imap_scanmailbox
The date format for e.g. SINCE is, according to rfc3501:
date = date-text / DQUOTE date-text DQUOTE
date-day = 1*2DIGIT
; Day of month
date-day-fixed = (SP DIGIT) / 2DIGIT
; Fixed-format version of date-day
date-month = "Jan" / "Feb" / "Mar" / "Apr" / "May" / "Jun" /
"Jul" / "Aug" / "Sep" / "Oct" / "Nov" / "Dec"
date-text = date-day "-" date-month "-" date-year
So a valid date is e.g. "22-Jul-2012" with or without the double quotes.
imap_search
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
imap_search — This function returns an array of messages matching the given search criteria
Description
array imap_search
( resource
$imap_stream
, string $criteria
[, int $options = SE_FREE
[, string $charset = NIL
]] )This function performs a search on the mailbox currently opened in the given IMAP stream.
For example, to match all unanswered messages sent by Mom, you'd use: "UNANSWERED FROM mom". Searches appear to be case insensitive. This list of criteria is from a reading of the UW c-client source code and may be incomplete or inaccurate (see also » RFC2060, section 6.4.4).
Parameters
-
imap_stream -
An IMAP stream returned by imap_open().
-
criteria -
A string, delimited by spaces, in which the following keywords are allowed. Any multi-word arguments (e.g. FROM "joey smith") must be quoted. Results will match all
criteriaentries.- ALL - return all messages matching the rest of the criteria
- ANSWERED - match messages with the \\ANSWERED flag set
- BCC "string" - match messages with "string" in the Bcc: field
- BEFORE "date" - match messages with Date: before "date"
- BODY "string" - match messages with "string" in the body of the message
- CC "string" - match messages with "string" in the Cc: field
- DELETED - match deleted messages
- FLAGGED - match messages with the \\FLAGGED (sometimes referred to as Important or Urgent) flag set
- FROM "string" - match messages with "string" in the From: field
- KEYWORD "string" - match messages with "string" as a keyword
- NEW - match new messages
- OLD - match old messages
- ON "date" - match messages with Date: matching "date"
- RECENT - match messages with the \\RECENT flag set
- SEEN - match messages that have been read (the \\SEEN flag is set)
- SINCE "date" - match messages with Date: after "date"
- SUBJECT "string" - match messages with "string" in the Subject:
- TEXT "string" - match messages with text "string"
- TO "string" - match messages with "string" in the To:
- UNANSWERED - match messages that have not been answered
- UNDELETED - match messages that are not deleted
- UNFLAGGED - match messages that are not flagged
- UNKEYWORD "string" - match messages that do not have the keyword "string"
- UNSEEN - match messages which have not been read yet
-
options -
Valid values for
optionsareSE_UID, which causes the returned array to contain UIDs instead of messages sequence numbers. -
charset -
Return Values
Returns an array of message numbers or UIDs.
Return FALSE if it does not understand the search
criteria or no messages have been found.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 4.3.3 |
The charset parameter was added
|
Examples
Example #1 imap_search() example
<?php
$conn = imap_open('{imap.example.com:993/imap/ssl}INBOX', 'foo@example.com', 'pass123', OP_READONLY);
$some = imap_search($conn, 'SUBJECT "HOWTO be Awesome" SINCE "8 August 2008"', SE_UID);
$msgnos = imap_search($conn, 'ALL');
$uids = imap_search($conn, 'ALL', SE_UID);
print_r($some);
print_r($msgnos);
print_r($uids);
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
Array
(
[0] => 4
[1] => 6
[2] => 11
)
Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 2
[2] => 3
[3] => 4
[4] => 5
[5] => 6
)
Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 4
[2] => 6
[3] => 8
[4] => 11
[5] => 12
)
add a note
User Contributed Notes
imap_search - [7 notes]
Anonymous ¶
9 months ago
oliver at samera dot com dot py ¶
10 years ago
imap_search() only supports IMAP2 search criterias, because the function mail_criteria() (from c-client lib) is used in ext/imap/php_imap.c for parsing the search string.
IMAP2 search criteria is defined in RFC 1176, section "tag SEARCH search_criteria".
james at medbirdie dot com ¶
7 months ago
To set your own CHARSET, which is useful if you are dealing with Chinese Japanese and Korean queries.
<?php imap_search($inbox,'BODY "'.$keyword.'"', SE_FREE, "UTF-8"); ?>
Brett ¶
11 months ago
I haven't found any documentation of the allowed date formats, but (for example) "14 May 2012" works.
// Find UIDs of messages within the past week
$date = date ( "d M Y", strToTime ( "-7 days" ) );
$uids = imap_search ( $mbox, "SINCE \"$date\"", SE_UID );
joseph dot cardwell at jbcwebservices dot com ¶
1 year ago
imap_search() always returns false when op_silent flag is set in the connection parameters.
admin at rancid-tea dot com ¶
5 years ago
This search looks for messages matching ALL criteria, not ANY criteria. For example the search
imap_search($mailbox,'FROM "user" TO "user"')
Will return message that have "user" in both the from and to headers, but not messages with "user" in either the from or to header.
oliver at samera dot com dot py ¶
11 years ago
imap_search() return false if it does not understand the search condition or no messages have been found.
$emails imap_seach($mbox, "UNDELETED SENTSINCE 01-Jan-2002");
if($emails === false)
echo "The search failed";