Check an Account every 5 seconds, Retrieve Messages, Then Delete

This example demonstrates how to check an email from a POP3 server every 5 seconds for new messages, Retrieve any messages, then delete them.

** WARNING ** This example will delete all emails for the specified user account on the specified POP3 email server. You should use a test account for this example to ensure that critical data is not accidentally deleted.

  • Why Use this Feature?

    This feature is useful for monitoring a POP3 email account for new email messages that you wish to Retrieve on a regular basis. One might use this feature to retrieve a message that contains an attachment.

    For example, if a company has a number of satelite offices that send daily reports to a single email address for collation, one would use this feature to monitor that email account and automatically save the attachment.

  • Requirements
    • The user account you specify should have at least one email message on the server, in order for this example to work. An email can be sent to the account you specify with a different example, click here.

  • Example Download
    A working example can be downloaded, so that you can follow along with the example:
     Click Here (simple.zip < 1 KB)
    The downloadable example is a zip file that contains one file:
    • simple.bat - The batch file that will instruct NetMailBot to perform the desired actions.

    Instructions for Download and Installation

    • Download the example zip file and save it to your hard drive
    • Create a directory on your C drive named "tmp"
    • Unzip all of the files in the example zip file into the newly created directory c:\tmp.

  • Key parameter(s) used

  • Steps
    1. Open Notepad and edit the batch file retrieve.bat. Change the values of the parameters:
    2. NOTE: The parameter -receive is required whenever using the POP3 parameters.
    3. Execute the batch file by double-clicking it in "My Computer".
    4. An email message from your POP3 mail server should be downloaded and the message parts should be saved to your hard drive.

      The message parts are saved in files in a folder named "pop" under your system temporary directory.

      To view these files, using Windows Explorer, navigate to your system temporary directory, then to the sub-directory "pop"

      For more information, see the documentation on -popreceive

    5. After the email message is downloaded, it will be deleted from the POP3 mail server.