# WHATPORT(995)

## NAME

port 995 — POP3S (POP3 over implicit TLS) — POP3 mail retrieval over TLS, TCP 995.

Protocol: TCP  
IANA registry

## DESCRIPTION

POP3 servers listen on TCP 995 with TLS negotiated immediately on connect, the encrypted counterpart to cleartext POP3 on 110. RFC 8314 designates it the implicit-TLS access port for POP3. Clients connect, authenticate, download messages, and usually disconnect — POP3 has no server-side folder model, so this is a download-and-delete workflow rather than IMAP's sync. It turns up on scans of mail hosts that still support legacy or low-bandwidth clients.

## EXPOSURE

**Expose with care.** Safe to expose in the sense that TLS is required, but it is a credential endpoint on a protocol most deployments no longer need — disable it if nothing uses POP3.

## CHECK

```sh
openssl s_client -connect MAIL_HOST:995 -quiet
```

## SEE ALSO

- spec — [RFC 1939 — Post Office Protocol Version 3](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1939.html) (rfc-editor.org)
- spec — [RFC 8314 — TLS for Email Submission and Access](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8314) (datatracker.ietf.org)
- source — [Dovecot (GitHub)](https://github.com/dovecot/core) (github.com)
- iana — [IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry](https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml) (iana.org)

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HTML: <https://whatport.net/995/> · JSON: <https://whatport.net/995.json> · full dataset: <https://whatport.net/ports.json>