On Sun, 2004-11-21 at 22:02, Sam Varshavchik wrote: > Jeff Vian writes: > > > IMAP and POP3 do not actually do a delete on the server when a session > > is still in progress. Having fetchmail terminate the session and start > > a new one will trigger the delete on the server for those messages you > > already have seen. > > No it won't. Yes it will [snip from man fetchmail] -e <count> | --expunge <count> (keyword: expunge) Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given number of messages. Under POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions final without sending QUIT and ending the session -- with this option on, fetchmail will break a long mail retrieval session into multiple subsessions, sending QUIT after each sub-session. This is a good defense against line drops on POP3 servers that do not do the equiva- lent of a QUIT on hangup > > POP3 servers will only delete messages if the POP3 session terminates > normally. The POP3 protocol explicitly specifies that no messages are to be > deleted if the POP3 session terminates due to any error, or if the client > disconnects the connection abnormally Correct. Hence, if you know you're on a weak link of you want to be on the safe side, use the -e option for fetchmail > . > > Similarly, IMAP requires an explicit command to delete messages from a > folder. No messages will be deleted if the IMAP client disconnects from the > server abnormally. -- Ow Mun Heng Fedora Core 2/Linux on D600 1.4Ghz Neuromancer 22:11:32 up 12:21, 7 users, load average: 0.12, 0.13, 0.18