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Over the years I used Pine off and on, especially i college

How can I setup Pine to POP down my mail so it is local on my machine? I dont like storing my mail on a server someplace, I like to have it local so I can back it up,etc

Anyone have any advice?

2 Answers2

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From Configuring Alpine:

Start by going to the "Setup Configuration" screen (M S C) and find the Folder Preferences section. Under this section, set enable-incoming-folders and restart alpine for the change to take effect. Now go to your Incoming Message Folders (F Incoming-Folders), but don't open your INBOX folder.

Now comes the fun part.

Since you want to add a new folder, type A. You'll be presented with a command-line asking for the "Name of server to contain added folder" and four options below that. We're interested in the options. Since you're going to be pulling mail off of a remote pop3 server, you want to configure a mail drop, which is the last option, thus press Ctrl W. You'll now be asked for the name of the mail drop server (the server you're pulling the mail off of). Enter the server (and port number if you desire), your username (which may or may not include part of the server address), and pop3. When done, you should have something that looks like the following:

pop.server.tld:port/user=username@server.tld/pop3

If you are using a secure connection, you will need to add two things to the entry. First, append ssl to the end. When that is done (and assuming you don't want, or are having difficulties setting up, certificate validation), add novalidate-cert just after the mail drop server. Once you are done, you should have something that resembles the following:

pop.server.tld:port/novalidate-cert/user=username@server.tld/pop3/ssl

Now hit Enter. You'll now be asked for the folder you want to copy the mail from; answer: Inbox.

Next: "Name of server to contain destination folder". Leave this blank, and continue on.

Now for the "Folder to copy mail to". You can name this anything you want, but I generally use the user name of whatever email account I'm setting the mail drop up for.

And I do the same as above for the "Nickname for folder "username"".

And now you have a brand new mail drop folder. To set up more, just repeat as needed.

Alpine e-mail setup also has Alpine setup instructions, including how to set up Gmail using POP3 (including pictures):

This is an example of using POP3 from Gmail. You will need to enable POP3 from your Gmail account under Settings→Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

To create a new incoming folder for POP, use Main Menu→Folder List→Incoming-Folders→Add.

It will prompt to ask you the Name of server to contain added folder:

Name of server to contain added folder: pop.gmail.com:995/novalidate-cert/user=username@gmail.com/pop3/ssl

It will then prompt to ask for the 'Folder on 'pop.gmail.com…" to add:

Folder on "pop.gmail.com.." to add: INBOX

Fill in a nickname:

Nickname for folder "INBOX" : INBOX at gmail.com

It will then connect to gmail server and will prompt for the username@gmail.com password. Enter it, and the INBOX will open.

Jared Harley
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  1. Open the .pinerc file for editing.
  2. Search for the "incoming-folders=" option.

  3. Add:

    nick_name "#move {server}inbox_folder local_mail_folder"
  4. Save the updated version of .pinerc

  5. Create an empty mail folder in your prefered location:

    touch local_mail_folder

Example:

Add:

incoming-folders=GMAIL "#move pop.gmail.com/ssl/user=user@gmail.com/novalidate-cert}INBOX /home/user/mail/gmail"

And next:

$ touch /home/user/mail/gmail

If you would like to define this for two or more accounts, separate them with ",".

Gareth
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user104064
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