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 IMAP ActiveX

Dim imap As New ChilkatImap

Dim success As Long

'  Anything unlocks the component and begins a fully-functional 30-day trial.
success = imap.UnlockComponent("Anything for 30-day trial")
If (success <> 1) Then
    MsgBox imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

'  Connect to an IMAP server.
success = imap.Connect("mail.chilkatsoft.com")
If (success <> 1) Then
    MsgBox imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

'  Login
success = imap.Login("***","***")
If (success <> 1) Then
    MsgBox imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

'  Select an IMAP mailbox
success = imap.SelectMailbox("Inbox")
If (success <> 1) Then
    MsgBox imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

'  After selecting the mailbox. the total number of emails
'  is immediately available:
Dim totalNum As Long
totalNum = imap.NumMessages
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & totalNum & vbCrLf
Text1.Refresh

'  To determine the number of unseen messages, a call
'  to Search is required, which returns the set of UIDs
'  of all unseen messages.
Dim messageSet As MessageSet
'  We can choose to fetch UIDs or sequence numbers.
Dim fetchUids As Long
fetchUids = 1

Set messageSet = imap.Search("UNSEEN",fetchUids)
If (messageSet Is Nothing ) Then
    MsgBox imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

Dim numUnseen As Long
numUnseen = messageSet.Count
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & numUnseen & vbCrLf
Text1.Refresh

Text1.Text = Text1.Text & "UIDs ----" & vbCrLf
Text1.Refresh

'  Display the UIDs
Dim i As Long
Dim msgId As Long
For i = 0 To messageSet.Count - 1
    msgId = messageSet.GetId(i)
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text & msgId & vbCrLf
    Text1.Refresh
Next

'  Disconnect from the IMAP server.
imap.Disconnect