pop3browser(1)

💖 pop3browser — the manual, bestie edition 💖

okay so welcome to pop3browser(1), the teeniest little manual page in the whole pop3browser cinematic universe 🌈

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✨ NAME ✨

pop3browser — a small perl script to access POP3 mail accounts 🫶

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

pop3browser is a perl script that uses libnet-perl to give you access to POP3 mail accounts without fetching the messages. like, you get to peek behind the curtain without taking the whole curtain home 🎀

so here's the slay: you can use pop3browser to delete unwanted mails (SPAM 💀), especially when they come with huge attachments, before you download them over your sad little low-bandwidth connection. the --limit option of fetchmail is lowkey perfect for filtering out those giant mails, which you can then go inspect with pop3browser. iconique teamwork fr fr ✨

the program supports normal POP3 authentication and APOP. both. she does both. 💅

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🌸 USAGE 🌸

pop3browser greets you with a short copyright note and a command line prompt. the settings for a mailbox (host, password, etc.) have to be specified in a configuration file (similar to fetchmail, iykyk). then pop3browser understands the following commands, bestie:

• hosts — list available hosts specified in .pop3browserrc 👑
• login n — log into host no. n; use hosts to get a list of available hosts
• o(pen) n — same as login
• apop n — same as login but uses APOP
• c(lose) — delete messages marked for deletion and close current connection
• list — list sizes and message numbers of the mails on the account
• s(how) n — show header and some body lines of mail number n
• m(ailbox) — list message number, size, sender and subject for each mail
• d(elete) n — delete mail number n
• undel(ete) n — undelete mail number n
• k(ill) expr — delete mails matching expr in header 🔥
• u(nkill) expr — undelete mails matching expr in header
• q(uit) — delete messages marked for deletion and quit program
• exit — same as quit
• help — print a command summary 🫶

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🎀 CONFIG FILE 🎀

the definitions for a mailbox go in ~/.pop3browserrc. one line per mailbox. lines starting with # are ignored (they're just vibes). each definition must be in the following form:

hostname <tab or space> userid <tab or space> password <tab or space> protocol (optional)

for example:

#definition for bar@pop.foo.com
#pop-server          UID passwd protocol
pop.foo.com          bar s3cr3t apop
#end of definition

recognised options for the protocol are pop3 and apop. if no protocol is specified, the command login/open assumes pop3. the command apop ignores the protocol option (she said what she said 💅).

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🌈 customising the header filter 🌈

to override the default header-filter of the show command, you can specify a custom set of keywords in ~/.pop3browserrc. lines starting with @headpattern or @bodylines are parsed by pop3browser. settings for the header-filter must be in the following form:

@headpattern <tab or space> = <tab or space> "<keyword1>","<keyword2>",....

the filter keywords are matched against the start of a header line. settings for the number of body lines to show have to be in the following form:

@bodylines <tab or space> = <tab or space> <Number>

example, since we love a visual:

@headpatterns = "From:","To:","Subject:","Date:","CC"
@bodylines = 10

the file ~/.pop3browserrc must only be readable for the owning user. pop3browser corrects other file modes automatically. she does not play about your privacy, periodt 🔒✨

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

fetchmail(1)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Christoph Baumann <cgb@debian.org>

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💜 THANKS 💜

• Jorrit 'J"o' Fahlke, for his overhaul of the config file parser 🧚
• Takeshi Hamasaki, for the headpattern patch 🌸

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this one came to you courtesy of the Debian Project, dated Nov. 2003 💖 go forth and delete your spam, mwah 🫶✨