HandmadeIMAP
~~~~~~~~~~~~

This collection implements the IMAP and POP3 protocols for accessing message information from 
email servers using low-level socket code in PHP. 

* Why is this different from the standard solution using the php-imap extension? *

The flexibility of building the protocol interaction in PHP rather than compiling it into a C 
extension allows:

- Accessing Yahoo basic email accounts by implementing the Zimbra desktop variant of IMAP
- Pulling down all recipients of a message without downloading the body
- Implementing extensions like Gmail's oAuth for IMAP (see the enclosed example)

* What are the downsides? *

This is all production code I've been using in my Mailana product, so it only implements what I 
need, and isn't particularly pretty or elegant. In particular it focuses on downloading message
headers since that's what I've needed for my analytics, and has only been tested against Gmail, 
Yahoo and Hotmail servers, so the protocol handling may fall down on other server implementations.

* Why might you need this? *

Does your web service import contacts to build a rudimentary social network for new users? You may 
well get better results if you can figure out who your users real friends are, and who they just 
met once at a trade show. Looking at their email patterns gives you an approximation of their 
inner circle, giving you the information you need to build a better experience around things like 
invitations and privacy defaults. There's obviously plenty of other use cases, but please do 
remember your users are giving you access to very sensitive information!

* How can I try it for myself? *

Download the code, and run the handmadeimaptest.php script, eg:

php handmadeimaptest.php -u youremail@example.com -p yourpasswordhere -a list -d

****************************
 Licensed under the 2-clause (ie no advertising requirement) BSD license,
 making it easy to reuse for commercial or GPL projects:
 
 (c) Pete Warden <pete@petewarden.com> http://petewarden.typepad.com/ - Mar 11th 2010
 
 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are
 permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

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   3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived 
      from this software without specific prior written permission.

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