What is the best server to use with fetchmail?
The short answer: IMAP 2000 running over Unix. Here’s a longer answer: Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR server that conforms to the relevant RFCs (and even some outright broken ones like Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise). This doesn’t mean it works equally well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers without LAST, limit fetchmail’s capabilities in various ways described on the manual page. Most modern Unixes (and effectively all Linux/*BSD systems) come with POP3 support preconfigured (but beware of the horribly broken POP3 server mentioned in D2). An increasing minority also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by running fetchmail in AUTO mode, or by using the `Probe for supported protocols’ function in the fetchmailconf utility). If you have the option, we recommend using or installing an IMAP4rev1 server; it has the best facilities for tracking message `seen’ states. It also recovers from interrupted connections more gracefully than POP3,
Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, or ESMTP/ETRN server that conforms to the relevant RFCs (and even some oughtright broken ones like Microsoft Exchange). This doesn’t mean it works equally well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers without LAST, limit fetchmail’s capabilities in various ways described on the manual page. Most modern Unixes (and effectively all Linux/*BSD systems) come with POP3 support preconfigured (but beware of the horribly broken POP3 server mentioned in D2). An increasing minority also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by running fetchmail in AUTO mode). If you have the option, we recommend using or installing IMAP4; it has the best facilities for tracking message “seen” states. It also recovers from interrupted connections more gracefully than POP3, and enables some significant performance optimizations. You can find sources for IMAP software at The IMAP Connection; we like the freeware UW IMAP and Cyrus products. UW IMAP is the referenc
Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR server that conforms to the relevant standards/RFCs (and even some outright broken ones like Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise). This doesn’t mean it works equally well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers without UIDL, limit fetchmail’s capabilities in various ways described on the manual page. Most modern Unixes (and effectively all Linux/*BSD systems) come with POP3 support preconfigured (but beware of the horribly broken POP3 server mentioned in D2). An increasing minority also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by using the ‘Probe for supported protocols’ function in the fetchmailconf utility – unfortunately it does not detect SSL-wrapped variants). If you have the option, we recommend using or installing an IMAP4rev1 or UIDL- and TOP-capable POP3 server. IMAP enables some significant performance optimizations. Don’t be fooled by NT/Exchange propaganda. M$ Exchange is just plain broken (see item S2) an
