...

But: I'm not sure whether or not I need to set up a dns server to make multidrop work? Seems a bit OTT for my humble home mail.

Ricardo wrote:

could you try adding the entries in /etc/hosts? windows also has a hosts file, which is in the same format.

I have the ip addresses of the windows computers matched with the computer name in /etc/hosts e.g 192.168.1.101 bascule.jenbass bascule which isn't what I want here - I want fetchmail to know that mail headed to jenny goes to /var/spool/mail/jenny and for rebecca to /var/spool/mail/rebecca, Rebecca then retreives it from bascule when she checks her mail. I'm getting a tad muddled now. Thanks! Jen.