1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
2 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
3 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
4 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
6 <title>Fetchmail Feature List</title>
7 <link rev="made" href="mailto:esr@snark.thyrsus.com" />
8 <meta name="description" content="The fetchmail brag sheet." />
9 <meta name="keywords" content="fetchmail, POP, POP3, IMAP, IMAP2bis, IMAP4" />
10 <style type="text/css">
12 h1.c1 {text-align: center}
17 <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" summary="Canned page header">
19 <td width="30%">Back to <a href="index.html">Fetchmail Home Page</a></td>
20 <td width="30%" align="right">$Date$</td>
25 <h1 class="c1">Fetchmail Feature List</h1>
29 <li>Removes support for obsolete POP2, POP3/RPOP, POP3 LAST, Kerberos IV.</li>
35 <li>STARTTLS is supported in both POP and IMAP.</li>
37 <li>ESMTP AUTH (RFC 2554) is supported.</li>
39 <li>Has the capability of adding trace information to the Received
40 header to faciliate mail filtering by mailserver and remote
43 <li>Fetchmail now has options to handle SSL certificate
46 <li>Fetchmail can be told to fall back to delivering via local
47 sendmail if it can't open port 25.</li>
49 <li>Support for AUTH=CRAM-MD5 under POP3, a la RFC2195.</li>
51 <li>Support for ODMR (On-Demand Mail Relay), RFC 2645.</li>
53 <li>It's now easy to deliver mail to a local LMTP socket.</li>
55 <li>The interface option now checks both local and remote interface
58 <li>The plugin facility has been enhanced; %h and %p options are
59 now available to pass in the hostname and service port number.</li>
61 <li>Added a dropdelivered option to discard Delivered-To headers.
62 This addresses a problem with using fetchmail and postfix as a
63 relay inside a domain; when postfix sees incoming messages with
64 delivered-to headers looking exactly the same as the ones it adds
65 himself, it bounces the message.</li>
67 <li>Added --smtpname to set username and domain portion of SMTP
68 "RCPT TO" command. <fetchmail@mail.julianhaight.com>.</li>
70 <li>Added "from" server's IP address to inserted Received line
71 <fetchmail@mail.julianhaight.com>.</li>
73 <li>Fetchmail now runs on BeOS, thanks to David Reid
74 <david@jetnet.co.uk>.</li>
76 <li>In IMAP, unseen-message counting and indexing is now done by
77 SEARCH UNSEEN at the beginning of each poll or re-poll (rather than
78 with the UNSEEN and RECENT responses and FLAGS queries on
79 individual messages). This significantly cuts down on traffic to
80 and from the server, and gives more reliable results.</li>
82 <li>The aka option now matches hostname suffixes, so (for example)
83 saying `aka netaxs.com' will match not just netaxs.com but also
84 (say) pop3.netaxs.com and mail.netaxs.com.</li>
86 <li>Fetchmail can optionally use the RFC 2177 IDLE extension on an
87 IMAP server that supports it. On IMAP servers that don't, it can
88 simulate it using periodic NOOP commands.</li>
90 <li>Fetchmail now recognizes the RFC 2449 extended responses
91 [IN-USE] and [LOGIN-DELAY].</li>
93 <li>Fetchmail running in daemon mode now restarts itself quietly
94 when the rc file is touched.</li>
96 <li>Following recent court decisions and changes in U.S. federal
97 regulatory policy, hooks for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) are now
98 part of the main fetchmail distribution. The distribution still
99 contains no actual cryptographic code.</li>
101 <li>NTLM support under IMAP, so fetchmail can query Microsoft
102 Exchange servers.</li>
104 <li>Expunge option can now be used to break POP3 retrieval into
107 <li>Support for AUTH=CRAM-MD5 under IMAP, a la RFC2195.</li>
113 <li>The interface and monitor options now work with freeBSD.</li>
115 <li>Fetchmail now sends RFC1894-conformant bouncemail on SMTP and
118 <li>Full support for LMTP according to RFC2033.</li>
120 <li>True multi-language support using GNU gettext.</li>
122 <li>Support for use of HESIOD with Kerberos.</li>
124 <li>The --bsmtp option supports recording fetched mail as a BSMTP
127 <li>The --limit option can now be used in daemon mode, with
128 oversized-message notifications being mailed to the calling
131 <li>Configurable support for the <a
132 href="http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/producthelp/mail/sdps-tech.html/">
133 SDPS extensions</a> in <a
134 href="http://www.demon.net/">www.demon.net</a>'s POP3 service.</li>
136 <li>There is now an interactive GUI fetchmail configurator,
139 <li>Code is 64-bit clean and Y2K-safe.</li>
141 <li>Automatically decodes armored 7-bit MIME into 8 bits (this can
144 <li>You can specify which SMTP error is recognized as a spam
147 <li>Support for Kerberos V authentication.</li>
149 <li>Support for IMAP-OTP authentication using Craig Metz's patches
152 <li>Support for IPv6</li>
154 <li>Support for IMAP with RFC1731-conformant GSSAPI
157 <li>Fixed and verified support for Cyrus IMAP server, M$ Exchange,
158 and Post Office/NT.</li>
160 <li>Support for responding with a one-time password when a POP3
161 server issues an RFC1938-conforming OTP challenge.</li>
163 <li>Support for Compuserve's RPA authentication protocol for POP3
164 (not compiled in by default, but configurable).</li>
170 <li>Support for IMAP RFC 1731 authentication with Kerberos v4.</li>
172 <li>Support for multiple-folder retrieval in a single session under
175 <li>Following SMTP 571 response to a From line, fetchmail no longer
176 downloads the bodies of spam messages.</li>
178 <li>Support for a `hunt list' of SMTP hosts.</li>
180 <li>Support for ESMTP 8BITMIME and SIZE options.</li>
182 <li>Support for ESMTP ETRN command.</li>
184 <li>The stripcr & forcecr options to explicitly control
185 carriage-return stripping and LF->CRLF mapping before mail
192 <li>Support for secure use with ssh.</li>
194 <li>Mailserver passwords can be parsed out of your .netrc
197 <li>When forwarding mail via SMTP, fetchmail respects the 571 "spam
198 filter" response and discards any mail that triggers it.</li>
200 <li>Transaction and error logging may optionally be done via
203 <li>(Linux only) Security option to permit fetchmail to poll a host
204 only when a point-to-point link to a particular IP address is
207 <li>RPOP support (restored; had been removed in 1.8, later removed again).</li>
210 <h2>2.0 and earlier versions:</h2>
213 <li>Support POP2, APOP, RPOP, IMAP2, IMAP2bis, IMAP3, IMAP4,
216 <li>Support for Kerberos V4 user authentication (either MIT or
219 <li>Host is auto-probed for a working server if no protocol is
220 specified for the connection. Thus you don't need to know what
221 servers are running on your mail host in advance; the verbose
222 option will tell you which one succeeds.</li>
224 <li>Delivery via SMTP to the client machine's port 25. This means
225 the retrieved mail automatically goes to the system default MDA as
226 if it were normal sender-initiated SMTP mail.</li>
228 <li>Configurable timeout to detect if server connection is
231 <li>Support for retrieving and forwarding from multi-drop mailboxes
232 that is guaranteed not to cause mail loops.</li>
234 <li>Large user community -- fetchmail has a large user base (the
235 author's beta list includes well over two hundred people). This
236 means feedback is rapid, bugs get found and fixed rapidly.</li>
238 <li>Carefully written, comprehensive and up-to-date man page
239 describing not only modes of operation but also how to diagnose the
240 most common kinds of problems and what to do about deficient
243 <li>Rugged, simple, and well-tested code -- the author relies on it
244 every day and it has never lost mail, not even in experimental
245 versions. (In the project's entire history there has only been one
246 recorded instance of lost mail, and that was due to a quirk in some
247 Microsoft code.)</li>
249 <li>Strict conformance to relevant RFCs and good debugging options.
250 You could use fetchmail to test and debug server
251 implementatations.</li>
253 <li>For anybody who cares, fetchmail is Y2K safe.</li>
256 <h2>Features in common with other remote-mail retrieval
259 The other programs I have checked include fetchpop1.9,
260 PopTart-0.9.3, get-mail, gwpop, pimp-1.0, pop-perl5-1.2, popc,
261 popmail-1.6 and upop.
264 <li>Support for POP3.</li>
266 <li>Easy control via command line or free-format run control
269 <li>Daemon mode -- fetchmail can be run in background to poll one
270 or more hosts at a specified interval.</li>
272 <li>From:, To:, Cc:, and Reply-To: headers are rewritten so that
273 usernames relative to the fetchmail host become fully-qualified
274 Internet addresses. This enables replies to work correctly. (Would
275 be unique to fetchmail if I hadn't added it to fetchpop.)</li>
277 <li>Message and header processing are 8-bit clean.</li>
281 <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" summary="Canned page footer">
283 <td width="30%">Back to <a href="index.html">Fetchmail Home Page</a></td>
284 <td width="30%" align="right">$Date$</td>
289 <address>Eric S. Raymond <a href="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"><esr@snark.thyrsus.com></a></address>