And what prevents the IMAP server process from sieving the
message into a separate folder that fetchmail isn't polling?
The IT department. Very Windows centric, without much understanding
of the alternatives. To give a little more detail, the content
is actually voicemail, delivered as .wav files, which are a little
problematic to view in elm.
It sounds as if the IMAP server is probably M$ Exchange. If so,
perhaps you can set up a server-side rule to move voicemail into
a folder, instead of having it land in the inbox for fetchmail to
trip over. You "should" be able to establish such a rule for your
own account without needing admin access -- although you may have
to find a Windoze box and fire up Outlook :(