Connecting to an imap server using imap_open

php allows you to do a lot of things including reading your email! This IMAP series will show you how to use the built in imap functions that php has to offer. The first is imap_open

This first tutorial will show you how to use imap_open to connect to a imap mail server.

To connect to an IMAP server using imap_open requires 3 parameters the host = either an ip address of the domain name, username = the email address and mailbox login name and finally the account password.

<?php
imap_open("{mail.example.com:143/notls/norsh/novalidate-cert}", "sample@example.com","password");
?>

The host includes the domain name and the port to be used in the format of mail.domain.com:143, there are a number of optional flags that can be used look at the table below:

Flag	Description
/service=service	mailbox access service, default is “imap”
/user=user	remote user name for login on the server
/authuser=user	remote authentication user; if specified this is the user name whose password is used (e.g. administrator)
/anonymous	remote access as anonymous user
/debug	record protocol telemetry in application’s debug log
/secure	do not transmit a plaintext password over the network
/imap, /imap2, /imap2bis, /imap4, /imap4rev1	equivalent to /service=imap
/pop3	equivalent to /service=pop3
/nntp	equivalent to /service=nntp
/norsh	do not use rsh or ssh to establish a preauthenticated IMAP session
/ssl	use the Secure Socket Layer to encrypt the session
/validate-cert	validate certificates from TLS/SSL server (this is the default behavior)
/novalidate-cert	do not validate certificates from TLS/SSL server, needed if server uses self-signed certificates
/tls	force use of start-TLS to encrypt the session, and reject connection to servers that do not support it
/notls	do not do start-TLS to encrypt the session, even with servers that support it
/readonly	request read-only mailbox open (IMAP only; ignored on NNTP, and an error with SMTP and POP3)

Depending on your setup you’ll need to use a different combination of flags in the host sections of imap_open notls/norsh/novalidate-cert works well for most custom domain names, I’ll include a list of hosts strings that I’ve successfully used to connect to external imap servers such as Hotmail, Gmail and AOL.

<?php
   //open connection
   $mbox = imap_open("{mail.example.com:143/notls/norsh/novalidate-cert}", "sample@example.com","password")or die(imap_last_error())or die("can't connect: ".imap_last_error());
?>

I make use of imap_last_error() which returns the last error from the requested server. if failed to login you’ll get an error similar to this:

Warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn’t open stream {mail.example.com:143/notls/norsh/novalidate-cert} in /path/to/file.php on line 3 Can not authenticate to IMAP server: Authentication failed.

List of host strings:

Provider	Host String
Karoo	{pop.karoo.co.uk:110/pop3/novalidate-cert}
AOL	{imap.aol.com:143/imap/novalidate-cert}
AIM	{imap.aol.com:143/imap/novalidate-cert}
Lycos	{mail.lycos.co.uk:143/pop3/novalidate-cert}
Yahoo.com	{mail.yahoo.com:110/pop3/novalidate-cert}
Hotmail/MSN/Live	{pop3.live.com:995/pop3/ssl/novalidate-cert}
Googlemail/Gmail	{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl/novalidate-cert}

For example if I wanted to connect to a Gmail account:

<?php
   //open connection
   $mbox = imap_open("{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl/novalidate-cert}", "sample@gmail.com","password")or die(imap_last_error())or die("can't connect: ".imap_last_error());
?>