Fetches emails via the Net::POP3 or Net::IMAP library over an SSL connection. Also useful with the action_mailer_tls plugin if you want to send and receive emails through GMail. This plugin has only been tested against Rails 2, so, caveat emptor…

The fetcher assumes there is a mail_fetcher.yml file in the config/ directory, and a sample can be seen in the mail_fetcher.yml.example file. The config expects a hash, so configuring it at runtime is also possible, like so:

MailFetcher.config = { :server => "pop.gmail.com", :username => "mail.fetcher.test@gmail.com", :password => "mailfetchertest" }

Somewhere in your app (most likely in environment.rb) you need to specify the mailer class you wish to use, and the protocol:

MailFetcher.mailer_class = :my_mailer 
MailFetcher.access = :pop (defaults to :imap)

And this would use the MyMailer class as the ActionMailer mailing class, and set @@access to :pop, which would log into the account using Net::POP3.

To fetch email, just call MailFetcher.fetch:

MailFetcher.fetch(:keep => true, :mailer_methods => [:receive, :spam, :forward_to_friends_and_family])

mail_fetcher.rb and the specs can show you a bunch of other handy things you can do.

Copyright © 2008 Steve Iannopollo (steve (at iannopollo dot com)), released under the MIT license