I can't tell you how fucking important this is when you're registering accounts. I've automated most of knowem over the past few years ... about 80% require email activation of your account. Saying it's a pretty big deal might be an understatement.
The way I do it is fairly straight forward, here are the pieces of the puzzle.
1. imap - Here's more than you'll ever want to know about the technical aspects of this hack. At it's core, imap functions allow you to check mail with a programming language (php in my case). Trust me when I tell you this is far simplier than trying to automate finding, checking and clicking the link in the Y! (or other provider's) web interface. Here's the code that you need need:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28853611/imap_mail.php
If you hack, you'll notice I duct taped this script a little bit. I've got some variable declarations up top, all are passed through the url and contain important details for finding exactly the link we need to click.
I also just copy pasted the loop of checking twice since often email winds up in the trash; Gotta check both there and in the inbox.
You shouldn't need to edit that file, all the account specific variables are sent through the url and pieced together in imacros. We'll talk a little more about this in step 3.
2. I ALWAYS use yahoo email accounts. Why? Well they're really cheap, commonly used and yahoo allows imap access. Variation in email domains looks a bit more natural (talking footprints here) but causes a big problem for checking email through the web because the imap address changes (line 9 in the imap_mail.php) ... if they allow imap access at all. Gmail doesn't I don't think.
3. the imacros
The way I do it is fairly straight forward, here are the pieces of the puzzle.
1. imap - Here's more than you'll ever want to know about the technical aspects of this hack. At it's core, imap functions allow you to check mail with a programming language (php in my case). Trust me when I tell you this is far simplier than trying to automate finding, checking and clicking the link in the Y! (or other provider's) web interface. Here's the code that you need need:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28853611/imap_mail.php
If you hack, you'll notice I duct taped this script a little bit. I've got some variable declarations up top, all are passed through the url and contain important details for finding exactly the link we need to click.
I also just copy pasted the loop of checking twice since often email winds up in the trash; Gotta check both there and in the inbox.
You shouldn't need to edit that file, all the account specific variables are sent through the url and pieced together in imacros. We'll talk a little more about this in step 3.
2. I ALWAYS use yahoo email accounts. Why? Well they're really cheap, commonly used and yahoo allows imap access. Variation in email domains looks a bit more natural (talking footprints here) but causes a big problem for checking email through the web because the imap address changes (line 9 in the imap_mail.php) ... if they allow imap access at all. Gmail doesn't I don't think.
3. the imacros
' email verification
SET link_match "StringFoundInVerificationUrl"
SET link_domain "UniqueDomainNameMinusTLD"
SET !TIMEOUT 180
' always wait, email isnt instant
WAIT SECONDS=60
SET !EXTRACT NULL
URL GOTO=http://{{data_url}}/imap_mail.php?username={{email_username}}&password={{password}}&link_match={{link_match}}&link_domain={{link_domain}}
TAG POS=1 ATTR=* EXTRACT=TXT
SET verification_url {{!EXTRACT}}
SET !TIMEOUT 180
URL GOTO={{verification_url}}
Lets talk about variables
{{link_domain}} - set in the first line above. This is the actual domain name (minus the tld), so "wickedfire" would be an acceptable input there.
{{link_match}} - set in 2nd line above. This is a unique string of text found in teh verification url ... in most cases it's usually "activate".
{{data_url}} - from the OP of this thread .. it's your mothership
{{email_username}} - the part before the @ in the yahoo email address
{{password}} - hrrdrr
{{!EXTRACT}} is whatever text is spit out from the php page we built in step 1 above. In this case, it's a verification url so that you can complete the registration process.
This whole system works because of unique identifiers. imacros sends php all the information it needs to login and go through all emails in this account looking for an email from "wickedfire" that has a link that includes the unique string "activate" .... if it finds an email that matches this criteria, it outputs it to the screen. Imacros scrapes that url and loads it up in your browser successfully completing the email activation process.
{{link_domain}} - set in the first line above. This is the actual domain name (minus the tld), so "wickedfire" would be an acceptable input there.
{{link_match}} - set in 2nd line above. This is a unique string of text found in teh verification url ... in most cases it's usually "activate".
{{data_url}} - from the OP of this thread .. it's your mothership
{{email_username}} - the part before the @ in the yahoo email address
{{password}} - hrrdrr
{{!EXTRACT}} is whatever text is spit out from the php page we built in step 1 above. In this case, it's a verification url so that you can complete the registration process.
This whole system works because of unique identifiers. imacros sends php all the information it needs to login and go through all emails in this account looking for an email from "wickedfire" that has a link that includes the unique string "activate" .... if it finds an email that matches this criteria, it outputs it to the screen. Imacros scrapes that url and loads it up in your browser successfully completing the email activation process.