SmallPOP: Hackish Implementation of POP RFC in .NET


The attached source code and this article contains the details for the C# version of SmallPOP, a quick and dirty component for retrieving e-mail from POP servers.

If you're looking for a more commercial orientated .NET POP component - check out: http://www.dart.com/dotnet/mail.asp - it has a lot of cool features that arn't found in this source code. I've never used it myself, but I've heard it's quite good. It can also send via SMTP - which is a great benefit and can decode message attachments.

What it can do:

Connect to POP servers, authenticate, and download mail
Give a complete mail server unique id list to compare with later on (figuring out what new e-mails have  hit the server)
Delete emails
Grab the headers only (using the TOP POP command)

What it can't do:

No asynchronous support
No direct access to the network stream
Unable to download binary attachments properly
No mixing and matching of email data
What it may be able to do in the future:

I'd like to extend this further - if you feel like you need a complete asynchronous, well coded POP/IMAP component, bounce me e-mail.

Please send me comments and feedback! e-mail me [email protected].


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