IMail - How can I tie an external filter program into IMail

Question/Problem: How can I tie an anti-virus program into IMail?

Warning, if not done correctly this will disable your mail server's delivery process. Do not attempt this if you do not fully understand the contents of this article and the IMail delivery process.

Answer/Solution: Starting with version 7.10 you can change the Delivery Application on the Advanced tab in IMail Administrator | localhost | Services | SMTP.

For earlier versions, in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ipswitch\IMail\Global
Registry key, create a string (REG_SZ) value named SendName (if it doesn't exist) and set it to the full pathname of your program.

Your program will be passed a filename that begins with 'Q' For instance: QAB234.SMD (it could have other extensions). This is the recipients file (though other info is kept in there also). The 'Q' file is also used as the lock file. Our file locking consists of renaming the 'Q' file to _<same_text>.~<rest_of_extension>. Using the filename above the lock file name would be: _AB234.~MD.

Your program can then scan/filter or otherwise process the data file. This will be a file with name D<same_as_Q_file>.<same_extension_as_Q_file>.
Continuing the example the data file for QAB234.SMD would be: DAB234.SMD.

Once the data file is processed, your program should then unlock the Q file (rename it back to the original) and call smtp32 with the original parameters.
smtp32 qab234.smd

If your program is called with any other parameters it should immediately call SMTP32.EXE with them. Other parameters signal the start of queue processing runs, either manual or automatic.

See also:
IMail - How to run SMTP32.EXE from the command line

IMail - Format of "Q" files in the queue