Here is a minimal example (without error checking) that opens a mailbox and retrieves and prints all messages:
import getpass, poplib M = poplib.POP3('localhost') M.user(getpass.getuser()) M.pass_(getpass.getpass()) numMessages = len(M.list()[1]) for i in range(numMessages): for j in M.retr(i+1)[1]: print j
At the end of the module, there is a test section that contains a more extensive example of usage.