Telnet – POP Commands (retrieving mail using telnet)

In order to access your mailbox you will need 4 things:

• An active internet connection
• The address of your pop mail server (e.g. mail.domain.ext)
• Your username (e.g. UserName/Email Address normally)
• Your password (e.g. Password)

The first thing to do is to open a connection from your computer to your mail server.

1	telnet mail.domain.ext 110

You should receive a reply like:

1	Trying ???.???.???.???...

2	Connected to mail.domain.ext.

3	Escape character is '^]'.

4

+OK ready

Then log in:

1	USER userName

This should give you:

1	+OK Password required for userName.

Now give your password:

1	PASS passW0rd

Should yeild:

1	+OK userName has ? visible messages (? hidden) in ????? octets.

To see a list of your emails awaiting collection use the

1

LIST

command, this will also show you the id number of your messages (e.g. 1 or 2 etc.)
To view the contents of an email type

1

RETR

+ the id number of the message (e.g

1

RETR 1

).
To delete a message use

1

DELE

+ the id number of the message (e.g

1

DELE 1

).
To leave your mailbox and close the connection use

view source

print?

1

QUIT