[Nottingham] deleting selected POP3 mail

James Gibbon james.gibbon at virgin.net
Mon Mar 1 22:29:09 GMT 2004


I played with a Windows freeware mailer called Popcorn last night,
which (to my surprise, since to be honest I didn't think you could
do this with POP3) is able to download headers from the server,
then delete _selected_ mails from the server without them ever being
downloaded. By default it leaves mail on the server even after it's
read.

Normally I use fetchmail, procmail and exmh on my (Mandrake)
desktop - I've used this setup for years and have been very happy
with it.  I also use the same setup on my (Slackware) laptop when
I'm away, except that my fetchmailrc leaves all the mail on the
server, so that it can all be pulled onto my desktop when I return
home.  However I don't have the facility to delete mail
_selectively_ from the mail server - but having seen the way
Popcorn works, I find the idea irresistible - I often worry about
my mail quota filling up with spam while I'm away, and it would
prevent the 45 minute fetchmail session to download it all when I
return to my desktop.

I would prefer not to use Windows/Popcorn on my laptop though,
since my favourite toys are Linux-powered 8).

So, to come to the point - is there a (preferably lightweight)
Linux mailer which will allow me to:

[*] read my mail on the move, leaving it on the mailserver
    where required so my desktop can get it eventually as well

[*] delete selected POP3 mail on the mailserver, so I can remove
    spam

and preferably

[*] browse POP3 mail by headers without actually downloading it


TIA for any suggestions,
James






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