Sending or viewing emails using telnet

Introduction

When troubleshooting email issues, it may be useful to read or send emails from your server directly using the telnet application. This guide shows some basic steps to send an email from your server and how to check your email using telnet.

Before you start

This article assumes that you know how to get to a command prompt on your computer. If you need help with this please see our article Using telnet.

READ ME FIRST

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How to send email using telnet

TIP:

We use the domain example.com as an example. Be sure to replace with your own domain.

1. Open your command prompt.
2. Now, connect with telnet using the following command:

   telnet example.com 25

3. Type ehlo example.com. Some servers also accept helo in place of ehlo.

   ehlo example.com

4. Type mail from: username@example.com:

   mail from: username@example.com

5. Type rcpt to: friend@hotmail.com, friend2@yahoo.com (replace with your actual recipient name):

   rcpt to: friend@hotmail.com, friend2@yahoo.com

6. To write the message – type data, followed by your subject and message. To end the message, put a period on a line by itself and press enter:

   data
   Subject: My Telnet Test Email
   
   Hello,
   
   This is an email sent by using the telnet command.
   
   Your friend,
   Me
   
   .
   

7. Type quit to exit telnet.

How to check or read email with telnet

1. Open your command prompt.
2. At the command prompt, type in

   telnet example.com 110

3. Type user and the email address (username@example.com) of the user for which you wish to view emails:

   user username@example.com

4. Then type in pass followed by your password:

   pass yourpasswordgoeshere

5. Type list to bring up a list of your emails:

   list

6. You will see a list of items with labels like "1 897" and "2 5136." Here is an example:

   list
   +OK POP3 clients that break here, they violate STD53.
   1 897
   2 5136
   3 1884
   4 2973
   5 2595
   6 3063
   7 3509
   8 2283
   9 1926
   10 2763
   11 1795
   12 2780
   13 2342
   14 2342
   15 2342
   16 3833
   17 2211
   18 793
   19 797
   20 2599
   .

7. If you wish to read an email message such as 2 5136, you can type the following:

   retr 2 

8. If you want to delete a message such as 1 897, type dele 1:

   dele 1

9. When you are done checking your email, type quit.