# Mail client to check multiple folders (pop3)

## fghellar

This is the situation:

My primary email account is at YahooMail. I have set up some filters there to distribute incoming mail among several folders (e.g. one folder for the gentoo-dev mailing list, etc.). When I am at work, I want my email client do download only the contents of the Inbox folder, and not the others. But when I am at home, I want it to download the contents of the other folders too.

What I'm looking for is an email client that can do this (I currently use Mozilla).

Thanks for any input.

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## Houdini

I think fetchmail can do that.

/me checks

```

       -r <name>, --folder <name>

              (Keyword:  folder[s]) Causes a specified non-default mail folder on the mailserver (or comma-separated list of folders) to be retrieved.  The syntax of the folder name is server-dependent.  This option is not available under POP3, ETRN, or ODMR.

```

Yeah.  God I love fetchmail...

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## klieber

```
This option is not available under POP3
```

Not going to work on POP3-only YahooMail.  

fghellar -- you might check kmail.  The new version (1.4) has a new feature called "pop filters".  I use imap myself, so I can't attest to how well they work but they certainly seem to do what you're looking to do.

EDIT:  Should have said, "POP3 or web-only YahooMail" (i.e. no IMAP)

--kurt

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## fghellar

 *klieber wrote:*   

> you might check kmail.  The new version (1.4) has a new feature called "pop filters".

 

I see: http://docs.kde.org/3.0/kdenetwork/kmail/popfilters.html.

It can filter messages before downloading, but I didn't find anything about checking other folders. If I could use it at work, it would be fine, because then I could eliminate the filtering at Yahoo. But I have to deal with win 2k at work... I'll keep looking.

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## fghellar

 *Houdini wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> 
>        -r <name>, --folder <name>
> ...

 

That's pretty much what I want, but for POP3...  :Smile: 

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## klieber

I'm not sure you're going to find it.  AFAIK, there is no spec in the POP3 RFC to allow for things like folders and subdirs.  I believe it's an all-or-nothing sort of thing.  (hope I'm wrong, however)

Have you seen mention anywhere else that this is, in fact, possible?  Such as on Windows or something?

--kurt

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## fghellar

 *klieber wrote:*   

> Have you seen mention anywhere else that this is, in fact, possible?

 

Nope...

 *klieber wrote:*   

> Such as on Windows or something?

 

Well, if I can find some email client for windows that has something like that "pop filtering" feature of kmail, that will do, too. I'll see if Mozilla has it.

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## klieber

 *fghellar wrote:*   

> Well, if I can find some email client for windows that has something like that "pop filtering" feature of kmail, that will do, too.

 

Check Eudora (http://www.eudora.com/)  They have a pretty robust filtering interface from what I remember.  (disclaimer:  I don't use it, so I'm not sure.  :Smile: )

--kurt

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## masseya

Well, I *think* mutt would be able to do this.  I wasn't able to personally verify this, but I didn't spend much time on it.  If I were really serious about looking into this I would talk to the people on #mutt (irc.openprojects.net) and ask them if it's possilbe.  Mutt's about the most configurable mail client out there.  If mutt can't do it, then nothing can.  It almost sounds like it's built in to POP3.

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## rphillips

Mutt doesn't have a native pop3 fetcher....  This is how I do it (there are probably many other different ways):

1.  Install: postfix, fetchmail, and procmail (courier-imap if you want imap support  :Smile: 

2A.  Setup postfix

2B.  Setup fetchmail to retrieve your accounts (yahoo pop probably doesn't work anymore)  Fetchmail can be run out of someone's cron if you like.

3.  Your email will be delivered to someuser@myhostname... 

4.   Setup a procmail filter to sort the mail for you.  You can move emails on the fly to a separate folder.  procmail example:

```

:0

* ^Sender.*gentoo-dev-admin@gentoo\.org

$HOME/.maildir/.Gentoo-Dev/

```

5A.  Use any email client that you would like that supports the mbox format.

5B.  or use IMAP over SSL... you can get your email from anywhere, with almost any email client, over a secure connection already sorted for you.  IMAP will *only* download the messages in the current folder you are viewing.

Another possibilty is to SSH into your box and use mutt... The folder support in mutt is very powerful.

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## rphillips

May I also point out:

http://web.mit.edu/ravir/fetchyahoo/index.html

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