How to limit retrieving amount of messages from IMAP?

Question

Is there a way to limit the amount of messages from Imap.GetMessageList as Inbox has got so large that just hanging or timing out?

Answer 1

Yes, this is possible – use the ImapMessageSet argument to pass the desired message range.

Example:

// number of newest messages to retrieve

int limit = 10;

// calculate the range

int last = _client.CurrentFolder.TotalMessageCount;

int first = Math.Max(1, last - limit);

// construct an ImapMessageSet

ImapMessageSet set = new ImapMessageSet();

set.AddRange(first, last);

// retrieve the messages

messages = _client.GetMessageList(set, ImapListFields.Envelope 

                                      | ImapListFields.MessageStructure 

                                      | ImapListFields.Body);