Obtain Address book/Contacts from all the different email servers???

Question

Hello,

We are evaluating your software, and I kind a stumble upon an issue that I need more clarification.

I’m trying to find a way of getting Address book/Contacts info from all the different Email servers.

Example: I’m getting IMAP messages from following servers: Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc… into our software.
I also would like to get a list of the Contacts -collection of Names/Address) from selected mail server.
Is there a possibility?

I can locate and get to the Contacts folder with GetFolderList() call and then SelectFolder(ContactsFolder) but I have no information that I could use of, no Names/Addresses.

More example:
From any mail server if you compose a new email and click on the TO button >> you’ll get Select/Choose Contacts screen with the list of Names and Emails and that’s what I’m after.

Please advise.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, this is not as simple as it sounds. The IMAP protocol does not say anything about contacts or address books, or even about folders (mailboxes in the IMAP jargon) other than Inbox, and even an extension that makes it possible to determine the purpose of other folders does not specify contacts/address book folders. And as far as we know, there is no extension for that.

Some IMAP serves do present an address book as one of their folders, with contacts in a readable MIME-based format, but many don't. Sadly, there is nothing we can do about that - the server vendors have to add this feature first. Sorry!