MailCore 2 provides a simple and asynchronous Objective-C API to work with the e-mail protocols IMAP, POP and SMTP. The API has been redesigned from the ground up. It features:
- POP, IMAP and SMTP support
- RFC822 parser and generator
- Asynchronous APIs
- HTML rendering of messages
- iOS and Mac support
- Checkout MailCore2 into a directory relative to your project.
- Under the
build-mac
directory, locate themailcore2.xcodeproj
file, and drag this into your Xcode project. - For Mac - If you're building for Mac, you can either link against MailCore 2 as a framework, or as a static library:
- Mac framework
- Go to Build Phases from your build target, and under 'Link Binary With Libraries', add
MailCore.framework
. - Make sure to use LLVM C++ standard library. Open Build Settings, scroll down to 'C++ Standard Library', and select
libc++
. - In Build Phases, add a Target Dependency of
mailcore osx
(it's the one with a little toolbox icon).
- Go to Build Phases from your build target, and under 'Link Binary With Libraries', add
- Mac static library
- Go to Build Phases from your build target, and under 'Link Binary With Libraries', add
libMailCore.a
. - Set 'Other Linker Flags' under Build Settings:
-lctemplate -letpan -licudata -licui18n -licuuc -lxml2 -lsasl2 -liconv -ltidy -lc++ -all_load
- Make sure to use LLVM C++ standard library. In Build Settings, locate 'C++ Standard Library', and select
libc++
. - In Build Phases, add a Target Dependency of
static mailcore2 osx
.
- Go to Build Phases from your build target, and under 'Link Binary With Libraries', add
- Mac framework
- For iOS - If you're targeting iOS, you have to link against MailCore 2 as a static library:
- Add
libMailCore-ios.a
- Add
CFNetwork.framework
- Set 'Other Linker Flags':
-lctemplate-ios -letpan-ios -licudata -licui18n -licuuc -lxml2 -lsasl2 -liconv -ltidy -lstdc++ -all_load
- Make sure to use GNU C++ standard library. In Build Settings, locate 'C++ Standard Library', and select
libstdc++
. - In Build Phases, add a Target Dependency of
static mailcore2 ios
.
- Add
- Profit.
Using MailCore 2 is just a little more complex conceptually than the original MailCore. All fetch requests in MailCore 2 are made asynchronously through a queue. What does this mean? Well, let's take a look at a simple example:
MCOIMAPSession *session = [[MCOIMAPSession alloc] init];
[session setHostname:@"imap.gmail.com"];
[session setPort:993];
[session setUsername:@"[email protected]"];
[session setPassword:@"123456"];
[session setConnectionType:MCOConnectionTypeTLS];
MCOIMAPMessagesRequestKind requestKind = MCOIMAPMessagesRequestKindHeaders;
NSString *folder = @"INBOX";
MCOIndexSet *uids = [MCOIndexSet indexSetWithRange:MCORangeMake(1, UINT64_MAX)];
MCOIMAPFetchMessagesOperation *fetchOperation = [session fetchMessagesByUIDOperationWithFolder:folder requestKind:requestKind uids:uids];
[fetchOperation start:^(NSError * error, NSArray * fetchedMessages, MCOIndexSet * vanishedMessages) {
//We've finished downloading the messages!
//Let's check if there was an error:
if(error) {
NSLog(@"Error downloading message headers:%@", error);
}
//And, let's print out the messages...
NSLog(@"The post man delivereth:%@", fetchedMessages);
}];
In this sample, we retrieved and printed a list of email headers from an IMAP server. In order to execute the fetch, we request an asynchronous operation object from the MCOIMAPSession
instance with our parameters (more on this later). This operation object is able to initiate a connection to Gmail when we call the start
method. Now here's where things get a little tricky. We call the start
function with an Objective-C block, which is executed on the main thread when the fetch operation completes. The actual fetching from IMAP is done on a background thread, leaving your UI and other processing free to use the main thread.