Program to check email inboxes to see if a message has been recieved from an address

I

iansilv

Limp Gawd
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Jun 10, 2004
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Hi-
I would appreciate any thoughts or opinions here-

I would like to have a web component that checks my client's email addresses to see if they have received an email from a particular email address. I do not want to download the email, and the subject and content could be completely variable. I just need to see if an email has been sent from one input email address to another. Would this be easy to do? This is a feature for my clients, and they will be electing to use it, so there is no weird stuff going on here. I would just like to provide them with a report showing how many people responded to their emails.

Thank you for any thoughts and opinions.
 
This kind of sounds like what IMAP IDLE does, it allows for push mailing to notify a client device an email is received.

Since I only just started reading about the IDLE protocol, hopefully some one else can step in and provide a better answer.
 
My naive answer would be that you are basically going to have to write a limited email client to do this. You'd need to handle imap/pop protocol and just check the to address / subjects and wouldnt need the content. Of course if they are using exchange / lotus notes or some other proprietary email you wouldnt be able to do much.
 
So basically, they would input their email server info- email address, password, server name, and enable the feature, and it would be like I was checking their email, but not downloading anything?
 
yeah, you'd have to be careful to make sure their mailbox isnt disturbed so their normal email client doesnt miss/lose things.

which brings up another issue, their mail may not be on the server inbox. The client could be downloading it as soon as it gets it, and its not on the server. Or the client could be automatically moving new mail into another folder.

I'm not sure the feature you are envisioning would be worth it based on what could go wrong. (and how incompatible it would probably wind up).
 
If I instructed them to leave a copy on the server for 24 hours,and had it check once per day, that would do it, right?
 
This would be super easy if you're using an email server that stores messages in standard text files (i.e. .mbx format, etc.). Just search the text file and extract what you want.

If it is Exchange there are various dotnet methods for doing this as well.
 
Whats your environment / requirements for this? If this has to run on almost any setup, then pop/imap is your way to go i think.

If you have full control over the mail server, and its in unix, you have a lot more things you can do as has been pointed out.

Relying on the users to do things a certain way i don't think is going to work. (or be acceptable to your users).
 
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