Determine the Number of Unseen Email Messages

Demonstrates how to determine how many unseen messages exist in an email account on an IMAP server.

Download Chilkat Python Library

import sys
import chilkat

imap = chilkat.CkImap()

#  Anything unlocks the component and begins a fully-functional 30-day trial.
success = imap.UnlockComponent("Anything for 30-day trial")
if (success != True):
    print imap.lastErrorText()
    sys.exit()

#  Connect to an IMAP server.
success = imap.Connect("mail.chilkatsoft.com")
if (success != True):
    print imap.lastErrorText()
    sys.exit()

#  Login
success = imap.Login("***","***")
if (success != True):
    print imap.lastErrorText()
    sys.exit()

#  Select an IMAP mailbox
success = imap.SelectMailbox("Inbox")
if (success != True):
    print imap.lastErrorText()
    sys.exit()

#  After selecting the mailbox. the total number of emails
#  is immediately available:
totalNum = imap.get_NumMessages()
print str(totalNum)

#  To determine the number of unseen messages, a call
#  to Search is required, which returns the set of UIDs
#  of all unseen messages.

#  We can choose to fetch UIDs or sequence numbers.
fetchUids = True

messageSet = imap.Search("UNSEEN",fetchUids)
if (messageSet == None ):
    print imap.lastErrorText()
    sys.exit()

numUnseen = messageSet.get_Count()
print str(numUnseen)

print "UIDs ----"

#  Display the UIDs

for i in range(0,messageSet.get_Count()):
    msgId = messageSet.GetId(i)
    print str(msgId)

#  Disconnect from the IMAP server.
imap.Disconnect()