POP3 header retrieval slow

[Anon]

I am trying to use imap_fetchheader function to display the inbox... and it is way too slow when tehre are attachments. It seems to be downloading the whole file, though i only need to show that there is an attachment with an icon (no other info about it needed).
i have also tried imap_headers, imap_fetch_overview, imap_header_info etc... but they are all very slow when there is are emails in my mailbox with big attachments
Does anyone know a command to get just the header without downloading everything first... or should i use perl or something else... any help/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance

[Anon]

John,

Unfortunately there is no explicit command in the POP spec there is in the IMAP spec for header specific retrieval.

If you just want to get the headers on any POP message, you'll need to do the follow:

1. connect to the POP mailbox
2. Find out how many messages there are (the STAT command)
3. For each message use the TOP n,0 where n is the message number. This will give you the header.

The downside of this is that you can't get the size of the attachment or how many attachments you have. All you can say is that if there is a mixed / multipart boundary then you have an attachment.

CHeers

Justin