getmail for Debian
-------------------

getmail package includes a Debian specific convenience wrapper script
getmails to ease maintenance of multiple mail accounts.  Instead of using
single ~/.getmailrc, getmails uses files matching ~/.getmail/config/* .

See getmails(1) manpage for its command syntax.

Tutorial for getmails
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For example,  you can create ~/.getmail/config/foo@gmail.com as follows:

=== start of foo@gmail.com ===
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever
server = pop.gmail.com
username =  foo@gmail.com
password = secret_word

[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /usr/bin/maildrop
unixfrom = True

[options]
verbose = 0
delete = True
delivered_to = False
message_log = ~/.getmail/log/bar@gmail.com.log
=== end of foo@gmail.com ===

(Here, maildrop package is used to filter incoming mail instead of more
 conventional procmail.)

This configuration enables retrieval of mails from foo@gmail.com .

When you have 3 accounts at different ISPs, you can create configuration files
for these 3 ISPs as:

 *  ~/.getmail/config/foo@gmail.com
 *  ~/.getmail/config/bar@yahoo.com
 *  ~/.getmail/config/baz@aol.com

With these configuration files, getmails uses all 3 email accounts.

You can turn on and off mail accounts by renaming their configuration files.
For example, you can temporarily turn off baz@aol.com by renaming its
configuration file to a hidden file by preceding its file name:

 *  ~/.getmail/config/foo@gmail.com
 *  ~/.getmail/config/bar@yahoo.com
 *  ~/.getmail/config/.baz@aol.com

With these configuration files, getmails uses only 2 email accounts.

The editor generated files such as foo@gmail.com~ are skipped to ensure robust
operation.

This made more intuitive to maintain multiple accounts, at least, for this
maintainer.

 -- Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>, Sun, 17 Dec 2017 08:42:07 +0000
