Is it possible to Access a Users Sent Email over POP?

Question

I have been asked to quote a project where they want to see sent email using POP. I am pretty sure this is not possible, but I thought if it was.

So is it possible given a users POP email server details to access their sent mail?

If so any examples in Python or fetchmail?

Answer 1

POP3 only handles receiving email; sent mail is sent via SMTP in these situations, and may be sent via a different ISP to the receiver (say, when you host your own email server, but use your current ISP to send). As such, this isn't directly possible.

IMAP could do it, as this offers server side email folders as well as having the server handle the interface to both send and receive SMTP traffic

Answer 2

Pop doesn't support sent email. Pop is an inbox only, Sent mail will be stored in IMAP, Exchange or other proprietary system.

Answer 3

Emails are not sent using POP, but collected from a server using POP. They are sent using SMTP, and they don't hang around on the server once they're gone.

You might want to look into IMAP?

Answer 4

The smtp (mail sending) server could forward a copy of all sent mail back to the sender, they could then access this over pop.