email.Subject;
           int attachmentCount = email.Attachments.Count;


     }
     imap.Close();
}

If you only need most common email fields (e.g. you need to fill an list with all emails on the server) consider using GetMessageInfoByUID method. This method is very fast:

using (Imap imap = new Imap())
{
    imap.Connect("imap.example.com");   // or ConnectSSL
    imap.UseBestLogin("user", "password");

    imap.SelectInbox();
    List<long> uids = imap.Search(Flag.Unseen);
    List<MessageInfo> infos = imap.GetMessageInfoByUID(uids);

    foreach (MessageInfo info in infos)
    {
        string subject = info.Envelope.Subject;
        IList<MailBox> from = info.Envelope.From;
        IList<MailAddress> to = info.Envelope.To;

        foreach (MimeStructure attachment in info.BodyStructure.Attachments)
        {
            string fileName = attachment.SafeFileName;
            long size = attachment.Size;
        }
    }
    imap.Close();
}

Comments

Thanks for your reply. I basically need a GetMessageByUID that can take a UID list. Trying to remove the need to cycle through each uid and asking for each message. So is there a way to send a list and get all messages steamed at once without looping.Need the full messages not just the info

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No it is not possible. As messages are usually quite large it wouldn't give you significant performance improvement.