stachow/GetLinkFromEmail

Windows Console App to read the latest email sent to an account, extract a hyperlink from the body and present the hyperlink in a browser window. Useful for e.g. Selenium testing where the test story involves a link within an account confirmation email being clicked

GetLinkFromEmail

A Windows Console App that reads the latest email sent to a given account (using IMAP), extracts a hyperlink from the body and presents the hyperlink in a browser. Useful for e.g. Selenium testing where the test story involves an email being sent containing a confirmation link.

To Use

• Rename App.example.config to App.config.
• Set your email account details in the appSettings sections in App.config.
• Run the console app
  • The app will for listen for an http request on a local port, default http://localhost:8111
  • A browser visits http://localhost:8111: the app will read the latest unread email for the account, try to find and extract the hyperlink within the email and return the hyperlink to the browser in the response body.
  • If no email is found, a holding response is sent back containing a meta http-equiv='refresh' tag. This tag means the browser will repeat the request in N seconds. This will continue ad-inifinitum.
  • Optionally a request of the form http://localhost:8111/?_account+123@gmail.com_ can be passed. In this case, only emails sent to the sub-address specified will be examined for the latest unread email.

In Selenium world

This allows you to write a test story where you can point your test command to the local address as an alternative to [manually open email program/site; wait for email to arrive; click on link; restart Selenium test].

• Prior to the Selenium test being run, the Console App is started.
• The appropriate test command is defined to visit the designated listening url at the appropriate point.
• The Selenium test has a waitForHyperlink-type command that will hold until the app retrieves and presents the appropraite link.