When using IMAP its likely you will want access to the users mailbox so they can view all their folders. This tutorial will explain how display mailbox folders using imap_list.
Before attempting to show the maiilbox folders a connection with the email server needs to be established with imap_open such as:
$mbox = imap_open("{mail.example.com:143/notls/norsh/novalidate-cert}", "sample@example.com","password");
For full details on using imap_open please look at this post <a href="http://www.dcblog.dev/tutorials/php/php-imap/connecting-to-an-imap-server-using-imap_open">Connecting to an imap server using imap_open</a>
To display mailbox folders use the function imap_list it requires 3 parameters first the imap_stream (connection) then the ref should normally be just the server specification as described in imap_open(). The third parameter dictates which folder to look in.
From the PHP manual:
There are two special characters you can pass as part of the pattern: '*' and '%'. '*' means to return all mailboxes. If you pass pattern as '*', you will get a list of the entire mailbox hierarchy. '%' means to return the current level only. '%' as the pattern parameter will return only the top level mailboxes; '~/mail/%' on UW_IMAPD will return every mailbox in the ~/mail directory, but none in subfolders of that directory.
Some mail servers separate the mailboxes with } others use ] such as Gmail to remove these from the folder when viewing them a simply preg_match will do the job
//remove any } characters from the folder
if (preg_match("/}/i", $list[0])) {
$arr = explode('}', $list[0]);
}
Also to remove INBOX. from the mailbox name simply do a string replace
//remove INBOX. from the folder name
$folder = str_replace('INBOX.', '', stripslashes($arr[1]));
<p>The inbox is sometimes the last mailbox in the array so look through the array and if the first folder is not the inbox reverse the array</p>
//check if inbox is first folder if not reorder array
if($folder !== 'INBOX'){
krsort($list);
}
Putting what we have so far the inbox will always come first, at this point nothing is displayed we're simple doing some prep work
$list = imap_list($mbox, '{mail.example.com:143/notls/norsh/novalidate-cert}', "*");
//remove any } characters from the folder
if (preg_match("/}/i", $list[0])) {
$arr = explode('}', $list[0]);
}
//also remove the ] if it exists, normally Gmail have them
if (preg_match("/]/i", $list[0])) {
$arr = explode(']/', $list[0]);
}
//remove INBOX. from the folder name
$folder = str_replace('INBOX.', '', stripslashes($arr[1]));
//check if inbox is first folder if not reorder array
if($folder !== 'INBOX'){
krsort($list);
}
Next loop through the array and display each mailbox I've commented each step, also to show the mailbox names correctly decode them with imap_utf7_decode.
<?php
//make sure the list is an array
if (is_array($list)) {
//loop through rach array index
foreach ($list as $val) {
//remove any } charactors from the folder
if (preg_match("/}/i", $val)) {
$arr = explode('}', $val);
}
//also remove the ] if it exists, normally Gmail have them
if (preg_match("/]/i", $val)) {
$arr = explode(']/', $val);
}
//remove any slashes
$folder = trim(stripslashes($arr[1]));
//remove inbox. from the folderName its not needed for displaying purposes
$folderName = str_replace('INBOX.', '', $folder);
echo "<p><a href="?folder=".imap_utf7_decode($folder)."">".ucwords(strtolower(imap_utf7_decode($folderName)))."</a></p>n";
}
} else {
echo "Folders not currently availablen";
}
?>
</pre>
<p>A lot of these steps are not essentially you could get all the mailbox folders and display them in a few lines as illustrated below but I believe taking the time to display the folders in a user friendly manor is much better.</p>
<pre lang="php">
<?php
$list = imap_list($mbox, "{imap.example.org}", "*");
if (is_array($list)) {
foreach ($list as $val) {
echo imap_utf7_decode($val) . "n";
}
} else {
echo "imap_list failed: " . imap_last_error() . "n";
}
?>