fetchmail – remote-mail retrieval and forwarding utility

Last Updated on July 10, 2021

fetchmail is an open-source software utility which is used to retrieve e-mail from a remote POP3, IMAP, ETRN or ODMR mail server to the user’s local system.

The fetchmail program can gather mail from servers supporting any of the common mail-retrieval protocols: POP2 (legacy, to be removed from future release), POP3, IMAP2bis, IMAP4, and IMAP4rev1.

It can also use the ESMTP ETRN extension and ODMR. It was developed from the popclient program, written by Carl Harris.

Features include:

• Support for POP3, POP2, APOP, RPOP, IMAP2, IMAP2bis, IMAP3, IMAP4, IMAP4rev1.
• Kerberos V and GSSAPI are supported.
• Easy control via command line or free-format run control file.
• Support for Kerberos V4 user authentication (either MIT or Cygnus).
• RPOP support.
• Support for IMAP RFC 1731 authentication with Kerberos v4.
• Support for IPv6.

Website: www.fetchmail.info
Support: Manual
Developer: Eric S. Raymond
License: GNU GPL v2

fetchmail is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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