Grabbing emails from your Gmail account using PHP is simpler than you might think. By leveraging PHP’s IMAP extension, you can efficiently retrieve and display emails in no time. To enhance the presentation, we’ll use the MooTools Fx.Accordion plugin to create an interactive, accordion-style display for each email.
The CSS
div.toggler { border:1px solid #ccc; background:url(gmail2.jpg) 10px 12px #eee no-repeat; cursor:pointer; padding:10px 32px; } div.toggler .subject { font-weight:bold; } div.read { color:#666; } div.toggler .from, div.toggler .date{ font-style:italic; font-size:11px; } div.body { padding:10px 20px; }
The MooTools JavaScript
window.addEvent('domready',function() { var togglers = $$('div.toggler'); if(togglers.length) var gmail = new Fx.Accordion(togglers,$$('div.body')); togglers.addEvent('click',function() { this.addClass('read').removeClass('unread'); }); togglers[0].fireEvent('click'); //first one starts out read });
The PHP
/* connect to gmail */ $hostname = '{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl}INBOX'; $username = 'yourpersonalmail@gmail.com'; $password = 'youremailpassword'; /* try to connect */ $inbox = imap_open($hostname,$username,$password) or die('Cannot connect to Gmail: ' . imap_last_error()); /* grab emails */ $emails = imap_search($inbox,'ALL'); /* if emails are returned, cycle through each... */ if($emails) { /* begin output var */ $output = ''; /* put the newest emails on top */ rsort($emails); /* for every email... */ foreach($emails as $email_number) { /* get information specific to this email */ $overview = imap_fetch_overview($inbox,$email_number,0); $message = imap_fetchbody($inbox,$email_number,2); /* output the email header information */ $output.= '<div class="toggler '.($overview[0]->seen ? 'read' : 'unread').'">'; $output.= '<span class="subject">'.$overview[0]->subject.'</span> '; $output.= '<span class="from">'.$overview[0]->from.'</span>'; $output.= '<span class="date">on '.$overview[0]->date.'</span>'; $output.= '</div>'; /* output the email body */ $output.= '<div class="body">'.$message.'</div>'; } echo $output; } /* close the connection */ imap_close($inbox);
Connecting to Gmail with PHP IMAP
First, set up your individual username and password credentials to connect to Gmail using the IMAP protocol. Once the connection is established, fetch all emails from your inbox. To ensure a user-friendly experience, we reverse sort the emails so that the newest messages appear at the top.
Displaying Emails with MooTools Fx.Accordion
For each email retrieved, we’ll output the subject and body content within the MooTools Fx.Accordion structure. This approach offers a clean, expandable view, allowing users to interact with each email individually.
Building Your PHP Email Application
With the fundamentals in place, you’re ready to develop your next powerful PHP email application. Test it by sending a few emails to a designated address and watch them dynamically display on your webpage.
Note: There are some encoding challenges, and embedding images within the email body can be tricky. If you have any tips or best practices for handling these issues, they are highly welcome!