Welcome to getmail 6!

Welcome to getmail 6, a mail retriever with support for POP3, POP3-over-SSL, IMAP4, IMAP4-over-SSL, and SDPS mail accounts. It supports normal single-user mail accounts and multidrop (domain) mailboxes. getmail is written in Python, and licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.

Getmail 6 is a fork of getmail v5.14 by Charles Cazabon with adaptations to work with Python 3 and newer. Getmail 6 is not supported nor sanctioned by getmail’s original author. Support for getmail 6 can be found on this website and by opening issues on our GitHub repository.

The latest release is available for download here.

getmail documentation

This is the documentation for getmail version 6.

getmail is Copyright © 1998-2019 by Charles Cazabon <charlesc-getmail @ pyropus.ca>
and © 2020-2021 by Roland Puntaier <roland.puntaier @ gmail.com>

Table of Contents

• getmail documentation (version 6)
• • getmail documentation
  • • Features
    • Requirements
    • Obtaining getmail
    • Installing getmail
    • • For the impatient
      • Full installation instructions
      • Installing directly from the source
      • • Installing in the default location
        • Installing under an alternate prefix directory
        • Installing parts of the package to alternate directories
      • Installing the getmailcore package in a non-standard location
      • Building a binary package from the source
• getmail configuration (version 6)
• • Configuring getmail
  • • Creating a getmail rc file
  • Running getmail
  • • Commandline options
    • Using getmail as an MDA
    • Using getmail_fetch to retrieve mail from scripts
• getmail troubleshooting (version 6)
• • Troubleshooting problems
  • • Error messages
    • Warning messages
    • Unexpected Behaviour
• getmail frequently-asked questions (FAQs) (version 6)
• • Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs)
  • • About getmail
    • What is getmail6 and how does it relate to getmail?
    • Configuring getmail
    • How do I …
    • Using getmail with other software
    • I think I found this bug in getmail …