Mail

This step is deprecated. You can continue running your existing robots that use this step, but you cannot create a new Mail step. Use the Email step instead.

This step helps you access mail by opening one or more folders on the mail server and presenting them in the tree. The open folders are represented in the application tree. Nested folders are not shown, but you can open them separately. For each message, the tree lists the recipients as well as the 'cc' addresses and senders. The following headers are included: From, To, Message-ID, Date, Subject, and Content-Type.

Properties

Application action: Open mailbox

This action connects to and opens the selected mail box.

Protocol

Select the mail protocol used to connect to the mail server: select from "imap", "pop3", and their secure variants "imaps", "imap+tls," and "pop3s".

Mail server

Specify the name or address of the mail server.

Mail server port (optional)

Specify a port number of the mail server. If not provided, the standard port of the selected protocol is used.

Account name and Password

Enter credentials to log in to the mail server.

Path in mailbox (optional)

Enter one or more folder names to open on the mail server. Folder names in the path must be separated with slashes. To open the folder where the incoming mail is stored, do not provide any path or name.

Examples: Junk E-Mail, Subscriptions/Mailling lists.

Multiple folders may be opened by specifying multiple paths, separated by semicolons, such as Junk E-Mail;Subscriptions/Mailling lists.

Leave this field blank when using the pop3 or pop3s protocols, as POP3 does not support folders.

Mail poll interval in seconds (optional)

Number of seconds between consecutive updates of the open mail folders. When omitted, the folders are polled four times per minute with an interval of 15 seconds. This value is only relevant if the protocol is not pop and pops.

The open folders are represented in the application tree. A folder can contain zero or more messages. Nested folders are not shown (but they can be opened separately). For each message, the recipients are listed, as well as the 'cc' addresses and senders. The following headers are included: From, To, Message-ID, Date, Subject, and Content-Type. Each message has an "index" property that indicates its place in the folder. Indexes start at 1 and are consecutive. They change when messages are added or deleted.

Populating the application tree with the mail messages is a relatively slow process. It is done asynchronously: loading the messages into the tree is started by the Open mailbox action, but may continue for some time after it. Also, for the imap and imaps protocols, the mailbox is regularly polled to add new messages to the tree or remove the deleted ones.

This may cause the number of messages in the tree to change while the robot is processing them. In particular, the 'index' property of a message may change when a new message arrives or a message is deleted. When the index property is used to select a message on which multiple actions are executed, perform the following: select the message with the index in the finder, then extract the 'handle' property and use this value in subsequent finders. The handle property is unique for each message in the mailbox in one session, and does not change.

Application action: Close mailbox

This Application Action closes the application, including all open folders.

Application action: Open folder (for imap, imap+tls, and imaps protocols)

This Application Action receives a folder path as parameter. The action opens an additional mail folder on the mail server which is then added to the tree in the Tree view.

Component actions

The following component actions are provided.

Close folder (for imap, imap+tls, and imaps protocolss): This action closes a mail folder.
Copy mail and Move mail (for imap, imap+tls, and imaps protocols): The actions copy or move the selected mail message to the specified target folder. The availability of the actions depends on whether the mail server supports the copy and move operations.
Get mail content: This action returns a string value containing the message and headers in RFC 822 format.
Delete mail: This action removes a mail message.

POP3 or POP3S protocol restrictions

No folder support. The folder name on the Open Mailbox action must be empty or "INBOX".
Refreshing contents of an open folder is not supported. If you want the robot to monitor changes in the INBOX, the robot must open it, inspect it, and close it in a loop.
Because the server is not polled for updates, the connection may time out. The robot should close the mailbox when it is performing other tasks that may take some time, and reopen it when mail operations are performed again.
Some POP3 servers do not reflect changes made through the POP3connection on other interfaces. For example, when a robot deletes a mail from a Gmail account using the POP3 protocol, the web browser interface may continue to show that mail. For the robot the email is deleted.
The Delete Mail step marks a mail for deletion and removes it from the tree, but it stays on the server until the folder or mailbox is closed.