# Email Messages Input
##  Email Messages Input
### Description
The Email Messages Input transform allows you to retrieve messages and their attachments from a mail server using the POP3, IMAP or MBOX standard protocols.
| Hop Engine | ✓ |
| ---------- | ------------ |
| Spark | ? |
| Flink | ? |
| Dataflow | ? |
### Options
#### General
On this tab you will find the general mail server connection settings:
| Option | Description |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Transform name | Name of the transform. |
| **Mail Server Connection** | |
| Mail Connection | If a mail server connection is selected here, the rest of this tab is ignored. The server configuration will be taken from the [Mail Server Connection](/data-shaper-1.21/knowing-the-data-shaper-designer/index-2/mail-server-connection.md) metadata item. |
| **Server settings** | |
| Source host | The mail server host |
| Use SSL? | Check this option if your server needs an SSL connection |
| Use XOAUTH2 | If checked XOAuth2 will be used to authenticate with the server. |
| Username | The username of the mailbox to connect to |
| Password | The password to use |
| Use proxy? | Check this option if you want to connect through a proxy. |
| Proxy username | The username to connect to the proxy with |
| Fetch in batches? | Enable this option if you want to retrieve larger volumes of mails in batches |
| Ignore errors reading fields | Sometimes a server doesn’t support the retrieval of a particular piece of information. Enable this option to ignore these errors. |
| Protocol | Specify either standard protocol POP3, IMAP or MBOX to retrieve the mails |
| Test Connection button | This will simply try to connect to the mail server with the specified settings. This button does not retrieve mails. |
#### Settings
**POP3 settings**
| Option | Description |
| ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Retrieve | Specify either "All emails" or "Retrieve first… emails" |
| Retrieve the … first emails | Allows you to specify how many mails you want to retrieve at most in one go |
**IMAP settings**
| Option | Description |
| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Get folder from field | Enable this option to allow the IMAP folder name to be present in an input field of this transform. |
| Folder field | The folder field in case the option above is enabled. |
| IMAP folder | The IMAP folder to retrieve mails from |
| Test folder… button | Use this to test if the folder is valid |
| Open button | use this to select the IMAP folder |
| Include subfolders | Check this option to also retrieve mails from sub-folders |
| Retrieve | Specify which mails to retrieve: Get all, new, old, read, unread, flagged, not flagged, draft, not draft, answered or not answered messages. |
| Retrieve the first … emails | Specify how many emails to retrieve at most |
**Batch settings**
| Option | Description |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| Batch size | Number of emails to retrieve at once in one batch |
| Start at message number | The first message number to start retrieving at |
| End at message number | The last message number to end retrieving with |
#### Filters
These are the filters you can set on the header of the mail message. Mail for which the header matches your filter will be retrieved, the rest is ignored.
| Option | Description |
| ------------- | ------------- |
| Sender (FROM) | Only retrieve |
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