How to do integration testing for application that uses POP3 and SMTP?

Question

I've been using smtp4Dev to test sending emails without them actually reaching anyone.

Now I want to be able to also test retrieving emails from an email server using POP3 but smtp4dev doesn't seem to support this.

Is there an application I can use to test both SMTP for sending mail and POP3 for retrieving mail on my local system?

Alternatively what would be a suitable lightweight application for testing mail retrieval with POP3?

Answer 1

hMailServer can be configured to behave as a dummy smtp, pop3 and/or imap server

These are instructions from http://csns.calstatela.edu/wiki/content/cysun/course_materials/hmailserver

1. Download hMailServer

2. During installation, choose:

   • Full installation
   • Use built-in database engine
   • Run hMailServer Administrator

3. In hMailServer Administrator:

   • Add a domain localhost.localdomain
   • Add a catch-all address (Domain -> localhost.localdomain -> Advanced -> Catch-all address) , e.g. cysun@localhost.localdomain. If an email is sent to this domain but the address of the email does not match any existing account under this domain, the catch-all address will get this email.
   • Add an account, e.g. cysun@localhost.localdomain .
   • Under Settings -> Protocols -> SMTP -> Delivery of e-mail, specify the host name to be localhost .
   • Under Advanced -> IP Ranges, delete Internet. This step is a safety measure to ensure that your email server will only be used locally. Under Advanced -> Auto-ban, uncheck Enabled so your account won't get automatically disabled if you mistype the password a few times.

I also downloaded and installed thunderbird to make it easier to manage emails on the server.