How can I receive an email with an attachment (picture) in VB 2010 and later

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I wanted to ask ...I want to make a program in visual basic (2015) that it will receive an email (outlook,hotmail,gmail) with an attachment (picture) and open it in a picturebox.

Is this possible? If yes can anyone help me with the code?

Appreciate

What I have tried:

I try several codes that i found online but non of them seems to work

Posted 11-May-17 13:08pm

Nicolaoscon

Updated 11-May-17 21:52pm

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Dave Kreskowiak · Answer 1 · 2017-05-11T14:26:00

Solution 1

Sure, it's possible. Is it practical? No.

You'd be writing code for each mail client you wanted to support. Or, bypassing those entirely, you'd be writing your own email client. Whichever route you take, it's NOT a trivial thing to do.

Of course the code you found doesn't work. Chances are good you don't understand it and it doesn't really do what you're describing in the first place.

You're not going to find any code for what you want to do. It's just not that useful nor practical.

Posted 11-May-17 14:26pm

Dave Kreskowiak

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Nicolaoscon 11-May-17 20:40pm

Yeah that i am trying to do is to send image program using email and then "download" the picture in the app and in the picturebox and then try to match the picture (let say is a face) from my database...I just want help with the code...

Dave Kreskowiak 11-May-17 20:54pm

Most email system will not send executables in an email. Also, you have limitations on the size of attachments you can send, usually 10MB ENCODED with Base64. That means your usable size is somewhere around 6 to 7MB.

You're not receiving an email in your program. Your program has to scan the email inbox of the mail systems. That's going to be different code for each email system you're going to support.

Nobody is going to write your code for you.

Nicolaoscon 11-May-17 21:08pm

To begin with, i did not ask for anyone to write me the code :) Second only one email system i just put 3 because i use and the three of them and the only thing i want to receive in the app is a picture

Dave Kreskowiak 11-May-17 22:12pm

Your picture is inside a container, an attachment, which is inside an email, which is in another container, an inbox somewhere. You cannot "just get the picture". You cannot go straight to the picture. You must navigate to the picture going through all the containers that surround it.

How you do that depends entirely on the email system you're supporting.

Richard MacCutchan · Answer 2 · 2017-05-11T21:52:00

Solution 2

See Retrieve Email and Parse Email in VB.NET - Tutorial[^].

Posted 11-May-17 21:52pm

Richard MacCutchan