IMAP probe

The IMAP probe has two modes: an Action form for the common case, and an Advanced command sequence for full control. Switch with the Action / Advanced toggle above the editor; new probes open in Action mode.

Action Mode — Find / verify message

The everyday question is “did the email arrive, and what’s in it?” — not “how do I drive a SELECT then a SEARCH then a FETCH?”. Action mode answers it directly.

Field	Description
Host / Port	IMAP server and port (143, 993)
TLS	None, STARTTLS, or Implicit (SSL)
Auth	A credential from the credential store — IMAP LOGIN (password never touches the probe)
Mailbox	Defaults to INBOX
Filters	From / Subject / Since / Body-contains / Unseen — any subset becomes the SEARCH criteria
Return	Message exists?, Match count, Latest message, or Latest header

VirtuProbe runs LOGIN → SELECT → SEARCH → [FETCH] for you. The FETCH target is chosen from the search result at run time — the reason this is easier than driving the raw commands, where you’d have to run the SEARCH, read the returned message ids, and build the FETCH yourself.

Success = a message was found (for Message exists? / Latest …); Match count reports the number and succeeds even at zero. The LOGIN password is masked in the recorded conversation.

Extract a code from the email (chaining)

Two extractors make Action mode the backbone of an email-verification chain:

• IMAP_MATCH_COUNT — the number of matched messages (assert >= 1 to confirm delivery).
• IMAP_MESSAGE — the fetched message content (with Latest message / Latest header). Feed it into a REGEX extractor to pull a confirmation code or activation link out of the email body.

A typical chain: HTTP signup → IMAP find the welcome mail (Latest message) → IMAP_MESSAGE → REGEX code[:\s]+(\d{6}) → use {{code}} in the next step.

Edit as commands reconstructs the command list from the form and switches to Advanced (the FETCH id is a placeholder, since the real one is dynamic).

Advanced Mode — command sequence

The IMAP probe sends a sequence of IMAP commands to a mail server. Each command is configured individually and the server’s tagged and untagged responses are recorded.

Connection settings

Field	Description
Host	IMAP server hostname or IP
Port	Server port (common: 143, 993)
SSL/TLS	Connect with IMAPS (port 993)
Trust self-signed	Skip certificate validation for a self-signed or private-CA certificate (covers implicit TLS and STARTTLS). Off by default; use only for hosts you trust.

Note

Login uses only the local part of the email address (e.g. testuser, not testuser@example.com) with some servers such as GreenMail.

Commands

Common IMAP command types:

Command	Description
LOGIN	Authenticate with username and password
LIST	List available mailboxes
SELECT	Open a mailbox
SEARCH	Search for messages matching criteria
FETCH	Retrieve message data (headers, body, flags)
LOGOUT	Close the session

Assertions

Set an expected response tag on any command. If the server returns a different result, the history entry is marked as failed.

Variable substitution

{{variable}} placeholders are supported in the host field and in each command’s data field.

History

The history panel shows untagged server lines for each command exchange. Commands are matched to history entries by their command string.