import getpass, poplib, sys
host = "server.com"
user = "userName"
passwd = "password"
p = poplib.POP3(host)
try:
print "authenticating..."
p.apop(user, passwd)
except poplib.error_proto:
try:
p.user(user)
p.pass_(passwd)
except poplib.error_proto, e:
print "Login failed:", e
sys.exit(1)
status = p.stat()
print "Mailbox has %d messages for a total of %d bytes" % (status[0], status[1])
p.quit()