How do I receive mail using POP3?

In this example you will learn how to receive email using POP3. We are going to connect to Gmail server and read the messages in the INBOX folder. There are some steps that you need to do to download this email. Here are the steps:

  1. Setup properties for the mail session.
  2. Creates a javax.mail.Authenticator object.
  3. Creating mail session.
  4. Get the POP3 store provider and connect to the store.
  5. Get folder and open the INBOX folder in the store.
  6. Retrieve the messages from the folder.
  7. Close folder and close store.

These steps can be written as the following code snippet:

package org.kodejava.mail;

import javax.mail.*;
import java.util.Properties;

public class ReadEmail {
    public static final String USERNAME = "kodejava";
    public static final String PASSWORD = "password";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // 1. Setup properties for the mail session.
        Properties props = new Properties();
        props.put("mail.pop3.socketFactory.class", "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
        props.put("mail.pop3.socketFactory.fallback", "false");
        props.put("mail.pop3.socketFactory.port", "995");
        props.put("mail.pop3.port", "995");
        props.put("mail.pop3.host", "pop.gmail.com");
        props.put("mail.pop3.user", ReadEmail.USERNAME);
        props.put("mail.store.protocol", "pop3");
        props.put("mail.pop3.ssl.protocols", "TLSv1.2");

        // 2. Creates a javax.mail.Authenticator object.
        Authenticator auth = new Authenticator() {
            @Override
            protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
                return new PasswordAuthentication(ReadEmail.USERNAME, ReadEmail.PASSWORD);
            }
        };

        // 3. Creating mail session.
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, auth);

        // 4. Get the POP3 store provider and connect to the store.
        Store store = session.getStore("pop3");
        store.connect("pop.gmail.com", ReadEmail.USERNAME, ReadEmail.PASSWORD);

        // 5. Get folder and open the INBOX folder in the store.
        Folder inbox = store.getFolder("INBOX");
        inbox.open(Folder.READ_ONLY);

        // 6. Retrieve the messages from the folder.
        Message[] messages = inbox.getMessages();
        for (Message message : messages) {
            message.writeTo(System.out);
        }

        // 7. Close folder and close store.
        inbox.close(false);
        store.close();
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <!-- https://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=javax/mail/javax.mail-api/1.5.6/javax.mail-api-1.5.6.jar -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <!-- https://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=javax/mail/mail/1.4.7/mail-1.4.7.jar -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.7</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I create a simple mail client program in Swing?

The code snippet below show you how to create a simple Java Swing application that can be used to send an e-mail. The program allows user to supply the from email address, to email address, the subject and the message of the email. User need to select the available SMTP server to connect to and provide the username and password for authentication to the mail server.

Here is the user interface of this simple email client:

Simple E-mail Client

Simple E-mail Client

The main routine for sending the email is in the SendEmailActionListener class, which is an implementation of an ActionListener interface that will handle email sending process when Send E-mail button is pressed.

package org.kodejava.mail;

import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.MessagingException;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.util.Properties;

public class SendEmailClient extends JFrame {
    private final JTextField fromField = new JTextField();
    private final JTextField toField = new JTextField();
    private final JTextField subjectField = new JTextField();
    private final JComboBox<String> mailSmtpHostComboBox = new JComboBox<>();
    private final JTextField usernameField = new JTextField();
    private final JPasswordField passwordField = new JPasswordField();
    private final JTextArea contentTextArea = new JTextArea();

    private SendEmailClient() {
        InitializeUI();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> {
            SendEmailClient client = new SendEmailClient();
            client.setVisible(true);
        });
    }

    private void InitializeUI() {
        setTitle("Send E-mail Client");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setSize(new Dimension(500, 500));

        getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());

        // Header Panel
        JPanel headerPanel = new JPanel();
        headerPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(6, 2));
        headerPanel.add(new JLabel("From:"));
        headerPanel.add(fromField);

        headerPanel.add(new JLabel("To:"));
        headerPanel.add(toField);

        headerPanel.add(new JLabel("Subject:"));
        headerPanel.add(subjectField);

        headerPanel.add(new JLabel("SMTP Server:"));
        headerPanel.add(mailSmtpHostComboBox);
        mailSmtpHostComboBox.addItem("smtp.gmail.com");

        headerPanel.add(new JLabel("Username:"));
        headerPanel.add(usernameField);

        headerPanel.add(new JLabel("Password:"));
        headerPanel.add(passwordField);

        // Body Panel
        JPanel bodyPanel = new JPanel();
        bodyPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        bodyPanel.add(new JLabel("Message:"), BorderLayout.NORTH);
        bodyPanel.add(contentTextArea, BorderLayout.CENTER);

        JPanel footerPanel = new JPanel();
        footerPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        JButton sendMailButton = new JButton("Send E-mail");
        sendMailButton.addActionListener(new SendEmailActionListener());

        footerPanel.add(sendMailButton, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

        getContentPane().add(headerPanel, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        getContentPane().add(bodyPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        getContentPane().add(footerPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    }

    private class SendEmailActionListener implements ActionListener {
        SendEmailActionListener() {
        }

        @Override
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            Properties props = new Properties();
            props.put("mail.smtp.host", mailSmtpHostComboBox.getSelectedItem());
            props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
            props.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
            props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
            props.put("mail.smtp.port", "465");
            props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", "465");
            props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class", "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
            props.put("mail.smtp.ssl.protocols", "TLSv1.2");

            Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props);
            try {
                InternetAddress fromAddress = new InternetAddress(fromField.getText());
                InternetAddress toAddress = new InternetAddress(toField.getText());

                Message message = new MimeMessage(session);
                message.setFrom(fromAddress);
                message.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, toAddress);
                message.setSubject(subjectField.getText());
                message.setText(contentTextArea.getText());

                Transport.send(message, usernameField.getText(),
                        new String(passwordField.getPassword()));
            } catch (MessagingException ex) {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <!-- https://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=javax/mail/javax.mail-api/1.5.6/javax.mail-api-1.5.6.jar -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <!-- https://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=javax/mail/mail/1.4.7/mail-1.4.7.jar -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.7</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I send email using Gmail via TLS?

The following example show you how to send email using Gmail SMTP via TLS connection. The username and password is used to authenticate you against the Gmail.

The configuration / properties used for connection to the Gmail SMTP is defined in the createConfiguration() method. The properties include information such as the SMTP host address, port number, etc.

To send email using Gmail via SSL see the following code snippet How do I send email using Gmail via SSL?.

Let’s see the code snippet below:

package org.kodejava.mail;

import javax.mail.*;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Properties;

public class GmailSendEmailTLS {
    private static final String USERNAME = "kodejava@gmail.com";
    private static final String PASSWORD = "password";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Email information such as from, to, subject and contents.
        String mailFrom = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String mailTo = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String mailSubject = "TLS - Gmail Send Email Demo";
        String mailText = "TLS - Gmail Send Email Demo";

        GmailSendEmailTLS gmail = new GmailSendEmailTLS();
        gmail.sendMail(mailFrom, mailTo, mailSubject, mailText);
    }

    private void sendMail(String mailFrom, String mailTo, String mailSubject,
                          String mailText) throws Exception {

        Properties config = createConfiguration();

        // Creates a mail session. We need to supply username and
        // password for Gmail authentication.
        Session session = Session.getInstance(config, new Authenticator() {
            @Override
            protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
                return new PasswordAuthentication(
                        GmailSendEmailTLS.USERNAME,
                        GmailSendEmailTLS.PASSWORD
                );
            }
        });

        // Creates email message
        Message message = new MimeMessage(session);
        message.setSentDate(new Date());
        message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(mailFrom));
        message.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO,
                new InternetAddress(mailTo));
        message.setSubject(mailSubject);
        message.setText(mailText);

        // Send a message
        Transport.send(message);
    }

    private Properties createConfiguration() {
        return new Properties() {{
            put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
            put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
            put("mail.smtp.port", "587");
            put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
            put("mail.smtp.ssl.protocols", "TLSv1.2");
        }};
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.7</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I send email using Gmail via SSL?

In another example you’ve seen how to send email using Gmail SMTP via TLS. See the following example How do I send email using Gmail via TLS?.

In this example you will use the SSL connection to connect to Gmail SMTP server. The difference with this is in the properties / configuration that we used to create the mail session object.

package org.kodejava.mail;

import javax.mail.*;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Properties;

public class GmailSendEmailSSL {
    private static final String USERNAME = "kodejava@gmail.com";
    private static final String PASSWORD = "password";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Email information such as from, to, subject and contents.
        String mailFrom = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String mailTo = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String mailSubject = "SSL - Gmail Send Email Demo";
        String mailText = "SSL - Gmail Send Email Demo";

        GmailSendEmailSSL gmail = new GmailSendEmailSSL();
        gmail.sendMail(mailFrom, mailTo, mailSubject, mailText);
    }

    private void sendMail(String mailFrom, String mailTo, String mailSubject,
                          String mailText) throws Exception {

        Properties config = createConfiguration();

        // Creates a mail session. We need to supply username and
        // password for Gmail authentication.
        Session session = Session.getInstance(config, new Authenticator() {
            @Override
            protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
                return new PasswordAuthentication(
                        GmailSendEmailSSL.USERNAME,
                        GmailSendEmailSSL.PASSWORD
                );
            }
        });

        // Creates email message
        Message message = new MimeMessage(session);
        message.setSentDate(new Date());
        message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(mailFrom));
        message.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, new InternetAddress(mailTo));
        message.setSubject(mailSubject);
        message.setText(mailText);

        // Send a message
        Transport.send(message);
    }

    private Properties createConfiguration() {
        return new Properties() {{
            put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
            put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
            put("mail.smtp.port", "465");
            put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", "465");
            put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class", "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
            put("mail.smtp.ssl.protocols", "TLSv1.2");
        }};
    }
}

There is a chance that you can get an error that tell you cannot connect to the smtp.gmail.com port 465. If this is the case please check your connection to the server using telnet command. The command is telnet smtp.gmail.com 465, and see if there is a reply.

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.7</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I send an email with attachment?

In this example we create a small program to send email with a file attachment. To send message with attachment we need to create an email with javax.mail.Multipart object which basically will contain the email text message and then add a file to the second block, which both of them is an object of javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart. In this example we also use the javax.activation.FileDataSource.

package org.kodejava.mail;

import javax.activation.DataHandler;
import javax.activation.FileDataSource;
import javax.mail.*;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Properties;

public class SendEmailWithAttachment {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SendEmailWithAttachment demo = new SendEmailWithAttachment();
        demo.sendEmail();
    }

    public void sendEmail() {
        // Defines the E-Mail information.
        String from = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String to = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String subject = "Important Message";
        String bodyText = "This is a important message with attachment.";

        // The attachment file name.
        String attachmentName = "data.txt";

        // Creates a Session with the following properties.
        Properties props = new Properties();
        props.put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
        props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
        props.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
        props.put("mail.smtp.port", "587");
        props.put("mail.smtp.ssl.protocols", "TLSv1.2");
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props);

        try {
            InternetAddress fromAddress = new InternetAddress(from);
            InternetAddress toAddress = new InternetAddress(to);

            // Create an Internet mail msg.
            MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(session);
            msg.setFrom(fromAddress);
            msg.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, toAddress);
            msg.setSubject(subject);
            msg.setSentDate(new Date());

            // Set the email msg text.
            MimeBodyPart messagePart = new MimeBodyPart();
            messagePart.setText(bodyText);

            // Set the email attachment file
            FileDataSource fileDataSource = new FileDataSource(attachmentName);

            MimeBodyPart attachmentPart = new MimeBodyPart();
            attachmentPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(fileDataSource));
            attachmentPart.setFileName(fileDataSource.getName());

            // Create Multipart E-Mail.
            Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
            multipart.addBodyPart(messagePart);
            multipart.addBodyPart(attachmentPart);

            msg.setContent(multipart);

            // Send the msg. Don't forget to set the username and password
            // to authenticate to the mail server.
            Transport.send(msg, "kodejava", "password");
        } catch (MessagingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.7</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I send an email message?

To enable your application to send email you can use the JavaMail API, and prior to JDK 1.6 you will also need the JavaBeans Activation Framework. The JAF jar file should be included in your application classpath.

package org.kodejava.mail;

import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.MessagingException;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import java.util.Properties;

public class SendingEmailDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String from = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String to = "kodejava@gmail.com";
        String subject = "Hi There...";
        String text = "How are you?";

        // A properties to store mail server smtp information such as the host
        // name and the port number. With these properties we create a Session
        // object from which we'll create the Message object.
        Properties properties = new Properties();
        properties.put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
        properties.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
        properties.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
        properties.put("mail.smtp.port", "587");
        properties.put("mail.debug", "true");
        properties.put("mail.smtp.ssl.protocols", "TLSv1.2");
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(properties, null);

        try {
            // Message is a mail msg to be sent through the Transport object.
            // In the Message object we set the sender address and the
            // recipient address. Both of this address is a type of
            // InternetAddress. For the recipient address we can also set the
            // type of recipient, the value can be TO, CC or BCC. In the next
            // two lines we set the email subject and the content text.
            Message msg = new MimeMessage(session);
            msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
            msg.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, new InternetAddress(to));
            msg.setSubject(subject);
            msg.setText(text);

            // Send the msg to the recipient.
            Transport.send(msg, "kodejava", "password");
        } catch (MessagingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
        <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.7</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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