Hey everyone, I’m working on a project that needs to keep tabs on lots of email accounts at once. I’ve got a Chrome extension that works with Gmail’s UI and IMAP, but I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle things on the server side.
My goal is to watch for new emails from specific senders across thousands of accounts and update a database when something interesting comes in. I’ve thought about two approaches:
Polling each account regularly:
for user in all_users:
new_messages = fetch_messages(user, last_checked_id)
for msg in new_messages:
if is_important_sender(msg.sender):
update_database(msg)
Using IMAP IDLE:
for user in all_users:
setup_imap_idle(user)
while True:
user = wait_for_imap_notification()
new_msg = fetch_latest_message(user)
if is_important_sender(new_msg.sender):
update_database(new_msg)
I’m not sure which method would work better for 5,000+ accounts. Are there any other approaches I should consider? I don’t need to store the actual emails, just update the database when certain senders are spotted. Any advice would be great!
I’ve been in a similar situation, and I can tell you from experience that IMAP IDLE can be problematic at scale. It tends to time out and requires constant connection management, which becomes a nightmare with thousands of accounts.
Here’s what worked for me: I implemented a hybrid approach using a combination of periodic polling and push notifications. I set up a pool of worker processes, each responsible for a subset of accounts. These workers would poll on a staggered schedule to avoid overwhelming the mail servers.
Additionally, I leveraged Gmail’s push notifications API for accounts that supported it. This significantly reduced the polling frequency for those accounts.
For database updates, I used a queue system to handle the influx of new message data, which helped prevent bottlenecks when processing spikes occurred.
Remember, optimizing your database queries and indexing is crucial when dealing with this volume of data. It made a world of difference in my case.
hey, evr thought about a distributd setup? split the accounts over multiple servers so each only handles a part. that, combined with a message queue like rabbitmq for notifications, might work better than imap idl for many accounts.
Have you considered using webhooks? Many email providers offer webhook integrations that can notify your server instantly when new emails arrive. This approach could be more efficient than polling or IMAP IDLE for large-scale monitoring.
You’d set up a webhook endpoint on your server, then configure each email account to send notifications there. Your server would process these notifications in real-time, filtering for important senders and updating the database accordingly.
This method reduces overhead and ensures near-instantaneous updates. It’s also more scalable, as the email provider handles the heavy lifting of monitoring accounts. You’d just need to ensure your server can handle the incoming webhook traffic efficiently.