Read emails using PHP via IMAP

Everyone knows how to send emails using PHP using SMTP, but not all know how to read messages via IMAP in their PHP-based software.

Here you can find a simple snippet to read your email inbox:

$host = '{mail.domain.ltd:993/novalidate-cert/ssl}INBOX'; 
$user = 'user@domain.ltd';
$password = 'SecretPassword'; 
$imap = imap_open($host, $user, $password) or die('unable to connect: ' . imap_last_error()); 

// Get ALL emails or search for specific one
// e.g. imap_search($imap, 'SUBJECT "Invoice 123"'); 
$mails = imap_search($imap, 'ALL');

if ($mails) {

  $mailOutput = ''; 
  $mailOutput.= '<table><tr><th>Subject </th><th> From  </th>  
  <th> Date Time </th> <th> Content </th></tr>'; 
 
  rsort($mails); 
  foreach ($mails as $imap) { 
      $headers = imap_fetch_overview($imap, $email, 0); 
      $message = imap_fetchbody($imap, $email, '1');
      $subMessage = substr($message, 0, 150); 
      $finalMessage = trim(quoted_printable_decode($subMessage)); 
      $mailOutput.= '<div class="row">'; 
      $mailOutput.= '<td><span class="columnClass">' . 
      $headers[0]->subject . '</span></td> '; 
      $mailOutput.= '<td><span class="columnClass">' .  
      $headers[0]->from . '</span></td>'; 
      $mailOutput.= '<td><span class="columnClass">' . 
      $headers[0]->date . '</span></td>'; 
      $mailOutput.= '</div>'; 
      $mailOutput.= '<td><span class="column">' .  
      $finalMessage . '</span></td></tr></div>'; 
  }
    
  $mailOutput.= '</table>'; 
  echo $mailOutput; 
}

imap_close($imap);

You can also decide to auto-delete new messages after a fetch (e.g., into a cronjob) by adding this code to the previous snippet:

...

foreach ($mails as $email) {

  ...

  imap_delete($imap, $email);

}

imap_expunge($imap);

imap_close($imap);

To read attachments, add this code to the previous snippet:

foreach ($mails as $email) {
  $attachements = imap_fetchstructure($imap, $email);

  foreach ($attachements->parts as $index_part => $part) {

  if($part->ifdisposition) {
      if ($part->disposition == "attachment") {
         $filename = $part->dparameters[0]->value;
         $attachment = imap_fetchbody($imap, $email, $index_part);
         $file = fopen(__DIR__.'/attachments/'.uniqid().'/'.$filename), "w+");
         fwrite($file, $attachment);
         fclose($file);
      }
  }

  ...

}

This code could be used to build a Help Desk or to improve the User interaction with your application. I hope you enjoy it! ;)