Why oh why not use IMAP IDLE?

**schettj** · #1 (**permalink**) 03-08-2007, 10:02 AM

I know several of you out there use "push email" - but before microsoft (re) invented that wheel, IMAP already *had* a perfectly good notification system in place for new email. In fact, it's pretty much exactly what MS "invented" for their own email.

Of course, MS doesn't support the IMAP IDLE command for IMAP clients. I have googled around for any third party apps that do support it - this is the best I have found:

http://www.geardiary.com/2007/01/15/...indows-mobile/
http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/ind...&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

So fine, we have one commercial email client that supports it, and one badly supported commercial "plug in" of sorts that works with the native email client.

Looks like I may take a shot at writing a .net app to log into an IMAP account, do the IDLE mojo, and then kick the built in email client to fetch mail when new mail arrives.

The ssl socket stuff seems simple enough, and the IMAP IDLE protocol is dead simple (you can do it by hand using telnet, for heavens sake!) so it's just a matter of figuring out the API to kick the email client into checking email... (looks like this would do the trick: http://groups.google.com/group/micro...bca474d3275680)

Anyone interested in that? Or anyone have a solution I missed?

** Found this ($60! Are they NUTS?) email client that seems to support IMAP IDLE: http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=21448

** Found this freeware QMail:

http://www.modernnomads.info/wiki/in...figuring+QMail

Supposed to support IDLE, will have to check that out before spending time on this...

**nuguy** · #2 (**permalink**) 03-08-2007, 10:23 AM

QMail seems promising...

Sogarth · #3 (**permalink**) 03-08-2007, 02:06 PM

If you're interested in IMAP, you probably want to check out this article from Menneisyys (there are a few links inside to some more articles by him). It'll probably answer everything you're wondering

**schettj** · #4 (**permalink**) 03-08-2007, 02:33 PM

QMail is a bust... does not support idle, and man oh man, it's the first imap client that has ever managed to crash my dovecot IMAP server on linux.

Be afraid. Be very afraid

Thanks for the link Sogarth, I had found that page as well. Guess I'll give some of the other guys a try.

**schettj** · #5 (**permalink**) 03-08-2007, 03:27 PM

And... vgsmail seems kinda buggy as well (not to mention only working with 1 email account - ugh.)

Back to "maybe I should write a little app that sits in the background and kicks the email client to send/recv when it gets the new mail flag via IMAP IDLE"

jbonilla · #6 (**permalink**) 03-08-2007, 05:32 PM

I saw this posted the other day about a new program called PushEffect by QoreFunctions. It is a program that allows you to filter an SMS that will trigger a Send/Receive in pOutlook. I don't know if it'll help you with IMAP Idle (it says it's compatible with IMAP) but it would help with those using Gmail or POP3. I used to use a similar program called Butler on the Palm Treo. The downside is that if you get a lot of mail, it uses a lot of text messages (although I guess you could configure it so only certain emails trigger a send/receive).

http://www.qorefunctions.com/