getmail for Debian ------------------- getmail package includes a Debian specific convenience wrapper script getmails to ease maintenance of multiple mail accounts. Instead of using single ~/.getmailrc, getmails uses files matching ~/.getmail/config/* . See getmails(1) manpage for its command syntax. Tutorial for getmails ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For example, you can create ~/.getmail/config/foo@gmail.com as follows: === start of foo@gmail.com === [retriever] type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever server = pop.gmail.com username = foo@gmail.com password = secret_word [destination] type = MDA_external path = /usr/bin/maildrop unixfrom = True [options] verbose = 0 delete = True delivered_to = False message_log = ~/.getmail/log/bar@gmail.com.log === end of foo@gmail.com === (Here, maildrop package is used to filter incoming mail instead of more conventional procmail.) This configuration enables retrieval of mails from foo@gmail.com . When you have 3 accounts at different ISPs, you can create configuration files for these 3 ISPs as: * ~/.getmail/config/foo@gmail.com * ~/.getmail/config/bar@yahoo.com * ~/.getmail/config/baz@aol.com With these configuration files, getmails uses all 3 email accounts. You can turn on and off mail accounts by renaming their configuration files. For example, you can temporarily turn off baz@aol.com by renaming its configuration file to a hidden file by preceding its file name: * ~/.getmail/config/foo@gmail.com * ~/.getmail/config/bar@yahoo.com * ~/.getmail/config/.baz@aol.com With these configuration files, getmails uses only 2 email accounts. The editor generated files such as foo@gmail.com~ are skipped to ensure robust operation. This made more intuitive to maintain multiple accounts, at least, for this maintainer. -- Osamu Aoki , Sun, 17 Dec 2017 08:42:07 +0000