On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

> Back when I ran a FIDONet BBS, there were programs that would allow you to 
> compress your mail into a ZIP file, then download the file instead of having 
> to download each message as a seperate, full-text transaction.  Has anyone 
> seen anything like this for a POP type interface?

There's always fetchmail (http://catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/).  It can grab
mail from a variety of remote sources (POP, IMAP, SMTP ETRN, etc) and drop
them in a local mailbox.  It doesn't do compression natively but you can
tunnel it over a compressed ssh link.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the DOS BBS days and/or you have an
affinity for batching up your mail, I think there are a few packages that
support QWK and SOUP files under Linux.  Of course, if you're going to go
that route you may as well go all the way and set up a UUCP feed.  UUCP
supports compression and can use TCP (and ssh, I think) as a transport.