POP3 Commands

For use when troubleshooting email problems with telnet (or parsing email in your head) .

First you must telnet to the POP3 sever, in Windows or Linux, enter a terminal and type:

telnet [host [port]]

Where host is the POP3 server you want to connect to and port is generally the standard POP3 port 110.

• Minimal POP3 Commands:
  • USER name valid in the AUTHORIZATION state
  • PASS string
  • QUIT
  • STAT valid in the TRANSACTION state
  • LIST [msg]
  • RETR msg
  • DELE msg
  • NOOP
  • RSET
  • QUIT valid in the UPDATE state
• Optional POP3 Commands:
  • APOP name digest valid in the AUTHORIZATION state
  • TOP msg n valid in the TRANSACTION state
  • UIDL [msg]
• POP3 Replies:
  • +OK
  • -ERR

This information gathered via various websites and this document: ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1939.txt