getmail Documentation

This is the formal documentation for getmail. If your question is not answered here or in the Frequently Asked Questions, please subscribe to the mailing list.

About this document

The official location of this document is http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/getmail-3.0/docs.html. For easy navigation, all headings in the HTML version of this document are links to their parent heading.

Table of Contents

1. Installing getmail
2. Configuring getmail
   • Configuration file
   • POP3 account types
     • Regular POP3 mailboxes
     • POP3 domain mailboxes
   • Message delivery targets
3. getmailrc directives
4. Running getmail
5. Commandline options

Installing getmail

Follow these steps to install getmail:

1. Download getmail.
2. Unpack the tarball.

   tar xzf getmail-version.tar.gz

3. Copy the contents to a suitable location:

   mkdir /usr/lib/getmail
   cp -a getmail-version/* /usr/lib/getmail/
   			

   You can install getmail in your home directory or elsewhere if you prefer. If you use a directory other than /usr/lib/getmail/, change the definition of GETMAILPATH in the getmail wrapper script or ensure the directory you choose is in your PYTHONPATH environment variable.
4. Copy the getmail helper script to a location in your PATH, and ensure it is executable:

   cp -a getmail-version/getmail /usr/bin/
   chmod 755 /usr/bin/getmail

Configuring getmail

1. Create a getmail configuration/data directory in your home directory:

   mkdir ~/.getmail

   You can use another path or directory name, but getmail assumes this name by default. If you choose something different, you will need to specify its name on the getmail command line with the --getmaildir option.
2. Create a configuration file named getmailrc in the directory you created in step 1 above (see the section Configuration file below for details). You can use another file name or path, but getmail assumes this name by default. If you choose something different, you will need to specify its name on the getmail command line with the --rcfile option.

Configuration file

A getmail configuration file (typically named getmailrc, and located in $HOME/.getmail/) looks similar to an MS-Windows .INI file. For security reasons, your getmailrc file must not be group- or world-writable. getmail will refuse to run if it finds your getmailrc file is writable by others.

The file is broken into sections. Each section starts with an arbitrary label surrounded by square brackets:

[section name]

A section then contains one or more lines in name = value format. Values containing whitespace must be surrounded with single- or double-quotes. The pound sign (#) introduces a comment, which continues until the end of the line.

foo = 42
bar = "string value containing spaces"
baz = ""           # This is a comment; baz is an empty value

To include a pound sign in an option value, quote it. Percent signs (%) must be doubled; for example, if you want to specify a password of foo%bar, use the following:

password = foo%%bar

The special section [default] must be the first section in the file; it supplies default values for options in other sections. For example, to set the option verbose to 1 for all following sections, you could put it in the [default] section:

[default]
verbose = 1

[my home account]
username = foobar
password = "my password"
…

[my work account]
username = foobar
password = "my password"
…

getmail ignores whitespace surrounding the = sign. The following lines are equivalent:

account = joe.bloggs
account=joe.bloggs
account=   joe.bloggs

Option values containing single or double quote characters can be quoted with the other character:

password = "this is a more 'secure' password"

To un-set an option taking a string value, set it to the empty string:

message_log = ""         # Previously set to /var/log/getmail; turn it off for this account

Other sections in a getmail configuration file represent POP3 accounts to retrieve mail from, one per account. The section name is unimportant, but must be unique. An example account section might look like this:

[Home ISP account]
server = mailhost.isp.tld
username = brenda.bjorn
password = "my mail password"
postmaster = ~brendab/Maildir/  # Deliver all mail to the Maildir in my home directory

When getmail tries to determine the value of an option, it looks at the following, in order, until it finds a match:

1. Options specified on the command line
2. Options specified in an account section of the getmail configuration file
3. Options specified in the [default] section of the getmail configuration file
4. getmail's built-in default value

POP3 Account types

There are two different types of POP3 email accounts:

• regular mailboxes
• domain mailboxes

Regular mailbox

This is a typical POP3 mailbox provided by an ISP for a single user. It receives mail addressed to a single user (say, shannon.fotheringham@aqua.myisp.tld). For this type of account, the minimum configuration would be something like this:

[My Aqua Account]
server = mailhost.aqua.myisp.tld
username = shannon.fotheringham
postmaster = ~shannonf/Maildir/

This postmaster directive tells getmail to deliver all mail to Shannon's Maildir. Since a password was not configured, getmail will prompt the user for it when run.

Domain mailbox

This type of POP3 account is typically provided by an ISP to a small company or organization. It receives mail addressed to any user in a given domain. For example, mail to info@smallcompany.tld, tgrieg@smallcompany.tld, and sales@smallcompany.tld all ends up in the same POP3 domain mailbox.

getmail includes features to enable retrieval of mail from this type of account, filter it according to who the mail was addressed to, and deliver it to different destinations. A minimal configuration with this type of setup would be something like this:

[Company domain mailbox]
server = mailhost.largeisp.tld
username = small.company
password = RRt49slP32m
envelope_recipient = delivered-to:1
postmaster = ~tgrieg/Mail/postmaster-maildir/
local = tgrieg@smallcompany.tld,~tgrieg/Mail/personal-maildir/
local = info@smallcompany.tld,~bobf/Maildir/
local = sales@smallcompany.tld,~darlab/Maildir/

The local directives tell getmail to deliver mail for those users to their various mail spools on the system, and the postmaster directive tells getmail to deliver any mail which doesn't match any of the local directives somewhere else.

To make getmail sort mail (with local directives like the above) based on the envelope recipient address, you must either enable the use_*env option (if your mailhost supports it) or use the envelope_recipient directive.

Message Delivery Targets

In a getmailrc file, postmaster and local directives contain message delivery targets, which instruct getmail to delivery messages in a particular manner. A message delivery target may be a qmail-style Maildir or an arbitrary command (such as an external Message Delivery Agent or MDA).

For command deliveries, getmail provides the following environment variables.

• SENDER contains the envelope sender address as extracted from the Return-Path: header field or *ENV results.
• RECIPIENT contains the envelope recipient address as extracted from the user-configured envelope_recipient header field or *ENV results.
• EXT contains the extension portion of RECIPIENT calculated with the user-supplied values of extension_sep and extension_depth directives. This is primarily useful for external MDAs such as TMDA.

Note the following restrictions:

• getmail refuses to run external commands when running as root.
• If an external command writes to stderr, getmail will consider the delivery a failure. If you know your MDA can write to stderr on a successful delivery, either supply a --quiet option to the MDA (if it supports such), or throw away or redirect stderr in one of the following manners:

  postmaster = "|/path/to/mda [options] 2>/dev/null"
  postmaster = "|/path/to/mda [options] 2>&1"
  

  This will, of course, also work with delivery targets in local directives.
• getmail will not create Maildirs if they do not exist. You must create them prior to having getmail deliver mail to them. Use maildirmake to create empty Maildirs.
• getmail requires write access to any Maildir you wish to deliver mail to. This can be done my making the Maildirs group-writable by the group you run getmail under, for example. There are other ways as well.

Leading tilde characters (~) on paths will be expanded -- i.e. ~jason/Maildir/ likely becomes /home/jason/Maildir/ on most systems.

getmailrc Directives

getmail understands the following getmailrc directives:

POP3 Server Configuration

The following directives are used to configure which POP3 servers getmail will retrieve mail from.

POP3 Server Hostname

POP3 TCP Port

POP3 TCP timeout

timeoutsocket.py Copyright 2000,2001 by Timothy O'Malley <timo@alum.mit.edu>

All Rights Reserved

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software
and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby
granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all
copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission
notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of
Timothy O'Malley  not be used in advertising or publicity
pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written
prior permission.

Timothy O'Malley DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS
SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL Timothy O'Malley BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS
ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

POP3 Account Configuration

The following directives are used to configure which POP3 accounts getmail will retrieve mail from.

POP3 account username

POP3 account password

POP3 APOP authentication

Message Formatting

The following directives are specified in any getmailrc section, and are used to configure how getmail will format messages that it retrieves.

Delivered-To: header field suppression

Received: header field suppression

Message Delivery Targets

The following directives are specified in any getmailrc section, and are used to configure where getmail will deliver retrieved messages. Also see the section on message delivery targets.

Default delivery target

Header field pattern matching delivery target

Recipient header field specification

SPDS *ENV POP3 Extension

User address extension separator character

User address extension base length/depth

Message Retrieval

The following directives are specified in any getmailrc section, and are used to configure how getmail will retrieve messages.

Retrieve new messages / retrieve all messages

Maximum message size to retrieve

Maximum message size to retrieve

Delete messages from server after retrieval

Delete messages X days after retrieval

getmail Behaviour

The following directives are specified in any getmailrc section, and are used to control other aspects of getmail's behaviour.

Verbosity

Message Logging

Running getmail

Run the getmail helper script you installed earlier:

getmail

By default, getmail will read in the default getmailrc file ($HOME/.getmail/getmailrc) and begin retrieving mail.

You can also supply commandline options. For a brief summary of usage and commandline options, run:

getmail --help

getmail Commandline Options

getmail understands the following commandline options:

--help or -h

--getmaildir or -g

--rcfile or -r

--quiet or -q

--verbose or -v

--message-log

--all or -a

--new or -n

--delete or -d

--dont-delete or -l

--timeout or -t

--trace

--dump