Checking pop mail account using terminal

Question

Is there any command in unix to check a pop3 account using terminal? I mean, type the server/username/password of a pop3 account and see if the username/password is correct?

Answer 1

You can use telnet to connect to the mail server and talk POP3 to check your credentials:

$ telnet pop.gmx.net 110
Trying 212.227.17.185...
Connected to pop.gmx.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK POP server ready H migmx028 0MAbjW-1YwF4D0ml8-00BiVl
USER [email protected]
+OK password required for user "[email protected]"
PASS typeyourpassword
-ERR Error retrieving your GMX emails. Your connection is not encrypted. Enable SSL in your mail program. Instructions: https://ssl.gmx.net
Connection closed by foreign host.

Well, this failed because most mail server require a SSL/TLS encrypted session nowadays. So instead of using telnet you can use socat:

$ socat - OPENSSL:pop.gmx.net:995
+OK POP server ready H migmx113 0MC062-1Yzese0KO7-00AVNE
USER [email protected]
+OK password required for user "[email protected]"
PASS typeyourpassword
+OK mailbox "[email protected]" has 13518 messages (191718918 octets) H migmx113

If you type a wrong password, the server will probably say something like:

-ERR authentication failed

Or instead of socat you probably have openssl laying around:

$ openssl s_client -quiet -connect pop.gmx.net:995
depth=2 C = DE, O = Deutsche Telekom AG, OU = T-TeleSec Trust Center, CN = Deutsche Telekom Root CA 2
verify error:num=19:self signed certificate in certificate chain
verify return:0
+OK POP server ready H migmx108 0MWpjO-1YiwnK3ZfP-00XoK

Answer 2

If you want to check your pop3 mail accounts then take a look at the following terminal mail clients:

1. pine
2. alpine
3. mutt

There are many more, but those are the most popular ones that I know of.

Answer 3

I suggest mutt. Why?Because support tls and even kerberos for single sign on If use single sign on put on .muttrc

set imap_authenticators="gssapi"