Fetchmail

Fetchmail is a command that allows you to fetch mail from a mail account onto your computer. It is useful when setting up a mail server.

Install it

To install fetchmail, find out your distribution and proceed accordingly

SUSE Linux 12.1 x64

To install fetchmail under SUSE Linux 12.1 x64, open a console as root and enter

killall packagekitd
yast -i fetchmail

Use it

fetchmail -p pop3 -u 131313 -v pop.gmx.net

Asks for a password and fetches the mail of user 131313 from the pop3 server pop.gmx.net.

Schedule it

To schedule fetchmail, e.g. to fetch your mail all 5 minutes, use cron. To make sure fetchmail knows your password, create a file in your home folder named .fetchmailrc like this:

poll your.provider.org
  user "yourusername"
  pass "yourpassword"

See also

• fetchmail's man page