Retrieve email according to specified date time using POP3 in Java

Question

I got all the mail, but I want to extract mail according to the date.

public void downloadEmailAttachments(String host, String port,String userName, String password) {
        Properties properties = new Properties();
        properties.put("mail.pop3.host", host);
        properties.put("mail.pop3.port", port);
        properties.put("mail.pop3.user",userName);
        properties.put("mail.password",password);

        // SSL setting
        properties.setProperty("mail.pop3.socketFactory.class",
                "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
        properties.setProperty("mail.pop3.socketFactory.fallback", "false");
        properties.setProperty("mail.pop3.socketFactory.port",
                String.valueOf(port));

        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(properties);

        try {
            // connects to the message store
            Store store = session.getStore("pop3");
            store.connect(host,userName, password);//change here............

            Folder folderInbox = store.getFolder("INBOX");

            folderInbox.open(Folder.READ_ONLY);

          Message[] arrayMessages = folderInbox.getMessages();




             for (int i = 0; i < arrayMessages.length; i++) {
                Message message = arrayMessages[i];
                Address[] fromAddress = message.getFrom();
                String from = fromAddress[0].toString();
                Address[]toAdress=message.getAllRecipients();
                String to=toAdress[0].toString();
                String subject = message.getSubject();
                String sentDate = message.getSentDate().toString();
                String contentType = message.getContentType().toString();

                String messageContent = "";

                // store attachment file name, separated by comma
                String attachFiles = "";

                if (contentType.contains("multipart")) {
                    // content may contain attachments
                    Multipart multiPart = (Multipart) message.getContent();
                    int numberOfParts = multiPart.getCount();
                    for (int partCount = 0; partCount < numberOfParts; partCount++) {
                        MimeBodyPart part = (MimeBodyPart) multiPart.getBodyPart(partCount);
                        if (Part.ATTACHMENT.equalsIgnoreCase(part.getDisposition())) {
                            // this part is attachment
                            String fileName = part.getFileName();
                            attachFiles += fileName + ", ";
                            part.saveFile(saveDirectory + File.separator + fileName);

                        } else {
                            // this part may be the message content
                            messageContent = part.getContent().toString();
                        }
                    }

                    if (attachFiles.length() > 1) {
                        attachFiles = attachFiles.substring(0, attachFiles.length() - 2);
                    }
                } else if (contentType.contains("text/plain")
                        || contentType.contains("text/html")) {
                    Object content = message.getContent();
                    if (content != null) {
                        messageContent = content.toString();
                    }
                }

                // print out details of each message
                System.out.println("Message #" + (i + 1) + ":");
                System.out.println("\t From: " + from);
                System.out.println("\t to: " + to);
                System.out.println("\t Subject: " + subject);
                System.out.println("\t Sent Date: " + sentDate);
                System.out.println("\t Message: " + messageContent);
                System.out.println("\t Attachments: " + attachFiles);
            }

            // disconnect...............
            folderInbox.close(false);
            store.close();
        } catch (NoSuchProviderException ex) {
            System.out.println("No provider for pop3.");
            ex.printStackTrace();
        } catch (MessagingException ex) {
            System.out.println("Could not connect to the message store");
            ex.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

Solution

Searching for a period or in general by time is done by the server only if you use IMAP to connect. Example:

SearchTerm term = null;

Calendar cal = null;
cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Date minDate = new Date(cal.getTimeInMillis());   //get today date

cal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);                //add 1 day
Date maxDate = new Date(cal.getTimeInMillis());   //get tomorrow date
ReceivedDateTerm minDateTerm = new ReceivedDateTerm(ComparisonTerm.GE, minDate);
ReceivedDateTerm maxDateTerm = new ReceivedDateTerm(ComparisonTerm.LE, maxDate);

term = new AndTerm(term, minDateTerm);            //concat the search terms
term = new AndTerm(term, maxDateTerm);

Message messages[] = folderInbox.search(term);    //search on the imap server

If you instead of IMAP use POP3, I guess your only choice is to filter (on the client) on the entire list of messages that you fetched from the server, iterating over it, like @user2310289 was telling you:

for (Message message : messages) {
    if (message.getSentDate().after(minDate) && message.getSentDate().before(maxDate))
       {
          //do whatever you want with your filtered by period message
       } 
}

I hope I helped you.

Comments

[Jerry]

Is there a solution for this issue ?Because I have lakhs of email in my inbox and i have a cron job which runs every minute reading the inbox. I have to support both imap and pop3, I am stuck with pop3

[Anuj Victor]

is there anyway to filter according to time?

[selvan]

This code handled only date. But we need time also. How can we use it?