Retrieve POP3 mail without any client

  toucheatout  2006-03-26 21:59  IT  

The only thing that you need is a command-line (works with windozs also). First connect on the pop3 port (happens to be 110) of your incoming mailserver:

telnet my.pop3.server 110


This is then a very simple scheme: Identify yourself, get some info, consult and delete messages.

1. Authenticate, supposing that your login/password is no/good:
   USER no
PASS good

2. Get some info:
   Number of messages and total size:
   STAT
   List messages (outputs message numbers and message sizes):
   LIST
   Should output the headers + Y first lines of message X:
   TOP X Y

3. Read or delete message X (warning, messages with attachement (large sizes above) are displayed in binary form): quite trivially,
   RETR X
   to retrieve and
   DELE X
   to delete. In case of disaster, you may call
   RSET
   to undelete all messages marked for deletion (during current session only!)
4. Quit
   QUIT