curl commands to query imap servers

curl_imap_query_commands.md

curl commands to query imap servers

Based on https://busylog.net/telnet-imap-commands-note/

curl options

• -k -- don't verify certificate (optional)
• -n -- use .netrc for username and password (optional)
• -X -- request to send to server

curl -n imaps://mail.server.tld -X 'imap command'

.netrc format

machine mail.server.tld login username password supersecretpw

machine mail.server.tld
    login username
    password supersecretpw

url format

• tls -- imaps://
• plain -- imap://

Note: enclose url in quotes if your user id or password have shell characters

Examples

get count of message in mailbox INBOX

curl -n imaps://mail.server.tld -X 'STATUS INBOX (MESSAGES)'
* STATUS INBOX (MESSAGES 36)

get count of unseen (unread) message in mailbox INBOX

curl -n imaps://mail.server.tld -X 'STATUS INBOX (UNSEEN)' 
* STATUS INBOX (UNSEEN 20)

get count of unseen (unread) message in mailbox sub-mailbox

curl -n imaps://mail.server.tld -X 'STATUS Archive.2016 (MESSAGES)' 
* STATUS Archive.2016 (MESSAGES 3069)

get count of recent messages in mailbox INBOX (received but not listed)

curl -n imaps://mail.server.tld -X 'STATUS INBOX (RECENT)'   
* STATUS INBOX (RECENT 0)

list all mailboxes/folders

curl -n imaps://mail.server.tld -X 'LIST "" "*"'                     
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Drafts) "." Drafts
* LIST (\HasChildren) "." Archive
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." Archive.2013
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." Archive.2014
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." Archive.2015
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." Archive.2016
* LIST (\HasChildren) "." Archive.old_account
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." Archive.old_account.sent
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Junk) "." Junk
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Sent) "." "Sent Messages"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Trash) "." Trash
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." INBOX

And some more:

 # copy mail to trash
curl -sS --login-options AUTH=NTLM -u $imap_login:$imap_pass --url "imaps://$imap_host:$imap_port/INBOX" -X "COPY $mail_id \"/Gel&APY-schte Elemente\""

# flag mail for deletion
curl -sS --login-options AUTH=NTLM -u $imap_login:$imap_pass --url "imaps://$imap_host:$imap_port/INBOX" -X "STORE $mail_id +FLAGS (\\Deleted)" >/dev/null

# delete flagged mails (must be outside of a loop as the IMAP server re-assigns mail ids on every deletion!)
curl -sS --login-options AUTH=NTLM -u $imap_login:$imap_pass --url "imaps://$imap_host:$imap_port/INBOX" -X "EXPUNGE" 

Another interesting fact:
--login-options AUTH=NTLM is needed in recent versions of curl as the default for "user@server" seem to became AUTH=GSSAPI which returns "gss_init_sec_context() failed: No Kerberos credentials available" if you don't use Kerberos authentification.

This one wasn't easy. I wanted to remove all mails which are older than 90 days from the trash bin. After several tries I found out that the folder name returned bei LIST is "Gel&APY-schte Elemente" and to use it in --url it must be urlencoded as follows:

Gel%26APY-schte%20Elemente

This is the final code:

# clean up trash mails
IFS=" " read -r -a mail_ids <<< "$(curl -sS --login-options AUTH=NTLM -u $imap_login:$imap_pass --url "imaps://$imap_host:$imap_port/Gel%26APY-schte%20Elemente" -X "SEARCH BEFORE $(date +'%d-%b-%Y' --date='90 days ago')"  | grep -oP "(?<=SEARCH)[ 0-9]+")"
for (( i=0; i<${#mail_ids[@]}; i++ )); do
  mail_id="${mail_ids[$i]}"
  curl -sS --login-options AUTH=NTLM -u $imap_login:$imap_pass --url "imaps://$imap_host:$imap_port/Gel%26APY-schte%20Elemente" -X "STORE $mail_id +FLAGS (\\Deleted)" >/dev/null
done
[[ ${#mail_ids[@]} -gt 0 ]] && curl -sS --login-options AUTH=NTLM -u $imap_login:$imap_pass --url "imaps://$imap_host:$imap_port/Gel%26APY-schte%20Elemente" -X "EXPUNGE" >/dev/null

Attention: %b of the date command could return a localized string. To force english output you should add export LC_ALL=C to the top of your script.