Python Sage IMAP

Production-oriented IMAP for Python 3.10+ — UID-first mailbox operations, CONDSTORE sync, IDLE, OAuth2, SPECIAL-USE folders, and an optional async API (sage_imap.aio).

Current release: 2.0.0 — sync API on stdlib imaplib; async via optional [async] extra (aioimaplib).

Why this library?

Python Sage IMAP targets applications that need reliable email access beyond thin imaplib wrappers:

• UID-first search, fetch, move, and flag operations via IMAPMailboxUIDService and IMAPSession
• Streaming fetch with iter_uid_fetch / iter_messages and ParseMode (headers-only, minimal, full, raw)
• Incremental sync with CONDSTORE (MailboxSyncState, CHANGEDSINCE)
• IDLE for push-style mailbox notifications
• OAuth2 with refresh (OAuth2Config, ensure_access_token)
• Resilience — retries, connection pooling (use_pool=True), metrics, health checks
• Async parity — AsyncIMAPSession under sage_imap.aio (install [async])

Installation

pip install python-sage-imap

Async support:

pip install python-sage-imap[async]

Requirements: Python 3.10+, network access to an IMAP server (TLS recommended).

Development

git clone https://github.com/sageteamorg/python-sage-imap.git
cd python-sage-imap
poetry install
poetry install -E async   # optional, for sage_imap.aio tests
poetry run pytest -m "not integration"

Integration tests against a Mailcow-compatible stack:

make integration-up
make integration-test
make integration-down

Set IMAP_HOST, IMAP_USER, IMAP_PASSWORD, and optionally IMAP_PORT. See docker/mailcow/README.md.

Quick start (sync)

Use IMAPSession as the primary entry point:

from sage_imap import IMAPSession, IMAPSearchCriteria, SpecialUse

with IMAPSession("imap.example.com", "user@example.com", "app-password") as session:
    session.select("INBOX")
    result = session.search(IMAPSearchCriteria.UNSEEN)
    trash = session.special_folder(SpecialUse.TRASH)
    for msg in session.iter_messages(result.to_uid_message_set(), batch_size=50):
        print(msg.uid, msg.subject)

More: docs/SESSION.md · Read the Docs

Quick start (async)

import asyncio
from sage_imap.aio import AsyncIMAPSession
from sage_imap.helpers.search import IMAPSearchCriteria

async def main():
    async with AsyncIMAPSession("imap.example.com", "user@example.com", "secret") as session:
        await session.select("INBOX")
        result = await session.search(IMAPSearchCriteria.UNSEEN)
        async for msg in session.iter_messages(result.to_uid_message_set()):
            print(msg.subject)

asyncio.run(main())

See docs/ASYNC.md and examples/09_async_session.py.

Sync vs async

Async is not re-exported from top-level sage_imap (by design). See docs/MIGRATION_v2.md when upgrading from 1.x.

Lower-level API

Services remain available for fine-grained control:

from sage_imap import IMAPClient, IMAPMailboxUIDService, IMAPSearchCriteria

with IMAPClient("imap.example.com", "user@example.com", "secret") as client:
    caps = client.transport.get_capabilities()
    mailbox = IMAPMailboxUIDService(client)
    mailbox.select("INBOX")
    result = mailbox.uid_search(IMAPSearchCriteria.ALL)
    for msg in mailbox.iter_uid_fetch(result.to_uid_message_set()):
        print(msg.subject)

IMAPClient delegates raw imaplib methods (e.g. list, select) when connected; prefer UID services for message operations.

Examples

Runnable scripts live under examples/. Configure credentials via environment variables:

export IMAP_HOST=imap.example.com
export IMAP_USER=user@example.com
export IMAP_PASSWORD=secret
poetry run python examples/01_basic_client_usage.py

See examples/README.md.

Configuration

from sage_imap import ConnectionConfig, IMAPSession, build_ssl_context

config = ConnectionConfig(
    host="imap.example.com",
    username="user@example.com",
    password="secret",
    port=993,
    use_ssl=True,
    timeout=30.0,
    max_retries=5,
    retry_delay=2.0,
    enable_monitoring=True,
    enable_background_health=False,
)

with IMAPSession.from_config(config) as session:
    session.select("INBOX")

Documentation

• Online: https://python-sage-imap.readthedocs.io/
• Session facade: docs/SESSION.md
• Async: docs/ASYNC.md
• v2 migration: docs/MIGRATION_v2.md
• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md

Testing

poetry run pytest -m "not integration"
poetry run pytest tests/aio -m "not integration"   # requires -E async
poetry run pytest --cov=sage_imap --cov-report=html

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md and SECURITY.md.

make setup-dev
make test
make lint

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Support

• Documentation
• Issues
• Discussions