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### 33.19 Retrieving Mail from Remote Mailboxes

Some sites use a method called POP for accessing users’ inbox data instead of storing the data in inbox files. By default, the `Emacs movemail` can work with POP (unless the Emacs `configure` script was run with the option ‘`--without-pop`’).

Similarly, the Mailutils `movemail` by default supports POP, unless it was configured with the ‘`--disable-pop`’ option.

Both versions of `movemail` only work with POP3, not with older versions of POP.

No matter which flavor of `movemail` you use, you can specify a POP inbox by using a POP URL (see Movemail). A POP URL is of the form ‘`pop://username@hostname`’, where hostname is the host name or IP address of the remote mail server and username is the user name on that server. Additionally, you may specify the password in the mailbox URL: ‘`pop://username:password@hostname`’. In this case, password takes preference over the one set by `rmail-remote-password` (see below). This is especially useful if you have several remote mailboxes with different passwords.

For backward compatibility, Rmail also supports an alternative way of specifying remote POP mailboxes. Specifying an inbox name in the form ‘`po:username:hostname`’ is equivalent to ‘`pop://username@hostname`’. If you omit the :hostname part, the `MAILHOST` environment variable specifies the machine on which to look for the POP server.

Another method for accessing remote mailboxes is IMAP. This method is supported only by the Mailutils `movemail`. To specify an IMAP mailbox in the inbox list, use the following mailbox URL: ‘`imap://username[:password]@hostname`’. The password part is optional, as described above.

Accessing a remote mailbox may require a password. Rmail uses the following algorithm to retrieve it:

1. If a password is present in the mailbox URL (see above), it is used.
2. If the variable `rmail-remote-password-required` is `nil`, Rmail assumes no password is required.
3. If the variable `rmail-remote-password` is non-`nil`, its value is used.
4. Otherwise, Rmail will ask you for the password to use.

If you need to pass additional command-line flags to `movemail`, set the variable `rmail-movemail-flags` a list of the flags you wish to use. Do not use this variable to pass the ‘`-p`’ flag to preserve your inbox contents; use `rmail-preserve-inbox` instead.

The `movemail` program installed at your site may support Kerberos authentication (the Emacs `movemail` does so if Emacs was configured with the option `--with-kerberos` or `--with-kerberos5`). If it is supported, it is used by default whenever you attempt to retrieve POP mail when `rmail-remote-password` and `rmail-remote-password-required` are unset.

Some POP servers store messages in reverse order. If your server does this, and you would rather read your mail in the order in which it was received, you can tell `movemail` to reverse the order of downloaded messages by adding the ‘`-r`’ flag to `rmail-movemail-flags`.

Mailutils `movemail` supports TLS encryption. If you wish to use it, add the ‘`--tls`’ flag to `rmail-movemail-flags`.

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