Although this is the first message, I'm marking it [Solved] since I found the answer while writing the message.
Problem : I'm having difficulty configuring .fetchmailrc which doesn't seem to behave as described in the man page. Answer : This is because Debian doesn't use the configuration file given in the man page - it doesn't use the configuration file /root/.fetchmailrc . To understand, you need to look at file /etc/init.d/fetchmail where you will find the lines CONFFILE="/etc/fetchmailrc" OPTIONS="$OPTIONS -f $CONFFILE --pidfile $PIDFILE" The effect of the -f option is to replace /root/.fetchmailrc with /etc/fetchmailrc . Debian 13 does not use and does not need .fetchmailrc as given in the man page. Use /etc/fetchmailrc instead. The man page says that if you modify /root/.fetchmailrc , the daemon will automatically restart. This appears to be true for the replacement /etc/fetchmailrc also. root@titan ~ journalctl -S 2026-08-1508:28:15 | grep -e 'fetchmail.*start' Aug 15 08:48:26 titan fetchmail[295717]: restarting fetchmail (/etc/fetchmailrc changed) Aug 15 08:48:26 titan fetchmail[295717]: starting fetchmail 6.4.39 daemon Roger
