Telnet into your .Mac mail account

Feb 07, '03 10:25:27AM

Contributed by: jgillin

Here's something I just tried and found that worked ... In Terminal, type (when online of course) telnet mail.mac.com 110 and hit return. Type in user followed by a space and then your .Mac username. 'OK password requred for user ...' should appear. Now type in pass followed by a space and then your password and hit return. 'OK Maildrop ready' should appear. You are now connected directly to your own mailbox on the .Mac Mail server.

Now you can do things with your mail. The command list will show a list of all your email, including the size of each. The command top 2 will show you the contents of email #2, while the command top 2 10 will show you the first 10 lines of email #2. The command dele 3 will delete message #3, while the command quit will log you out of your mailbox. It is very important to use the quit command, because none of the changes you make will take effect otherwise.

Another world changing tip - no doubt!

[Editor's note: I couldn't get top 2 to work; I got a "missing argument" error. But "top 2 20" and other variants worked...]

Comments (31)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030207072527414