Extract email addresses list from inbox using PHP and IMAP

Question

Has anyone had this task ??

It should be common. I need to extract all the email addresses from a specific inbox accessible through imap. It's for marketing purposes (SMB, mailchimp). The addresses can be either in "from" or somewhere in the body.

Strange but I have not found anything similar except these ones: Extract body text from Email PHP https://gist.github.com/AikChun/8305789

This link is also useful for the task http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-headerinfo.php#98809

So I am writing the script now. I am going to place it on github and on my website http://lycenok.com.

Regards, Eugene.

Nerin

Have a look at this @dlo has good example using imap_fetchheader #3435793. I think using gist.github.com/AikChun/8305789 you can accomplish your criteria. – Cacophony

I know how to do it. I have not found ready-to-use solution.This is the question. Your downvoting discourages me from sharing my script. I am sure it can be useful for others ). Please, think again and cancel your downvote. – Nerin

Appreciate it. Thanks! – Nerin

Answer 1

Ok. I wrote the script. You can test it here: http://lycenok.com/inbox_email_list_extractor/extract_email_list_from_inbox.php

    <form method="GET">
    <p>Please, enter IMAP mailbox address, login and password (prefilled for an example)</p>
    <h2>Examples of some IMAP servers (must enable IMAP in settings)</h2>
    <ul>
    <li>Google: {imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl}</li>
    <li>Yandex: {imap.yandex.com:993/imap/ssl}</li>
    </ul>
    <b>Script does NOT save any provided information</b>
    <table>
    <tr><td>
    <input type="text" name="mailbox" value="<?=(isset($_REQUEST['mailbox']) ? $_REQUEST['mailbox'] : '{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl}')?>"></input>
    </td></tr>
    <tr><td>
    <input type="text" name="login" value="<?=(isset($_REQUEST['login']) ? $_REQUEST['login'] : 'phpcurllogin')?>"></input>
    </td></tr>
    <tr><td>
    <input type="password" name="password" value="<?=(isset($_REQUEST['password']) ? $_REQUEST['password'] : 'phpcurllog')?>"></input>
    </tr></td>
    <tr><td>
    <tr><td>
    <input type="text" name="maxcount" value="<?=(isset($_REQUEST['maxcount']) ? $_REQUEST['maxcount'] : '10')?>"></input>
    </tr></td>
    <input type="submit" value="Get emails!"></input>
    </td></tr>
    </table>
    <input name="submitFlag" type="hidden" value="1"></input>
    </form>

    <?php
    if (isset($_REQUEST['submitFlag'])) { 

    define("MAX_EMAIL_COUNT", $_REQUEST['maxcount']);

    /* took from https://gist.github.com/agarzon/3123118 */
    function extractEmail($content) {
        $regexp = '/([a-z0-9_\.\-])+\@(([a-z0-9\-])+\.)+([a-z0-9]{2,4})+/i';
        preg_match_all($regexp, $content, $m);
        return isset($m[0]) ? $m[0] : array ();
    }

    function getAddressText(&$emailList, &$nameList, $addressObject) { 
        $emailList = '';
        $nameList = '';
        foreach ($addressObject as $object) {
            $emailList .= ';';
            if (isset($object->personal)) { 
                 $emailList .= $object->personal;
            } 
            $nameList .= ';';
            if (isset($object->mailbox) && isset($object->host)) { 
                $nameList .= $object->mailbox . "@" . $object->host;
            }    
        }    
        $emailList = ltrim($emailList, ';');
        $nameList = ltrim($nameList, ';');
    } 

    function processMessage($mbox, $messageNumber) { 
        echo $messageNumber;
        // get imap_fetch header and put single lines into array
        $header = imap_rfc822_parse_headers(imap_fetchheader($mbox, $messageNumber));
        $fromEmailList = '';
        $fromNameList = '';
        if (isset($header->from)) { 
            getAddressText($fromEmailList, $fromNameList, $header->from); 
        }
        $toEmailList = '';
        $toNameList = '';
        if (isset($header->to)) {
            getAddressText($toEmailList, $toNameList, $header->to); 
        }    
        $body = imap_fetchbody($mbox, $messageNumber, 1);
        $bodyEmailList = implode(';', extractEmail($body));
        print_r(
           ',' . $fromEmailList . ',' . $fromNameList 
            . ',' . $toEmailList . ',' . $toNameList 
            . ',' . $bodyEmailList . "\n"
        );
    } 

    // imap_timeout(IMAP_OPENTIMEOUT, 300);

    // Open pop mailbox
    if (!$mbox = imap_open($_REQUEST['mailbox'], $_REQUEST['login'], $_REQUEST['password'])) {
      die('Cannot connect/check pop mail! Exiting');
    }

    if ($hdr = imap_check($mbox)) {
      $msgCount = $hdr->Nmsgs;
    } else {
      echo "Failed to get mail";
      exit;
    }

    echo "<pre>";
    echo 'emails count=' . $msgCount . "\n\n\n";
    echo "record number,from emails list,from names list,to emails list, to names list,extracted from body\n";

    /* might improve performance according to
       http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-headerinfo.php#98809 
       imap_headers($mbox);
    */

    for ($X = 1; $X <= min($msgCount, MAX_EMAIL_COUNT); $X++) {
        processMessage($mbox, $X);
    } 
    echo "</pre>";

    imap_close($mbox);
    }
    ?>

Nerin

I just randomly stumbled upon this. Thanks a lot for putting this code out here!! It's just saved me like a days worth of googling. – Pinkard

Just tested it in my webapp, it works beautifully, can't thank you enough dude. – Pinkard

For some reason I can't get the script to work on my own server. Does this script require some PHP modules that are not on by default? Also I'm wondering how I can get the script to loop through all the imap folders and not just the inbox. Maybe using imap_list? – Emboly

@manicmarvin, I don't recollect installing any special PHP-modules. php.net/manual/en/function.imap-open.php looks like a standard PHP-function. What is the error? – Nerin