Is it possible to Receive pop3 email?

[Former Member]

I have used send mail functions successfully. Now I want to receive email from a POP3 server. Am I using the wrong search terms, or is this not possible?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

POP3 was never implemented for this.

[SQL Remote has some POP3 as did MobiLink (the latter was removed in version 17) but it was not ever a feature of xp_startsmtp]

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK, thanks Nick 😞

[Former Member]

You will need to write a static Java method to do that.

See https://javamail.java.net/nonav/docs/api/com/sun/mail/pop3/package-summary.html.

I have successfully dropped the latest JavaMail classes in a 12.0.1 database to do STARTSSL smtp support (essentially wrote a replacement for xp_sendmail() - it was less than 200 lines of code). You just have to write a class with a static method to do it and wrap it in an external function call.

[Breck_Carter]

You like DIY in C++, right? POCO's got some POP3 stuff... maybe even TLS/SSL support 🙂

[Former Member]

That looks possible. Although, I always love sticking close to what I know: much easier to debug, etc. So I'll probably first try out Roland's PB "service" library. That also has the benefit of the fact that I already have all this functionality running in PB; just wanted to make it a 24x7 service not dependent on a login.

[Breck_Carter]

Beware of TSL/SSL, supposedly that makes life difficult, or so I've heard.