Popme README file for version 0.07 Popme is based on the pop3 mini client written by anonymous. The current version is (c) 1997, 2000 by Robin A. Goodfellow. All rights reserved. USER COMMANDS POPME(1) NAME popme - simple mail client for post office protocol version 3 SYNOPSIS popme --server SERV --user USER --passwd PWD [options] ... The options are: `--port' or `-P', `--check' or `-c', `--delete' or `-D', `--debug' or `-d', `--help' or `-h', `--output FILE' or `-o FILE', `--verbose' or `-v', `--version' or `-V', `--warranty' or `-W'. DESCRIPTION Popme is a simple mail client for post office protocol ver- sion 3 mail servers. It lets you specify your POP3 server, your POP3 account name, and your POP3 password to download your email messages. The mail can be left on the server, or maye be deleted whatever you choose. You can retrieve the full contents of all messages or only the top N lines. (CAVEAT: If you decide to download only the top N lines remember NOT to delete the messages; otherwise they're gone.) You may also alter the IP port used to connect to the POP3 server; in cases you use a "hidden" POP3 server or have to circumvent a firewall, or must use a proxy. You can also turn on the debugging and verbose options for educa- tional purposes and see what popme is doing and how the POP3 protocol works. You can also only check if there is still mail waiting for you. OPTIONS popme recognizes the following options: -s, --server SERV to set the POP3 server SERV. -u, --user ID to set the POP3 user ID. -p, --passwd PWD to set the POP3 password PWD. -P, --port PORT to set the POP3 server port. Default is port 110, per RFC. -c, --check to check only if mail is waiting for you. Default is to retrieve all mail. -D, --delete to delete mail from server. Default is to keep mail. Version 0.07 Last change: January 2000 1 USER COMMANDS POPME(1) -T, --top LINES to get only the top LINES of mail. -d, --debug to print debugging information, which may help you understand how POP3 works. -h, --help to print this information. -o, --output FILE to specify the output FILE. If you do not specify an output file, the program writes to stdout. If FILE already exists, new fish is appended. -v, --verbose to print information about what is being done. -V, --version to print version and COPYRIGHT information. -W, --warranty to print WARRANTY information. SEE ALSO elm(1), eudora(1), fetchmail(1), nmh(1), mh(1), netscape(1), pine(1), zmail(1). EXAMPLES Show me my email: example% popme --server pop3.earthling.net --user rag --passwd foobar Show me my email and delete it from the server: example% popme -s pop3.earthling.net -u rag -p foobar -D Save my email in file "mbox" deleting it from the server: example% popme -s pop3.earthling.net -u rag -p foobar -D -o mbox messages: Show me the top 5 lines (envelope headers excluded) of my email example% popme -s pop3.earthling.net -u rag -p foobar -T 5 port for POP3 delivery: Save my email in file "mbox" from a server using a non- standard example% popme -s pop3.earthling.net -u rag -p foobar -P 10110 -o mbox Version 0.07 Last change: January 2000 2 USER COMMANDS POPME(1) In cases when there is no email waiting for you popme will prompt you with: popme: Sorry, no fish. However, you can also use the --check, -c option of popme which will get you either the message above, or a ringing of the margin bell plus this: popme: There's fish waiting for you. After you've sucessfully saved your email to an "mbox" file, you can process that file using your favourite mailreader, like elm(1), pine(1), nmh(1), or mh(1). To process your email stored in "mbox" using elm(1), you'd type: example% elm -f mbox folders If you want to sort mail from "mbox" into your personal mail using mh(1)'s slocal command, you could use a shell script similar to this: #!/bin/sh # # get mail from pop3 server # popme -s pop3.earthling.net -u rag -p foobar -o mbox # # sort mail according to "~/.maildelivery" # /usr/local/nmh/lib/slocal -mailbox mbox \ -maildelivery /home/rag/.maildelivery \ -user rag # exit 0 CAVEAT: Please install nmh(1) on your system, which supersedes the old UCB mh(1) system, which in turn has superseded the old RAND system and remember to adjust the paths in the ".maildelivery" to the correct version of rcvstore(1). BUGS Surely you're joking, kid? Well, popme is in every sense a minimal POP3 client, if you want a full featured POP2, POP3, APOP, IMAP4 & friends client, you should get Eric S. Raymond & friend's fetchmail (1). It is available on the web via its homepage http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail (yeah, these days even programs have their own homepages, or at least Version 0.07 Last change: January 2000 3 USER COMMANDS POPME(1) their own ORG domain, i.e. http://www.sendmail.org; yes friends, the net ain't what it used to be...) or via anony- mous FTP ftp://ftp.ccil.org/pub/esr/fetchmail AVAILABILITY Popme has been posted to USENET's alt.sources and is conse- quently available from your local netnews archive. As of version 0.07 popme is available on the web at http://gnu.de.uu.net/popme/ which is virtually the same as http://surf.de.uu.net/gnuland/popme/ AUTHOR Popme is based on the pop3 mini client that comes bundled with its sources in the "orig" folder, that I picked up some years ago on an anonymous FTP server. Unfortunately the author did not leave his name on the sources, so I cannot give him appropriate credit--sorry for that! The current version of popme is copyright (c) 1997, 2000 Robin A. Good- fellow. All rights reserved. Send bugs, comments, and all the usual fish to rag@earthling.net WARRANTY This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later ver- sion. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be use- ful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied war- ranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR- POSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place--Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. 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