Fetchmail is a client program that creates an easy way to automate downloading email from one or more mail servers using different accounts and mail server types. It is ideal to consolidate email on one machine while maintaining multiple email addresses.

The user configuration file is stored in your home directory:
~/.fetchmailrc
since email passwords are stored in the file, set the permissions on the file to 0600 (u=rw).

A .fetchamilrc example using POP3:

        # Remote mail server
        poll pop-server.isp.com
        protocol pop3
        user "remote-user" to "local-user"
        pass "password"
        fetchall

 

Fetchmail can be run in daemon mode, but it makes more sense (to me) to schedule it using the user crontab.

Fetchmail normally delivers downloaded messages to the local SMTP port so it is expecting to have a local mail server running. If no SMTP server is available, it can deliver messages to a mail delivery agent like procmail with the -mda option.