Mastering Python Scripting for System Administrators

Receiving email using the imaplib library

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It's used to access emails on a remote server through your local machine. IMAP allows simultaneous access by multiple clients to your email. IMAP is more suitable when you access your email via different locations.

The IMAP protocol works on two ports:

• Port 143: The default non-encrypted port
• Port 993: The encrypted port

Now, we're going to see an example using the imaplib library. Create a script, imap_email.py, and write the following content in it:

import imaplibimport pprintimport getpassimap_server = 'imap.gmail.com'username = 'Emaild_address'password = getpass.getpass()imap_obj = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(imap_server)imap_obj.login(username, password) ...