
Supported Mailbox Types
=======================

Django Mailbox supports polling both common internet mailboxes like
POP3 and IMAP as well as local file-based mailboxes.

.. table:: 'Protocol' Options

  ============ ================ ====================================================================================================================================================================
  Mailbox Type 'Protocol'://    Notes
  ============ ================ ====================================================================================================================================================================
  POP3         ``pop3://``      Can also specify SSL with ``pop3+ssl://``
  IMAP         ``imap://``      Can also specify SSL with ``imap+ssl://`` or STARTTLS with ``imap+tls``; additional configuration is also possible: see :ref:`pop3-and-imap-mailboxes` for details.
  Gmail IMAP   ``gmail+ssl://`` Uses OAuth authentication for  Gmail's IMAP transport.  See :ref:`gmail-oauth` for details.
  Maildir      ``maildir://``
  Mbox         ``mbox://``
  Babyl        ``babyl://``
  MH           ``mh://``
  MMDF         ``mmdf://``
  Piped Mail   *empty*          See :ref:`receiving-mail-from-exim4-or-postfix`
  ============ ================ ====================================================================================================================================================================


.. warning::

   Unless you are using IMAP's 'Archive' feature,
   this will delete any messages it can find in the inbox you specify;
   do not use an e-mail inbox that you would like to share between
   applications.

.. _pop3-and-imap-mailboxes:

POP3 and IMAP Mailboxes
-----------------------

Mailbox URIs are in the normal URI format::

    protocol://username:password@domain

Basic IMAP Example: ``imap://username:password@server``

Basic POP3 Example: ``pop3://username:password@server``

Most mailboxes these days are SSL-enabled;
if yours use plain SSL add ``+ssl`` to the protocol section of your URI,
but for STARTTLS add ``+tls``.
Also, if your username or password include any non-ascii characters,
they should be URL-encoded  (for example, if your username includes an
``@``, it should be changed to ``%40`` in your URI).

For a verbose example, if you have an account named
``youremailaddress@gmail.com`` with a password
of ``1234`` on GMail, which uses a IMAP server of ``imap.gmail.com`` (requiring
SSL) and you would like to fetch new emails from folder named `Myfolder` and archive them after processing
into a folder named ``Archived``, you
would enter the following as your URI::

    imap+ssl://youremailaddress%40gmail.com:1234@imap.gmail.com?archive=Archived

Additional IMAP Mailbox Features
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are using an IMAP Mailbox, you have two additional configuration
options that you can set by appending parameters to the end of your
mailbox URI.

Specifying the source folder
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Although by default, Django Mailbox will consume messages from your 'INBOX'
folder, you can specify the folder from which you'd like messages consumed
by specifying the ``folder`` URI query parameter; for example, to instead
consume from the folder named 'MyFolder', you could add ``?folder=MyFolder``
to the end of your URI::

    imap+ssl://youremailaddress%40gmail.com:1234@imap.gmail.com?folder=MyFolder

Specifying an archive folder
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Django Mailbox will delete messages immediately after processing them,
but you can specify an IMAP folder to which the messages should be copied
before the original message is deleted.

To archive email messages, add the archive folder
name as a query parameter to the URI.  For example, if your mailbox has a
folder named ``myarchivefolder`` that you would like to copy messages to
after processing, add ``?archive=myarchivefolder`` to the end of the URI::


    imap+ssl://youremailaddress%40gmail.com:1234@imap.gmail.com?archive=myarchivefolder

.. _gmail-oauth:

Gmail IMAP with Oauth2 authentication
-------------------------------------

For added security, Gmail supports using OAuth2 for authentication_.
To handle the handshake and storing the credentials, use python-social-auth_.

.. _authentication: https://developers.google.com/gmail/xoauth2_protocol
.. _python-social-auth: https://github.com/python-social-auth

The Gmail Mailbox is also a regular IMAP mailbox,
but the password you specify will be ignored if OAuth2 authentication succeeds.
It will fall back to use your specified password as needed.

Build your URI accordingly::

    gmail+ssl://youremailaddress%40gmail.com:oauth2@imap.gmail.com?archive=Archived


Local File-based Mailboxes
--------------------------

If you happen to want to consume a file-based mailbox like an Maildir, Mbox,
Babyl, MH, or MMDF mailbox, you can use this too by entering the appropriate
'protocol' in the URI.  If you had a maildir, for example, at ``/var/mail/``,
you would enter a URI like::

    maildir:///var/mail

Note that there is an additional ``/`` in the above URI after the protocol; 
this is important.

