How do I enable push-notification for IMAP (Gmail) using Python imaplib?

Question

Is there a way to monitor a gmail account using imaplib without polling gmail each time I want to see if there is new mail. Or in other words, I just want the script to be notified of a new message so I can process it right away instead of any lag time between polls.

I see that the IMAP protocol supports this with the IDLE command, but I can't see anything documented with it in the imaplib docs, so any help with this would be great!

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 08 '18 at 15:54

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There isn't something in imaplib that does this, AFAIK (disclamer: I know very little about Python), however, it seems that someone has implemented an IDLE extension for Python which has the same interface as imaplib (which you can swap out with no changes to existing code, apparently):

https://github.com/imaplib2/imaplib2

edited Dec 08 '18 at 15:54

NickD

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answered Jan 07 '09 at 18:04

casperOne

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+1 - I was using imaplib recently and found the state of things that you describe. – cdleary Jan 07 '09 at 19:20
The provided link no longer exists. The package can be found on [sourceforge](https://sourceforge.net/projects/imaplib2/) – handras Dec 08 '18 at 14:39
https://github.com/jazzband/imaplib2 – Ankit Balyan Apr 08 '22 at 22:04

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '09 at 06:44

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Check out ProcImap. It's a more abstract framework on top of libimap and libimap2, providing a nice solution to handle IMAP services. Looks like just the stuff you are looking for, and for me as well. I'm right having the same problem with you and just found ProcImap. Gonna try it for myself.

answered Jan 14 '09 at 06:44

evo

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wow. this is just what I'm looking for to write client-side filters. – vy32 Jan 12 '10 at 02:56
@evo did this work for you? I'm also looking to get push notifications about new messages instead of polling. What function in ProcImap did you use? – Alexis Aug 30 '12 at 00:52
@Alexis I'd guess [`ImapServer.idle`](https://pythonhosted.org/ProcImap/ProcImap.ImapServer.ImapServer-class.html) – Tobias Kienzler Apr 15 '15 at 10:11

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 28 '11 at 21:23

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This link shows an example of using IMAP IDLE: http://blog.timstoop.nl/2009/03/11/python-imap-idle-with-imaplib2/

It uses the same library linked to in casperOne's answer (imaplib2).

answered Jan 28 '11 at 21:23

sid

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It's now at https://blog.timstoop.nl/posts/2009/03/11/python-imap-idle-with-imaplib2.html – Will White Jul 23 '20 at 11:58

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 07 '21 at 06:06

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There is simple patch proposed at bugs.python.org implementing [RFC 2177 IMAP IDLE] 3 command in a synchronous way ( to wait for more than 1 IMAP server you have to use threads or other means of parallel execution ). It uses stdlib select to wait on socket including timeout. This patch will eventually be added to stdlib, but tests have to be written first. The IDLE command is what you need for gmail IMAP push-notification. Hope, this will help :)

edited Oct 07 '21 at 06:06

Community

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answered Apr 19 '13 at 20:26

Matus

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Sadly the patch is still not part of the stdlib. One can use imaplib2 hosted on [sourceforge](https://sourceforge.net/projects/imaplib2/) or imapclient hosted on [github](https://github.com/mjs/imapclient/) – handras Dec 08 '18 at 14:44

How do I enable push-notification for IMAP (Gmail) using Python imaplib?

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