Mail_IMAP provides an object-oriented backend for working with the PHP c-client (imap) extension. The c-client extension provides functionality for connecting to IMAP, POP3 or NNTP mailboxes. Mail_IMAP acts as a wrapper for the most used c-client functions providing parsing of multipart messages, intelligent message body retrieval as well as header parsing and retrieval. Mail_IMAP is an ideal solution when a customizable webmail template is necessary. Mail_IMAP may also act as a component in an automated mailing list manager, as it can do all the dirty work of retrieving the subject line, message body, attachments or other message components.

The full online documentation is available here