receive email using matlab

I am working on a project where people can email the name of a color (ie 'red') to a dedicated e mail address and then change the color of attached lights to that particular color. I have everything finished except for the email connectivity. I know that there is a built in sendmail function but not a check mail function in matlab. I read about some ways of doing it using java, but i'm not entirely sure how to do that. The email account used will be a web-based gmail account.

thanks.