Đây là một kết nối IMAP ví dụ như được lấy từ RFC 3501 phần 8:

C: <open connection>S: * OK IMAP4rev1 Service ReadyC: a001 login mrc secretS: a001 OK LOGIN completedC: a002 select inboxS: * 18 EXISTSS: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)S: * 2 RECENTS: * OK [UNSEEN 17] Message 17 is the first unseen messageS: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 3857529045] UIDs validS: a002 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completedC: a003 fetch 12 fullS: * 12 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) INTERNALDATE "17-Jul-1996 02:44:25 -0700"RFC822.SIZE 4286 ENVELOPE ("Wed, 17 Jul 1996 02:23:25 -0700 (PDT)""IMAP4rev1 WG mtg summary and minutes"(("Terry Gray" NIL "gray" "cac.washington.edu"))(("Terry Gray" NIL "gray" "cac.washington.edu"))(("Terry Gray" NIL "gray" "cac.washington.edu"))((NIL NIL "imap" "cac.washington.edu"))((NIL NIL "minutes" "CNRI.Reston.VA.US")("John Klensin" NIL "KLENSIN" "MIT.EDU")) NIL NIL"<B27397-0100000@cac.washington.edu>")BODY ("TEXT" "PLAIN" ("CHARSET" "US-ASCII") NIL NIL "7BIT" 302892))S: a003 OK FETCH completedC: a004 fetch 12 body[header]S: * 12 FETCH (BODY[HEADER] {342}S: Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 02:23:25 -0700 (PDT)S: From: Terry Gray <gray@cac.washington.edu>S: Subject: IMAP4rev1 WG mtg summary and minutesS: To: imap@cac.washington.eduS: cc: minutes@CNRI.Reston.VA.US, John Klensin <KLENSIN@MIT.EDU>S: Message-Id: <B27397-0100000@cac.washington.edu>S: MIME-Version: 1.0S: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCIIS:S:)S: a004 OK FETCH completedC a005 store 12 +flags \deletedS: * 12 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen \Deleted))S: a005 OK +FLAGS completedC: a006 logoutS: * BYE IMAP4rev1 server terminating connectionS: a006 OK LOGOUT completed