Does Python's imaplib let you set a timeout?
The imaplib
module doesn't provide a way to set timeout, but you can set a default timeout for new socket connections via the socket.setdefaulttimeout
:
import socket
import imaplib
socket.setdefaulttimeout(10)
imap = imaplib.IMAP4('test.com', 666)
Or you can also go about overriding the imaplib.IMAP4
class with some knowledge from imaplib
source and docs, which provides better control:
import imaplib
import socket
class IMAP(imaplib.IMAP4):
def __init__(self, host='', port=imaplib.IMAP4_PORT, timeout=None):
self.timeout = timeout
# no super(), it's an old-style class
imaplib.IMAP4.__init__(self, host, port)
def open(self, host='', port=imaplib.IMAP4_PORT):
self.host = host
self.port = port
self.sock = socket.create_connection((host, port), timeout=self.timeout)
# clear timeout for socket.makefile, needs blocking mode
self.sock.settimeout(None)
self.file = self.sock.makefile('rb')
Note that after creating the connection we should set the socket timeout back to None
to get it to blocking mode for subsequent socket.makefile
call, as stated in the method docs:
... The socket must be in blocking mode (it can not have a timeout). ...
import imaplib
...
# ssl and timeout are config values
# connection to IMAP server
if ssl:
imapResource = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(server, port)
else:
imapResource = imaplib.IMAP4(server, port)
# communications timeout
sock=imapResource.socket()
timeout = 60 * 5 # 5 minutes
sock.settimeout(timeout)