I've been asked to write a Windows service in C# to periodically monitor an email inbox and insert the details of any messages received into a database table.
My instinct is to do this via POP3 and sure enough, Googling for ".NET POP3 component" produces countless (ok, 146,000) results.
Has anybody done anything similar before and can you recommend a decent component that won't break the bank (a few hundred dollars maximum)?
Would there be any benefits to using IMAP rather than POP3?
I recomment chilkat. They have pretty stable components, and you can get their email component for as cheap as $99 for a single developer. Personally, I think going with the whole package of components is a better deal, as it's only $289, and comes with many useful components. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, although I probably sound like I am.