You can create and manage connections with the Data Explorer and the FireDAC Connection Editor wizards. See Connection Definitions for more information on creating connections from code and creating persistent, private, or temporary connections.

The User and Password properties in the Authentication section must be set to valid credentials. The Server must be specified to retrieve emails and the SMTPServer must be specified to send emails.

Deprecation notice for Gmail users

From May 30, 2022, Google no longer supports the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password. There are alternatives that allow your continued use of our Email drivers to connect to your Google account, which is why Gmail-specific columns, pseudo-columns, and stored procedures are only getting deprecated. We recommend you move to our Gmail drivers that offer more secure methods of authentication.

Using the FireDAC Connection Editor

Complete the following steps to use the FireDAC Connection Editor to assign a IMAP connection to a TFDConnection object:

1. Open a project and drop a TFDPhysCDataEmailDriverLink from the Tool Palette onto the Form Designer.
2. Drop a TFDConnection object onto the Form Designer.
3. Double-click the TFDConnection and select CDataEmail in the Driver Id menu.
4. Define the necessary connection properties.
5. To execute ad-hoc SQL statements based on this connection, enter SQL commands on the SQL Script tab.
6. In the Form Designer, select the TFDConnection object and set the Connected property to true.

Using the Data Explorer

Complete the following steps to use the Data Explorer to define persistent connections that can be shared across applications and projects:

1. Click View > Tool Windows > Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand the FireDAC node.
2. Right-click the CData IMAP Data Source node and click Add New Connection.
3. Enter a name for the connection. The FireDAC Connection Editor opens.

Working with Persistent Connections

The connections you define in the Data Explorer can be assigned to a TFDConnection object by specifying the connection name in the TFDConnection object's ConnectionDefName property.

Browsing Data and Metadata

The Data Explorer also provides options for browsing IMAP objects at design time:

• Expand the CData IMAP Data Source node in the Data Explorer to view the defined connections.
• Expand a connection node to find the database objects available for a connection.
• Drill down to a database object to find metadata such as primary keys.
• To display data, double-click a table or view or right-click and click View.