---
id: imapclient
version: "3.1.0"
license: 3-Clause BSD License
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# IMAPClient — Easy-to-use, Pythonic and complete IMAP client library

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 2.5M/mo

## What it is and what it does

IMAPClient is a Python library that wraps the IMAP protocol, letting you connect to email servers and work with mailboxes and messages using natural Python types instead of raw IMAP commands. It handles the low-level protocol details—parsing server responses, managing message UIDs, converting time zones, and supporting internationalized mailbox names—so you can focus on application logic.

The library is designed for developers building email clients, migration tools, or automation scripts that need reliable IMAP access. It supports Python versions 3.8 through 3.13 and includes comprehensive unit and functional tests. With no external runtime dependencies and a pure-Python wheel, it installs cleanly and runs on any platform.

Use it for:

- Build an email client or mail reader that connects to IMAP servers and displays folder contents.
- Automate email archival or migration tasks by fetching messages from one server and moving them elsewhere.
- Create a mail filter or rule engine that searches mailboxes and performs actions on matching messages.
- Sync email data to a local database or search index for offline access or analytics.
- Monitor specific mailboxes for new messages and trigger workflows or notifications.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

IMAPClient provides a Pythonic interface to IMAP servers, handling mailbox access, message retrieval, and email operations with automatic parsing of server responses and transparent UID management.

Yes. IMAPClient is production-stable, actively maintained, has zero known vulnerabilities, and installs with no friction. It's the right choice if you need to programmatically interact with IMAP servers from Python. The permissive BSD license poses no restrictions for most use cases.

## Install

pip install imapclient
uv add imapclient
poetry add imapclient

## Installing IMAPClient

Before you install: Low install friction; pure Python wheel with no runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with recent commits and a stable release cadence since 2013.

License in practice: 3-Clause BSD License is permissive; you may use, modify, and distribute IMAPClient freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install imapclient

from imapclient import IMAPClient

client = IMAPClient('imap.example.com')
client.login('user@example.com', 'password')
mailbox = client.select_folder('INBOX')
messages = client.fetch(client.search(), ['BODY[]'])

Requires Python 3.8 or later; IMAP server credentials and network access needed at runtime.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the library supports OAuth2 or modern authentication beyond plain-text credentials.
- Performance characteristics when handling mailboxes with very large message counts.
- Whether internationalized mailbox name handling covers all IMAP server implementations.

## Package facts

- License: 3-Clause BSD License (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 2.5M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

imap client library python, email mailbox access, imap server connection, python email retrieval, imap uid handling, mailbox management library, imap protocol wrapper, email-protocol, imap-client

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