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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<!--
docs/COPYING 2a + DRY: https://github.com/getmail6/getmail6
Please refer to the git history regarding who changed what and when in this file.
-->
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml;charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>getmail documentation (version 6)</title>
<meta name="author" content="Charles Cazabon and others" />
<meta name="description" content="Official documentation for getmail6, an extensible mail-retrieval program with support for POP3, IMAP, SDPS, SSL, domain mailboxes, message filtering, and other features." />
<meta name="keywords" content="getmail, getmail 6, getmail6, POP3, IMAP, SSL, domain mailbox, multidrop, fetchmail replacement, message filtering, maildir, mboxrd, MDA" />
<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "getmaildocs.css";</style>
<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "/style/styles.css";</style>
</head>
<body id="top">
<div class="content">
<h1 id="title">getmail documentation</h1>
<p class="introduction">
This is the documentation for getmail version 6,
a port of getmail version 5 to python 3 without adding features.
</p>
<p class="about">
getmail6 is Copyright © 1998-2025 by Charles Cazabon and others:<br>
<charlesc-getmail @ pyropus.ca><br>
<roland.puntaier @ gmail.com>
</p>
<p class="about">
getmail and getmail6 are licensed under the
<a href="COPYING">GNU General Public License version 2</a> (only).
</p>
<h1 id="toc">Table of Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html">getmail documentation</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html#title">getmail documentation</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html#features">Features</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#obtaining">Obtaining getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing">Installing getmail</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-impatient">For the impatient</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-full">Full installation instructions</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-source">Installing directly from the source</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-source-default">Installing in the default location</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-source-altprefix">Installing under an alternate <span class="file">prefix</span> directory</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-source-altdirs">Installing parts of the package to alternate directories</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#install-alt-libdir">Installing the <span class="file">getmailcore</span> package in a non-standard location</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing-binary">Building a binary package from the source</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html">getmail configuration (version 6)</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#configuring">Configuring getmail</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#rcfile">Creating a getmail rc file</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running">Running getmail</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-commandline-options">Commandline options</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-mda">Using getmail as an MDA</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-fetch">Using getmail_fetch to retrieve mail from scripts</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html">getmail troubleshooting</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#troubleshooting">Troubleshooting problems</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#error-messages">Error messages</a></li>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#warning-messages">Warning messages</a></li>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#unexpected-behaviour">Unexpected Behaviour</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="faq.html">getmail frequently-asked questions (FAQs)</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq">Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs)</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-about">About getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-about6">What is getmail6 and how does it relate to getmail?</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-configuring">Configuring getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-how">How do I …</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-integrating">Using getmail with other software</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-notabug">I think I found this bug in getmail …</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="features">Features</h2>
<p>
getmail is a mail retriever designed to allow you to get your mail from one
or more mail accounts on various mail servers to your local machine for
reading with a minimum of fuss. getmail is designed to be secure, flexible,
reliable, and easy-to-use. getmail is designed to replace other mail
retrievers such as fetchmail.
</p>
<p>
getmail includes the following features:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
simple to install, configure, and use
</li>
<li>
retrieve virtually any mail
<ul>
<li>
support for accessing mailboxes with the following protocols:
<ul>
<li>POP3</li>
<li>POP3-over-SSL</li>
<li>IMAP4</li>
<li>IMAP4-over-SSL</li>
<li>SDPS (Demon UK's extensions to POP3)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
support for single-user and domain mailboxes
</li>
<li>
retrieve mail from an unlimited number of mailboxes and servers
</li>
<li>
can remember which mail it has already retrieved, and can be set
to only download new messages
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
support for message filtering, classification, and annotation by
external programs like spam filters and anti-virus programs
</li>
<li>
support for delivering messages to different destinations based on the
message recipient
</li>
<li>
reliability
<ul>
<li>
native safe and reliable delivery support for maildirs and
mboxrd files, in addition to delivery through arbitrary external
message delivery agents (MDAs)
</li>
<li>
does not destroy information by rewriting mail headers
</li>
<li>
does not cause mail loops by doing SMTP injection, and therefore
does not require that you run an MTA (like qmail or sendmail) on
your host
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
written in Python, and therefore easy to extend or customize
<ul>
<li>
a flexible, extensible architecture so that support for new mail
access protocols, message filtering operations, or destination
types can be easily added
</li>
<li>
cross-platform operation; getmail 6 should work on Unix/Linux,
Macintosh, and other platforms. Windows support available
under the free <a href="http://cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a> package.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
winner of various software awards, including DaveCentral's "Best of
Linux"
</li>
</ul>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="requirements">Requirements</h2>
<p>
getmail version 6 requires
<a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a> version 3.7 or later.
If you have only an earlier version of Python available, you can
install the latest version without disturbing your current
version, or
use <a href="http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/">getmail version
5.* from the original getmail author</a>.
</p>
<p>
getmail 6 requires that servers uniquely identify the messages
they provide (via the
<span class="file">UIDL</span>
command) to getmail for full functionality. Certain very old or broken
POP3 servers may not be capable of this or may not implement
the
<span class="file">UIDL</span>
command at all, and limited support is available for such servers via the
<span class="file">BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever</span>
and
<span class="file">BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever</span>
retriever classes.
</p>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="obtaining">Obtaining getmail</h2>
<p>
Download getmail 6 from the official website main page at
<a href="http://getmail6.org">http://getmail6.org/</a>
.
</p>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="installing">Installing getmail</h2>
<h3 id="installing-impatient">For the impatient</h3>
<p>
Installing getmail is very easy:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# sudo pip install getmail6
</pre>
<p>or</p>
<pre class="example">
# pip install --user getmail6
</pre>
<p>
To uninstalling do
</p>
<pre class="example">
# sudo pip uninstall getmail6
</pre>
<p>or</p>
<pre class="example">
# pip uninstall getmail6
</pre>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Alternatively download the tarball distribution,
unpack it, change into the directory
it unpacks into, and run this command:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# python setup.py install
</pre>
<p>
That's all there is to it. 99.9% of users don't need a special
package/port/etc.
If you'd like more details on install options, keep reading.
</p>
<h3 id="installing-full">Full installation instructions</h3>
<p>
Once you have downloaded or otherwise obtained getmail, unpack it.
On GNU-ish Unix-like systems, this means:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# tar xzf getmail-<span class="meta">version</span>.tar.gz
</pre>
<p>
On Macintosh systems, use a Zip-type archiver program to unpack
the tarball.
</p>
<p>
On SystemV-like Unix systems, you may instead need to break this down
into two steps:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# gunzip getmail-<span class="meta">version</span>.tar.gz
# tar xf getmail-<span class="meta">version</span>.tar
</pre>
<p>
Then, change into the extracted getmail directory and start the build process.
The easiest installation method is to use the included
<span class="file">setup.py</span>
to build and install getmail directly.
</p>
<h3 id="installing-source">Installing directly from the source</h3>
<p>
To build and install directly from the included source, follow these
steps.
</p>
<pre class="example">
# cd getmail-<span class="meta">version</span>
# python setup.py build
</pre>
<p>
When that completes in a few seconds, become root and then install the
software. You can install in the default location, or specify an alternate
location to install the software, or specify alternate directories for
only part of the package.
</p>
<h4 id="installing-source-default">Installing in the default location</h4>
<p>
To install in the default location, become user root and install with
the following commands:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# su
<span class="meta">enter root password</span>
# python setup.py install
</pre>
<p>
This will, by default, install files into subdirectories under the directory
<span class="meta">prefix</span>,
which is the directory that your Python installation was configured to
install under (typically
<span class="file">/usr/local/</span>
or
<span class="file">/usr/</span>,
but other values are sometimes used):
</p>
<ul>
<li>
the scripts
<span class="file">getmail</span>,
<span class="file">getmails</span>,
<span class="file">getmail_fetch</span>,
<span class="file">getmail_maildir</span>,
and
<span class="file">getmail_mbox</span>
will be installed under
<span class="file"><span class="meta">prefix</span>/bin/</span>
</li>
<li>
the Python package
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
(which implements all the protocol–, filter–, and
destination-specific code for getmail, plus various other bits) will be
installed under the site-specific packages directory of your Python
library directory. This directory is
<span class="file"><span class="meta">prefix</span>/lib/python-<span class="meta">python-version</span>/site-packages/</span>.
</li>
<li>
The documentation directory
<span class="file">getmail-<span class="meta">getmail-version</span></span>
will be installed under
<span class="file"><span class="meta">prefix</span>/doc/</span>
</li>
<li>
The manual pages for the four scripts will be installed under
<span class="file"><span class="meta">prefix</span>/man/</span>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
You can see a list of the default installation locations by running:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# python setup.py --show-default-install-dirs
</pre>
<h4 id="installing-source-altprefix">Installing under an alternate <span class="file">prefix</span> directory</h4>
<p>
You can specify an alternate
<span class="meta">prefix</span>
directory by supplying the
<span class="file">--prefix</span>
option to the install command, like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# python setup.py install --prefix=<span class="meta">path</span>
</pre>
<p>
This will install the various parts of the package in subdirectories like in
the default installation (see the section
<a href="#installing-source-default">Installing in the default location</a>
above), but under your specified
<span class="file">prefix</span>
directory. These alternate installations allow you to install the software
without root privileges (say, by installing under
<span class="file">$HOME/</span>).
Note, however, that the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
package will not be in the default Python module search path if you do
this; see the section
<a href="#install-alt-libdir">Installing the <span class="file">getmailcore</span> package in a non-standard location</a>
if you use this option.
</p>
<h4 id="installing-source-altdirs">Installing parts of the package to alternate directories</h4>
<p>
If you only want to change the directory for some of the components, use
the following options:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<span class="file">--install-lib=<span class="meta">path</span></span>
specifies the directory the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
package is installed under (i.e., it will be installed as
<span class="file"><span class="meta">path</span>/getmailcore</span>
). See the section
<a href="#install-alt-libdir">Installing the <span class="file">getmailcore</span> package in a non-standard location</a>
if you use this option.
</li>
<li>
<span class="file">--install-scripts=<span class="meta">path</span></span>
specifies the directory the four scripts are installed under (i.e.,
they will be installed directly in
<span class="file"><span class="meta">path</span>/</span>
).
</li>
<li>
<span class="file">--install-data=<span class="meta">path</span></span>
specifies the directory the documentation is installed under (i.e., the
HTML and plaintext documentation will be installed in the directory
<span class="file"><span class="meta">path</span>/doc/getmail-<span class="meta">getmail-version</span>/</span>,
and the man(1) pages will be installed in
<span class="file"><span class="meta">path</span>/man/man1/</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
For example, if your Python installation is located under
<span class="file">/usr/</span>
because it was installed as part of your OS, but you would like the getmail
scripts installed into
<span class="file">/usr/local/bin/</span>
instead of
<span class="file">/usr/bin/</span>,
while still letting the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
package be installed under
<span class="file">/usr/lib/python-<span class="meta">python-version</span>/site-packages/</span>,
and the documentation and man pages under
<span class="file">/usr/doc/</span>
and
<span class="file">/usr/man/</span>
you could use this command to install:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# python setup.py --install-scripts=/usr/local/bin/
</pre>
<p>
If you also wanted to locate the documentation and man pages under
<span class="file">/usr/local/</span>
but still install the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
package in the default
<span class="file">/usr/lib/python-<span class="meta">python-version</span>/site-packages/</span>,
you would instead use this command to install:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# python setup.py --install-scripts=/usr/local/bin/ --install-data=/usr/local/
</pre>
<h3 class="warning" id="install-alt-libdir">Installing the <span class="file">getmailcore</span> package in a non-standard location</h3>
<p>
Note: if you use one of the above methods to install the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
package into a directory other than the default, the four scripts
(<span class="file">getmail</span>,
<span class="file">getmails</span>,
<span class="file">getmail_fetch</span>,
<span class="file">getmail_maildir</span>,
and
<span class="file">getmail_mbox</span>)
will almost certainly be unable to locate the required files from the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
package, because they will not be in a directory in the standard Python
module search path. You will need to do one of the following to make those
files available to the scripts:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>
set the environment variable
<span class="file">PYTHONPATH</span>
to tell Python where to find the appropriate modules. See the
<a href="http://docs.python.org/tut/node8.html#SECTION008110000000000000000">
documentation at the Python.org website
</a>
for details.
</p>
<p>
For example, if the directory getmailcore ends up living in
$HOME/tmp/getmail/lib/python3.8/site-packages/getmailcore ,
then in the shell do:
</p>
<pre class="example">
# export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/tmp/getmail/lib/python3.8/site-packages .
</pre>
<p class="warning">
Note that setting
<span class="file">PYTHONPATH</span>
in
<span class="file">$HOME/.profile</span>
(or equivalent) is
<strong>not</strong>
sufficient -- for instance,
<span class="file">cron</span>
runs jobs in a simpler environment, ignoring
<span class="file">$HOME/.profile</span>,
and getmail would therefore fail when run as a user cron job.
It is
<strong>strongly recommended</strong>
that you install the Python library files in the
<span class="file">site-packages</span>
directory which Python provides for exactly this reason.
</p>
</li>
<li>
modify the scripts to explicitly tell Python where you've installed
them. Insert a line like this:
<pre class="example">
sys.path.append('/path/to/installation-directory')
</pre>
containing the path to the directory you installed the
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
directory in, somewhere below the line which reads
<pre class="example">
import sys
</pre>
and before the first line which references
<span class="file">getmailcore</span>
.
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="installing-binary">Building a binary package from the source</h3>
<p>
To build a binary package from the included source, run the following
command from inside the unpacked getmail source.
</p>
<pre class="example">
# cd getmail-<span class="meta">version</span>
# python setup.py bdist --format=<span class="meta">package-format</span>
</pre>
<p>
The useful allowed values for <span class="meta">package-format</span> are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<span class="file">rpm</span>
— build a
<span class="file">.noarch.rpm</span>
file which can then be installed with the
<span class="file">rpm</span>
package manager.
</li>
<li>
<span class="file">pkgtool</span>
— build a package for the Sun Solaris
<span class="file">pkgtool</span>
package manager.
</li>
<li>
<span class="file">sdux</span>
— build a package for the HP/UX
<span class="file">swinstall</span>
software installer.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Ideally, if you use this method, it will result in a "built
distribution" binary package in a subdirectory named
<span class="file">dist</span>
which can then be installed using the appropriate system-specific tool.
If you have problems with this process, please do not ask me for assistance;
ask your OS vendor or
<a href="news:comp.lang.python">the comp.lang.python newsgroup</a>.
The install-directory-from-source process above is the only one I can
support, and it should work on all platforms.
</p>
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