mail2rss

News | Features | Requirements | Incoming release | How to use it | License | Credits | Sourceforge

mail2rss is a .NET web service that checks your mailbox on demand and returns an RSS feed containing the unread messages in it. The service is written in C# and uses .NET framework.

News

• 11/27/2004
  - mail2rss v0.7 release has been uploaded on Sourceforge
• 08/29/2004
  - mail2rss v0.6 release has been uploaded on Sourceforge
• 08/07/2004
  - The first public release of mail2rss v0.5 has been uploaded on Sourceforge

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Features

• Supports the following mail servers:
  - any POP3 server
  - Microsoft (C) Hotmail mail
  - Microsoft (C) MSN mail
  - Yahoo (C) mail
  - Gmail (C) mail
• The secure communication with the webservice is ensured by using encrypted passwords. It's easy to encrypt them with the provided form at the default page (Default.aspx) of the webservice.
• Retrieves the text/html from any message with/without attachments
  - Provides the list with the names of attached files
  - If message body is multipart/alternative the text version is always preferred
  - When the message does not have an attachment the RSS category element will read, "mail message" otherwise it will read "mail message with attachment"
• Does not modify the status of the message on the server, i.e. unread message stays unread.
• Custom settings:
  - Ability to limit the maximum number of retrieved messages for all mail accounts - Ability to limit the size of the retrieved message
• Produces standards-compliant RSS 2.0 XML feed.
• Works with any RSS aggregator. Has been tested with SharpReader, FeedReader and FeedDemon.

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Requirements

• Windows 2000 Pro/Server or Windows XP Professional or Windows 2003 Server
• Internet Information Services (IIS) 5
• Microsoft .NET Framework v1.1

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Incoming release - v0.8

• ASP.NET frontend for checking an e-mail account

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How to use it

• mail2rss supports HTTP GET request and response. The placeholders shown need to be replaced with the actual values:
  http://www.yourserver.com/mail2rss.asmx/GetMail?mailServer=mailserver&userID=username&userPass=password
  
  URL example for Hotmail - user@hotmail.com
  http://www.yourserver.com/mail2rss.asmx/GetMail?mailServer=hotmail.com&userID=user&userPass=password
  
  RSS example for Hotmail - user@hotmail.com

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
  <rss version="2.0">
  	<channel>
  		<title>RSS 2.0 email feed from hotmail.com</title> 
  		<link>http://mail2rss.sourceforge.net</link> 
  		<description>RSS 2.0 email feed from hotmail.com</description> 
  		<generator>mail2rss 0.7</generator> 
  		<copyright>Copyright (C) 2004 by Charlie Kostov</copyright> 
  		<ttl>30</ttl> 
  		<language>en-us</language> 
  		<lastBuildDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:09:56 GMT</lastBuildDate> 
  		<item>
  			<title>Test mail</title> <!-- Mail subject -->
  			<link/>
  			<description>Message body comes here</description> <!-- Mail body -->
  			<author>Test User <user@hotmail.com></author> <!-- Sender --> 
  			<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jun 2004 19:08:54 -0600</pubDate> <!-- Received --> 
  			<category>mail message</category> 
  		</item>
  	</channel>
  </rss>

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License

• mail2rss is released under the General Public License(GPL) Version 2 (or later). The GPL is available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

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Credits

• Vasanth Dharmaraj - general inspiration with pop3 to rss webservice
• Chris Maunder - for the article "Hotmail using C# - A HTTPMail client under .NET"
• Mentalis.org - for the great Secure Socket Library
• Blue Robot - for the website layout
• Last but not the least, all the people who have provided their inputs for the webservice

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