getmails(1)

💌 getmails — the manual, but make it make sense

okay bestie, so this is getmails(1) from the User Commands section, and it's literally the little wrapper script that lets you run multiple mailboxes at once instead of living that single-~/.getmailrc life. let's get into it 🫶

---

✨ NAME ✨

getmails — a wrapper for getmail so you can access multiple mailboxes, periodt.

---

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

getmails [-p] [OPTION] ...

---

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so getmails is a wrapper script for getmail, and what it does is retrieve messages using multiple independent configuration files — it looks in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/*, or for backward compatibility it'll look at ~/.getmail/config/* instead. either way, it's not out here relying on one single ~/.getmailrc file like it's 2009. no cap. 💅

the configuration file name can be literally any arbitrary name you want. it's a good idea to use the corresponding email address as the name though, since that's the most intuitive choice — like, duh. for example:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/foo@example.org

to disable operation for an email account temporarily, just rename its configuration file to the hidden version, like this:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/.foo@example.org

and boom, it gets ignored as a configuration file. iconic. 🦋

and for the robust operation girlies, the editor-generated files are also ignored as configuration files, so your editor's messy leftovers won't trip anything up:

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/foo~
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/#foo#
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/foo.swp
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/foo.bak

when there are multiple email configuration files, getmails retrieves mails sequentially — one after the other, patient queen. but if you add the optional option -p before your other options, getmails will invoke getmail with each configuration file in parallel to retrieve mails. multitasking main character energy, honestly. 🔥

the option you provide as OPTION is passed to getmail as is. but bestie, the use of the -r option is not a good idea. i said what i said. 💀

⚠️ heads up: the existence of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/getmail/stop can prevent this wrapper script from executing getmail. so if things are mysteriously not running… check for that file. 🙈

---

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

found a bug? report it to <https://github.com/getmail6/getmail6/issues> — go off, they wanna hear it. 🫶

---

👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright 2011-2017 Osamu Aoki Copyright 2026 Roland Puntaier

this is free software; see the file COPYING for copying conditions.

🌸 There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. fr fr, none, zero, nada.

---

that's the whole vibe, bestie — getmails from getmail6, dated 2026, and that's the page. go get those mails. 💖✨🎀🦋