NAME
mail,
mailx,
Mail —
send and receive mail
SYNOPSIS
mail |
[-EIinv]
[-a file]
[-b
bcc-addr]
[-c
cc-addr]
[-r
rcfile]
[-s
subject] to-addr ...
[- sendmail-flags] |
mail |
[-EIiNnv]
[-H[colon-modifier]]
-f
[name] |
mail |
[-EIiNnv]
[-H[colon-modifier]]
[-u
user] |
DESCRIPTION
mail is an intelligent mail processing system, which has a
command syntax reminiscent of
ed(1)
with lines replaced by messages.
-
-
- -a
- Attach file to the message.
-
-
- -b
- Send blind carbon copies to list.
List should be a comma-separated list of names.
-
-
- -c
- Send carbon copies to list of
users.
-
-
- -E
- Don't send messages with an empty body. This is useful for
piping errors from cron scripts.
-
-
- -f
- Read in the contents of your mbox (or
the specified file) for processing; when you quit,
mail writes undeleted messages back to this file.
-
-
- -H
- Print the header summaries and exit. The optional
colon-modifier string must begin with a
‘
:
’ and be followed by one or more of
the characters described in the
Specifying messages section
below. E.g., “mail -H:n”
will display just new message headers.
-
-
- -I
- Forces mail to run in interactive mode even when input
isn't a terminal. In particular, the ~ special character
when sending mail is only active in interactive mode.
-
-
- -i
- Ignore tty interrupt signals. This is particularly useful
when using mail on noisy phone lines.
-
-
- -N
- Inhibits the initial display of message headers when
reading mail or editing a mail folder.
-
-
- -n
- Inhibits reading /etc/mail.rc upon
startup.
-
-
- -r
- Specify an alternate user rcfile to load. This overrides
the value specified in the environment variable
MAILRC
which in turn overrides the default
~/.mailrc file.
-
-
- -s
- Specify subject on command line (only the first argument
after the -s flag is used as a subject; be careful to
quote subjects containing spaces.)
-
-
- -u
- Is equivalent to:
mail -f /var/mail/user
-
-
- -v
- Verbose mode. The details of delivery are displayed on the
user's terminal.
Sending mail
To send a message to one or more people,
mail can be invoked
with arguments which are the names of people to whom the mail will be sent.
You are then expected to type in your message, followed by a
‘
control-D
’ at the beginning of a line.
Any flags following the list of recipients, will be passed, together with their
arguments, directly to
sendmail(1). For example to
change your
From
address to
somebody@somewhere.net
you can specify:
mail recipient -f
somebody@somewhere.net
To prevent multiple copies of a message being sent to the same address,
duplicate addresses (after alias expansion) are removed from the
bcc-addr,
cc-addr, and
to-addr lists. In addition, addresses on the
cc-addr and
to-addr lists are
removed if they occur on the
bcc-addr list and addresses
on the
cc-addr list are removed if they occur on the
to-addr list. If the
to-addr list
is empty after these deletions, most systems will insert the line “To:
undisclosed recipients:;”.
The section below
Replying
to or originating mail, describes some features of
mail
available to help you compose your letter.
Reading mail
In normal usage
mail is given no arguments and checks your
mail out of the post office, then prints out a one line header of each message
found. The current message is initially the first message (numbered 1) and can
be printed using the
print command (which can be abbreviated
p). You can move among the messages much as you move between
lines in
ed(1), with the commands
+ and
- moving backwards and forwards, and
simple numbers.
Disposing of mail
After examining a message you can
delete (
d)
the message or
reply (
r) to it. Deletion
causes the
mail program to forget about the message. This is
not irreversible; the message can be
undeleted
(
u) by giving its number, or the
mail
session can be aborted by giving the
exit
(
x) command. Deleted messages will, however, usually
disappear never to be seen again.
Specifying messages
Many commands (e.g.,
delete,
from, and
print) accept a list of messages as an argument. Messages
may be specified by their message number, by a range of messages, or by a
pattern string matching certain fields in the header as described below. These
message “specs” may be combined by the usual binary boolean
operations ‘
&
’,
‘
|
’, and
‘
^
’, which denote, respectively, a logical
“and”, “or”, and “xor”. Logical
expressions may be grouped with parentheses
‘
(
’ and
‘
)
’ and negated with
‘
!
’. If the binary operator is missing
between two message specs, it is assumed to be a
‘
|
’. This is for simplicity, backwards
compatibility, and also to to facilitate using the
‘
|
’ symbol to denote a pipe. (See
enable-pipes.)
Besides the obvious (base10) message numbers, the characters
‘
^
’,
‘
-
’,
‘
.
’,
‘
+
’, and
‘
$
’ denote, respectively, the first
message, the message before the “dot” (the current message), the
“dot” message, the message following the “dot”, and
the last message.
A “message range” consists of two message numbers separated by a
‘
-
’. A
‘
*
’ denotes all messages and is equivalent
to ‘
^-$
’.
A pattern is a string (not beginning with any of the above special characters).
If it does not begin with a ‘
/
’, it is
compared with the senders address. If it begins with a
‘
/
’, and
searchheaders is not defined, the remainder of the
string is compared with the subject field. (See
searchheaders for searching other header fields or the
message body.) If
regex-search is not defined, then the
comparison is a simple case insensitive substring match. (See
regex-search for regular expression matches.)
A list of messages may be restricted by a “colon-modifier” string,
i.e., a ‘
:
’ followed by one or more of the
characters:
d deleted
e edited
m mboxed
n new
o old
p preserved
r read
s saved
t tagged
u unread and not new
! invert the meaning of the colon-modifiers
If there are no address specifications other than colon-modifiers, the
colon-modifiers apply to all messages. Thus “
from
netbsd :n
” would display the headers of all new messages with
‘
netbsd
’ in the sender's address, while
“
from :!r
” and
“
from :nu
” would both display all new and
unread messages. Multiple colon-modifiers may be specified and a single
‘
:
’ with no letters following indicates
the colon-modifier from the preceding command.
For example:
would display the headers from messages 1, 3, 4, 5, and 12.
from anon & ( /foo | /bar )
would display all headers that had ‘
anon
’ in
the sender's address and either ‘
foo
’ or
‘
bar
’ in the subject line.
Generally, commands cannot select messages that are not displayed, such as
deleted or hidden messages, the exception being the
undelete
command.
Replying to or originating
mail
You can use the
reply command to set up a response to a
message, sending it back to the person who it was from. Text you then type in,
up to an end-of-file, defines the contents of the message. While you are
composing a message,
mail treats lines beginning with the
character
~ specially. For instance, typing
~m (alone on a line) will place a copy of the current
message into the response right shifting it by a tab stop (see
indentprefix variable, below). Other escapes will set up
subject fields, add and delete recipients to the message, and allow you to
escape to an editor to revise the message or to a shell to run some commands.
(These options are given in the summary below.)
Ending a mail processing
session
You can end a
mail session with the
quit
(
q) command. Messages which have been examined go to your
mbox file unless they have been deleted in which case
they are discarded. Unexamined messages go back to the post office. (See the
-f option above).
Personal and
system wide distribution lists
It is also possible to create a personal distribution lists so that, for
instance, you can send mail to “
cohorts
”
and have it go to a group of people. Such lists can be defined by placing a
line like
alias cohorts bill ozalp jkf mark
kridle@ucbcory
in the file
.mailrc in your home directory. The current list
of such aliases can be displayed with the
alias command in
mail. System wide distribution lists can be created by
editing
/etc/mail/aliases, see
aliases(5) and
sendmail(1); these are kept in
a different syntax. In mail you send, personal aliases will be expanded in
mail sent to others so that they will be able to
reply to
the recipients. System wide
aliases are not expanded when
the mail is sent, but any reply returned to the machine will have the system
wide alias expanded as all mail goes through
sendmail(1).
Network mail (ARPA, UUCP,
Berknet)
See
mailaddr(7) for a
description of network addresses.
mail has a number of options which can be set in the
.mailrc file to alter its behavior; thus
“
set askcc
” enables the
askcc feature. (These options are summarized below.)
SUMMARY
(Adapted from the “Mail Reference Manual”)
Each command is typed on a line by itself, and may take arguments following the
command word. The command need not be typed in its entirety - the first
command which matches the typed prefix is used. For commands which take
message lists as arguments, if no message list is given, then the next message
forward which satisfies the command's requirements is used. If there are no
messages forward of the current message, the search proceeds backwards, and if
there are no good messages at all,
mail types
“
No applicable messages
” and aborts the
command.
-
-
- !
- Executes the shell (see
sh(1) and
csh(1)) command which
follows.
-
-
- -
- Print out the preceding message. If given a numeric
argument n, goes to the n'th
previous message and prints it.
-
-
- =
- With no argument, it displays the current message number.
Otherwise, set the current message number to its first argument.
-
-
- ?
- Prints a brief summary of commands.
-
-
- |
- Pipe the current message body through the shell (see
sh(1) and
csh(1)) command which
follows.
-
-
- Detach
- Like detach but also saves MIME parts
that don't have a filename associated with them. For the unnamed parts, a
filename is suggested containing the message and part numbers, and the
subtype.
-
-
- Header
- (H) Specify or show additional header
fields. This is intended for adding extra header fields like
“Reply-To:” or “X-Organization:” to the header.
For example:
Header X-Mailer: NetBSD mail(1) 9.1
would add the “X-Mailer: NetBSD mail(1) 9.1” line to the message
header. Without any arguments, the extra header fields are displayed. With
only a header name (including the ‘:’), it will delete all
extra header fields with that name. Note: Although some syntax checking is
done on the header line, care should be taken to ensure that it complies
with RFC 2821 and 2822. Also, the extra header lines are not currently
displayed by the ~h tilde command when sending mail (use
~:Header to see them).
-
-
- More
- (M) Like more but also
prints out ignored header fields.
-
-
- Page
- (Pa) A synonym for
More.
-
-
- Print
- (P) Like print but also
prints out ignored header fields. See also print,
more, page, type,
view, ignore, and
retain.
-
-
- Reply
- (R) Reply to originator. Does not reply
to other recipients of the original message. (See
reply.)
-
-
- Save
- (S) Same as save except
that all header fields are saved ignoring the saveignore
or saveretain lists.
-
-
- Type
- (T) Identical to the
Print command.
-
-
- View
- (V) Like Print but has
the opposite MIME decoding behavior. (See the
mime-decode-message variable.)
-
-
- alias
- (a) With no arguments, prints out all
currently-defined aliases. With one argument, prints out that alias. With
more than one argument, creates a new alias or changes an old one.
-
-
- alternates
- (alt) The alternates
command is useful if you have accounts on several machines. It can be used
to inform mail that the listed addresses are really you.
When you reply to messages, mail will
not send a copy of the message to any of the addresses listed on the
alternates list. If the alternates
command is given with no argument, the current set of alternative names is
displayed.
-
-
- bounce
- Takes a list of messages and prompts for an address to
bounce the messages to. If no message is specified, the current message is
used. All the original header fields are preserved except for the
‘
Delivered-To
’,
‘X-Original-To
’ and
‘Status
’ fields. The new
‘To
’ field contains the bounce
address(es) plus any addresses in the old
‘To
’ field minus the user's local
address and any on the alternates list. (See the
alternates command.)
-
-
- chdir
- (c) Changes the user's working directory
to that specified, if given. If no directory is given, then changes to the
user's login directory.
-
-
- copy
- (co) The copy command
does the same thing that save does, except that it does
not mark the messages it is used on for deletion when you quit.
-
-
- deldups
- Delete duplicate messages based on their
‘
Message-Id
’ field, keeping the first
one in the current sort order. This can be useful with replies to a
mailing list that are also CCed to a subscriber. (The same thing can also
be accomplished with the threading and tagging commands.)
-
-
- delete
- (d) Takes a list of messages as an
argument and marks them all as deleted. Deleted messages will not be saved
in mbox, nor will they be available for most other
commands.
-
-
- detach
- Takes a message list followed by a target directory as
arguments, decodes each MIME part in the message list, and saves it in the
target directory. If the message list is empty, use the current message.
If the directory is not specified, use the directory specified by
mime-detach-dir variable and, if that is empty,
default to the directory mail was started in. For each
MIME part in the message list, the filename is displayed for confirmation
or changes. If an empty name is entered, the part is skipped. If the
filename already exists, the user will be prompted before overwriting it.
(See the mime-detach-batch and
mime-detach-overwrite variables to change this
behavior.) Only MIME parts with an associated filename in the
‘
Content-Type
’ or
‘Content-Disposition
’ fields are
decoded. (See Detach to detach all parts.) The MIME
extension hooks and character set conversion are ignored.
-
-
- dp
- (also dt) Deletes the current message and
prints the next message. If there is no next message,
mail says “
at
EOF
”.
-
-
- down
- Go down one level in the thread. If given a message number,
it descends the thread below that message, otherwise it descends from the
current message (dot).
-
-
- edit
- (e) Takes a list of messages and points
the text editor at each one in turn. On return from the editor, the
message is read back in.
-
-
- else
- Switch the command execution condition set by the previous
if, ifdef, or ifndef
command.
-
-
- endif
- Terminate an if, ifdef,
or ifndef command.
-
-
- exit
- (ex or x) Effects an
immediate return to the Shell without modifying the user's system mailbox,
his mbox file, or his edit file in
-f.
-
-
- expandaddr
- If unset (the default), recipient addresses must be names
of local mailboxes or Internet mail addresses. If set, shell expansion of
existing mailbox names will be performed.
-
-
- expose
- Expose the thread structure so all messages appear in
header listings. (See hide for the inverse.) The
default header prompt will indent each header line one space for each
level in the threading. The “
%?* ?
”
format string does this.
-
-
- file
- (fi) The same as
folder.
-
-
- flatten
- For each message number in the argument list, or the
current thread if no message list is given, promote all exposed children
to the same thread level.
-
-
- folders
- List the names of the folders in your folder
directory.
-
-
- folder
- (fo) The folder command
switches to a new mail file or folder. With no arguments, it tells you
which file you are currently reading. If you give it an argument, it will
write out changes (such as deletions) you have made in the current file
and read in the new file. Some special conventions are recognized for the
name. ‘
#
’ means the previous file,
‘%
’ means your system mailbox,
‘%user
’ means user's system mailbox,
‘&
’ means your
mbox file, and
‘+file
’ means a file in your folder
directory.
-
-
- forward
- Takes a list of messages and prompts for an address (or
addresses) to forward each message to. If no message list is specified,
the current message is used. The mail editor is run for each message
allowing the user to enter a message that will precede the forward
message. The message is sent as a multipart/mixed MIME encoded message.
All header fields except the ‘
Status
’
field are included.
-
-
- from
- (f) Takes a list of messages and prints
their message headers.
-
-
- headers
- (h) Lists the current range of headers,
which is an 18-message group. If a ‘
+
’
argument is given, then the next 18-message group is printed, and if a
‘-
’ argument is given, the previous
18-message group is printed.
-
-
- help
- A synonym for ?
-
-
- hide
- Collapse the threads so that only the head of each thread
is shown, hiding the subthreads. (See expose for the
inverse.)
-
-
- hidetags
- Restrict the display to untagged messages. In threaded
mode, subthreads that connect directly to an untagged message are also
displayed, including tagged messages in the connecting chain.
-
-
- hidethreads
- The same as hide.
-
-
- hold
- (ho, also preserve)
Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
user's system mailbox instead of in mbox. Does not
override the delete command.
-
-
- if
- Execute commands that follow depending on the operating
mode. The current supported modes are
‘
receiving
’,
‘sending
’, and
‘headersonly
’. For example, one use
might be something like:
if headersonly
set header-format="%P%Q%3i %-21.20f %m/%d %R %3K \"%q\""
else
set header-format="%P%Q%?& ?%3i %-21.20f %a %b %e %R %3K/%-5O \"%q\""
endif
-
-
- ifdef
- Execute commands that follow if the specified variable is
defined. Note: This includes environment variables.
-
-
- ifndef
- Execute commands that follow if the specified variable is
not defined.
-
-
- ignore
- Add the list of header fields named to the
ignored list. Header fields in the ignore list are
not printed on your terminal when you print a message. This command is
very handy for suppression of certain machine-generated header fields. The
Type and Print commands can be used to
print a message in its entirety, including ignored fields. If
ignore is executed with no arguments, it lists the
current set of ignored fields.
-
-
- inc
- Incorporate any new messages that have arrived while mail
is being read. The new messages are added to the end of the message list,
and the current message is reset to be the first new mail message. This
does not renumber the existing message list, nor does it cause any changes
made so far to be saved.
-
-
- invtags
- Invert the tags on a list of messages or the current
message if none are given. Note: this will not affect any currently
deleted messages.
-
-
- mail
- (m) Takes as argument login names and
distribution group names and sends mail to those people.
-
-
- mbox
- Indicate that a list of messages be sent to
mbox in your home directory when you quit. This is the
default action for messages if you do not have the
hold option set.
-
-
- mkread
- (mk) Takes a message list and marks each
message as having been read.
-
-
- more
- (mo) Takes a message list and invokes the
pager on that list.
-
-
- next
- (n, like + or CR) Goes
to the next message in sequence and types it. With an argument list, types
the next matching message.
-
-
- page
- (pa) A synonym for
more.
-
-
- preserve
- (pre) A synonym for
hold.
-
-
- print
- (p) Takes a message list and types out
each message on the user's terminal.
-
-
- quit
- (q) Terminates the session, saving all
undeleted, unsaved messages in the user's mbox file
in his login directory, preserving all messages marked with
hold or preserve or never referenced
in his system mailbox, and removing all other messages from his system
mailbox. If new mail has arrived during the session, the message
“
You have new mail
” is given. If given
while editing a mailbox file with the -f flag, then the
edit file is rewritten. A return to the Shell is effected, unless the
rewrite of edit file fails, in which case the user can escape with the
exit command.
-
-
- reply
- (r) Takes a message list and sends mail
to the sender and all recipients of the specified message. The default
message must not be deleted. (See the Reply command and
the Replyall variable.)
-
-
- respond
- A synonym for reply.
-
-
- retain
- Add the list of header fields named to the
retained list. Only the header fields in the
retained list are shown on your terminal when you print a message. All
other header fields are suppressed. The Type and
Print commands can be used to print a message in its
entirety. If retain is executed with no arguments, it
lists the current set of retained fields. Retain
overrides save.
-
-
- reverse
- Reverse the order of the messages in at the current thread
level. This is completely equivalent to “
sort
!
”.
-
-
- save
- (s) Takes a message list and a filename
and appends each message in turn to the end of the file. The filename in
quotes, followed by the line count and character count is echoed on the
user's terminal.
-
-
- set
- (se) With no arguments, prints all
variable values. Otherwise, sets option. Arguments are of the form
option=value (no space before or after =) or
option. Quotation marks may be placed around any
part of the assignment statement to quote blanks or tabs, i.e.
“
set indentprefix="->"
”
Inside single quotes everything is parsed literally, including
‘\’ escaped characters. Inside double quotes ‘\’
character escapes are interpreted. This is an extension as POSIX specifies
that ‘\’ should be left uninterpreted for both single and
double quoted strings.
-
-
- saveignore
- Saveignore is to save
what ignore is to print and
type. Header fields thus marked are filtered out when
saving a message by save or when automatically saving to
mbox.
-
-
- saveretain
- Saveretain is to save
what retain is to print and
type. Header fields thus marked are the only ones saved
with a message when saving by save or when automatically
saving to mbox. Saveretain
overrides saveignore.
-
-
- shell
- (sh) Invokes an interactive version of
the shell.
-
-
- show
- (sho) Takes a list of variables and
prints out their values in the form option=value. If
the list is empty, all variable values are shown.
-
-
- showtags
- Display all current messages, tagged or not, unless they
are in a hidden thread.
-
-
- showthreads
- The same as expose.
-
-
- size
- Takes a message list and prints out the size in characters
of each message.
-
-
- smopts
- Takes an “address-spec” followed by the
sendmail flags that should be used when sending mail to an address that
matches that “address-spec”. If no sendmail flags are
specified, then list the sendmail flags in effect for the
“address-spec”. If the “address-spec” is also
omitted, then list all smopts settings. The
“address-spec” may be an alias, address, domain (beginning
with a ‘
@
’), or subdomain (beginning
with a ‘.
’). If mail is sent to
multiple users, the sendmail flags are used only if the flags are the same
for each recipients. If smopts-verify is set, then
you will be asked to verify the sendmail flags (if there are any) before
the mail is sent. Address matching is case insensitive and done from most
specific to least.
For example if you have:
smopts mylist -F "List Maintainer"
smopts @NetBSD.org -f anon@somewhere.net -F "Anon Ymous"
smopts friend@NetBSD.org ""
then mail sent to any of the addresses that the
‘mylist
’ alias expands to would have
the sender's name set to ‘List
Maintainer
’. Mail sent to anyone at NetBSD.org other than
‘friend@NetBSD.org
’ would look like it
was sent from ‘anon@somewhere.net
’ by
‘Anon Ymous
’. Mail sent to
‘friend@NetBSD.org
’ would not have any
sendmail flags set (unless they are set by the ~h
escape).
-
-
- sort
- With no argument, sort does nothing.
Otherwise it will sort based on the header field name given as an
argument. A few names are special:
blines sort based on the number of body lines.
hlines sort on the number of header lines.
tlines sort on the total number of lines.
size sort on the message size
sday sent day (ignores the hour/min/sec)
rday received day (ignores the hour/min/sec)
sdate sent date
rdate received date
subject sort on the subject, ignoring "Re:" prefixes.
from sort on the sender's address.
The check for these special names is case sensitive while the header field
name comparisons are case insensitive, so changing the case on any of
these special names will sort based on the header field ignoring the
special keyword.
There are also three modifiers which may precede the argument:
! reverse the sorting order.
^ case insensitive sorting.
- skin the field (removing RFC 822 comments and
keep the address).
The same keywords and modifiers also apply to threading. (See the
thread command.)
Note: sort has no effect on the threading, sorting only on
the heads of the threads if threads exist.
-
-
- source
- The source command reads commands from a
file.
-
-
- tag
- Tag a list of messages or the current message if none are
given. In hidden thread mode, the entire thread will be tagged, i.e.,
tag is recursive
-
-
- tagbelow
- Tag all messages of the current thread below the level of
the current message (dot) or the supplied message number if given.
-
-
- thread
- By default this threads the current message list based on
the ‘
In-Reply-To
’ and
‘References
’ header fields (intended
for this purpose by RFC 2822). If given an argument, it will thread on
that header field name instead. The same field keywords and modifiers
recognized by the sort command are also recognized here. Display of the
threads is controlled by the hide and
expose commands; navigation of threads is done with the
down, up, and tset
commands.
If recursive-commands is defined, many commands (e.g.,
print) act on the entire thread (when it is hidden),
otherwise they act on just the current message.
Note: the ‘In-Reply-To
’ and
‘Reference
’ header fields are
necessary to do threading correctly. This version of
mail now emits these header fields when replying.
-
-
- top
- Takes a message list and prints the top few lines of each.
The number of lines printed is controlled by the variable
toplines and defaults to five.
-
-
- tset
- Set the current thread (thread set) so that the supplied
message number (or the current message if no argument is given) is at the
top level of the current thread.
-
-
- type
- (t) A synonym for
print.
-
-
- unalias
- Takes a list of names defined by alias
commands and discards the remembered groups of users. The group names no
longer have any significance.
-
-
- undelete
- (u) Takes a message list and marks each
message as not being deleted.
-
-
- unread
- (unr) Takes a message list and marks each
message as not having been read.
-
-
- unset
- Takes a list of option names and discards their remembered
values; the inverse of set.
-
-
- unsmopts
- Takes a list of “address-specs” defined by
smopts commands and discards them from the smopts
database.
-
-
- untag
- Untag a list of messages or the current message if none are
given. Like the tag command, untag is
recursive on hidden threads.
-
-
- unthread
- Undo all threading and sorting, restoring the original
display order, i.e., the order in the mail file.
-
-
- up
- Go up one level in the thread. This also takes an optional
(positive) argument to go up multiple levels in the thread.
-
-
- view
- (vie) Like print but
has the opposite MIME decoding behavior. (See the
mime-decode-message variable.)
-
-
- visual
- (v) Takes a message list and invokes the
display editor on each message.
-
-
- write
- (w) Similar to save,
except that only the message body
(without the header) is saved. Extremely useful for such
tasks as sending and receiving source program text over the message
system.
-
-
- xit
- (x) A synonym for
exit.
-
-
- z
- mail presents message headers in
windowfuls as described under the headers command. You
can move mail's attention forward to the next window
with the z command. Also, you can move to the previous
window by using z-.
Tilde/Escapes
Here is a summary of the tilde escapes, which are used when composing messages
to perform special functions. Tilde escapes are only recognized at the
beginning of lines. The name “
tilde escape”
is somewhat of a misnomer since the actual escape character can be set by the
option
escape.
-
-
- ~!command
- Execute the indicated shell command, then return to the
message.
-
-
- ~@
[filelist]
- Add the files in the white-space delimited
filelist to the attachment list. If
filelist is omitted, edit the attachment list,
possibly appending to it: For each file in the list the user is prompted
to change its attachment data. Changing the filename to empty will delete
it from the list. Upon reaching the end of the attachment list, the user
is prompted for additional files to attach until an empty filename is
given. Filenames containing white-space can only be added in this
“edit” mode.
-
-
- ~a
- Inserts the autograph string from the sign= option into the
message.
-
-
- ~A
- Inserts the autograph string from the Sign= option into the
message.
-
-
- ~bname
...
- Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients
but do not make the names visible in the Cc: line (“blind”
carbon copy).
-
-
- ~cname
...
- Add the given names to the list of carbon copy
recipients.
-
-
- ~d
- Read the file “dead.letter”
from your home directory into the message.
-
-
- ~e
- Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
After the editing session is finished, you may continue appending text to
the message.
-
-
- ~fmessages
- Read the named messages into the message being sent. If no
messages are specified, read in the current message. Message headers
currently being ignored (by the ignore or
retain command) are not included.
-
-
- ~
- Identical to ~f, except all message
headers are included.
-
-
- ~h
- Edit the message header fields, and the options passed to
sendmail (the
Smopts
), by typing each one in turn
and allowing the user to append text to the end or modify the field by
using the current terminal erase and kill characters. If
editline(3) support is
included, then that line editor is used.
-
-
- ~istring
- Inserts the value of the named option into the text of the
message.
-
-
- ~mmessages
- Read the named messages into the message being sent,
indented by a tab or by the value of indentprefix.
If no messages are specified, read the current message. Message headers
currently being ignored (by the ignore or
retain command) are not included.
-
-
- ~Mmessages
- Identical to ~m, except all message
headers are included.
-
-
- ~p
- Print out the message collected so far, prefaced by the
message header fields.
-
-
- ~q
- Abort the message being sent, copying the message to
“dead.letter” in your home directory if
save is set.
-
-
- ~x
- Exits as with ~q, except the message is not saved in
“dead.letter”.
-
-
- ~rfilename
-
- ~<filename
- Reads the named file into the message. If the argument
begins with ‘
!
’, the rest of the
string is taken as an arbitrary system command and is executed, with the
standard output inserted into the message.
-
-
- ~sstring
- Cause the named string to become the current subject
field.
-
-
- ~tname
...
- Add the given names to the direct recipient list.
-
-
- ~v
- Invoke an alternative editor (defined by the
VISUAL
option) on the message collected so far.
Usually, the alternative editor will be a screen editor. After you quit
the editor, you may resume appending text to the end of your message.
-
-
- ~wfilename
- Write the message onto the named file.
-
-
- ~|command
- Pipe the message body through the command as a filter. If
the command gives no output or terminates abnormally, retain the original
text of the message. The command
fmt(1) is often used as
command to rejustify the message.
-
-
- ~:mail-command
- Execute the given mail command. Not all commands, however,
are allowed.
-
-
- ~~string
- Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a
single ~. If you have changed the escape character, then you should double
that character in order to send it.
Mail Options
Options are controlled via
set and
unset
commands. Options may be either binary, in which case it is only significant
to see whether they are set or not; or string, in which case the actual value
is of interest. The binary options include the following:
-
-
- append
- Causes messages saved in mbox to be
appended to the end rather than prepended. This should always be set
(perhaps in /etc/mail.rc).
-
-
- ask,
asksub
- Causes mail to prompt you for the subject
of each message you send. If you respond with simply a newline, no subject
field will be sent.
-
-
- askcc
- Causes you to be prompted for additional carbon copy
recipients at the end of each message. Responding with a newline indicates
your satisfaction with the current list.
-
-
- autoinc
- Causes new mail to be automatically incorporated when it
arrives. Setting this is similar to issuing the inc
command at each prompt, except that the current message is not reset when
new mail arrives.
-
-
- askbcc
- Causes you to be prompted for additional blind carbon copy
recipients at the end of each message. Responding with a newline indicates
your satisfaction with the current list.
-
-
- autoprint
- Causes the delete command to behave like
dp - thus, after deleting a message, the next one will
be typed automatically.
-
-
- crt
- If crt is set, then the
PAGER
will be used for the
print, Print, type,
and Type commands. Normally these commands do not invoke
the pager. (See page-also.)
-
-
- debug
- Setting the binary option debug is
the same as specifying -d on the command line and causes
mail to output all sorts of information useful for
debugging mail.
-
-
- dot
- The binary option dot causes
mail to interpret a period alone on a line as the
terminator of a message you are sending.
-
-
- enable-pipes
- If defined, the output of most commands can be piped into a
shell command or redirected to a file. The pipe/redirection is signaled by
the first occurrence of a ‘
|
’ or
‘>
’ character that is not in a
quoted string or in a parenthetical group. This character terminates the
mail command line and the remaining string is passed to the shell. For
example, assuming normal headers, something like
from john@ | fgrep -i ' "Re:' | wc
could be used to count how may replies were made by senders with
‘john@
’ in their address and
would append all the headers from such senders to /tmp/john.
Note: With piping enabled, you cannot use the
‘|
’ as a logical “or”
operator outside of a parenthetical group. This should not be a problem as
it is the default logical operator. (See the
Specifying messages
section.)
-
-
- hold
- This option is used to hold messages in the system mailbox
by default.
-
-
- ignore
- Causes interrupt signals from your terminal to be ignored
and echoed as @'s.
-
-
- metoo
- Usually, when a group is expanded that contains the sender,
the sender is removed from the expansion. Setting this option causes the
sender to be included in the group.
-
-
- mime-attach-list
- If set, the command line flag -a will
accept a whitespace delimited list of files. Otherwise, its argument is
interpreted as a single filename. Warning: If enabled, care must be taken
to properly quote files that contain whitespace, both from the shell and
from this second expansion done by mail.
-
-
- mime-decode-header
- If set, decode the headers along with the body when
mime-decode-message is set. The header decode
follows the same rules as the body (see
mime-decode-message).
-
-
- mime-decode-insert
- When inserting a message into the mail buffer
(~f or ~F), the text inserted will be
decoded according to the settings of the
mime-decode-message and
mime-decode-header variables.
-
-
- mime-decode-message
- If set, the More, more,
Page, page, Print,
print, Type, and
type commands will display decoded the MIME messages.
Otherwise, they display the undecoded message. Recall that the
View and view commands always have the
opposite MIME decoding behavior from these commands.
-
-
- mime-decode-quote
- When quoting a message into the mail buffer
(~m or ~M), the text inserted will be
decoded according to the settings of the
mime-decode-message and
mime-decode-header variables.
-
-
- mime-detach-batch
- If set, the detach command does not prompt for anything
(unless mime-detach-overwrite is set to
‘
ask
’), overwriting target files
depending on the setting of
mime-detach-overwrite.
-
-
- noheader
- Setting the option noheader is the
same as giving the -N flag on the command line.
-
-
- nosave
- Normally, when you abort a message with two RUBOUT (erase
or delete) mail copies the partial letter to the file
“dead.letter” in your home directory.
Setting the binary option nosave prevents this.
-
-
- page-also
- A comma or whitespace delimited list of additional commands
to page. The comparisons are case insensitive, so if
view is in the list, both view and
View will page.
-
-
- pager-off
- If set, disable the pager on all commands.
-
-
- quiet
- Suppresses the printing of the version when first
invoked.
-
-
- recursive-commands
- When defined, and threading is in effect, the following
commands operate on the entire thread (if it is “hidden”)
rather than just the top displayed message of the thread:
More Page Print Type View more page print type view
top
Save copy save write
Detach detach
delete dp dt
undelete
hold preserve
mbox mkread touch unread
tag untag invtags
If not defined, or if the threads are “exposed”, commands behave
exactly as they do in non-threaded mode, i.e., each operates on individual
messages.
-
-
- Replyall
- Reverses the sense of reply and
Reply commands.
-
-
- searchheaders
- If this option is set, then a message-list specifier in the
form “/x:y” will expand to all messages containing the
substring “y” in the header field “x”. The string
search is case insensitive. If “x” is omitted, it will default
to the ‘
Subject
’ header field. If
“y” is omitted, only those messages that contain the field
“x” will be matched. The three forms “/from:y”,
“/to:y”, and “/body:y” are special. The first will
match all messages which contain the substring “y” in the
headline (which is added locally at receipt time and begins with
“From ”). The second will match all messages containing the
substring “y” in the ‘To
’,
‘Cc
’, or
‘Bcc
’ header fields. The third will
match all messages which contain the substring “y” in a line
of the message body. The check for “from”, “to”,
and “body” is case sensitive, so that “/From:y”
and “/To:y” can be used to search the
‘From
’ and
‘To
’ fields, respectively. (See also
regex-search.)
-
-
- smopts-verify
- Verify the sendmail options used on outgoing mail if they
were obtained from a smopts match. This has no
effect if there are no sendmail flags or if the flags were set by the
~h escape.
-
-
- verbose
- Setting the option verbose is the
same as using the -v flag on the command line. When mail
runs in verbose mode, the actual delivery of messages is displayed on the
user's terminal.
Option String Values
-
-
EDITOR
- Pathname of the text editor to use in the
edit command and ~e escape. If not
defined, then a default editor is used.
-
-
LISTER
- Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
folders command. Default is
/bin/ls.
-
-
PAGER
- Pathname of the program to use in the
more command or when crt variable is
set. The default paginator
more(1) is used if this option
is not defined.
-
-
SHELL
- Pathname of the shell to use in the !
command and the ~! escape. A default shell is used if
this option is not defined.
-
-
VISUAL
- Pathname of the text editor to use in the
visual command and ~v escape.
-
-
- el-completion-keys
- A comma or space delimited list of keys to do
editline(3) completion.
For example set el-completion-keys=^I,^D will bind
completion to both the tab and CTRL-D keys. (Requires
editline(3) support.)
-
-
- el-editor
- The line editing mode: must be
‘
emacs
’ or
‘vi
’. If unset, editing is not
enabled. (Requires
editline(3) support.)
-
-
- el-history-size
- The number of lines of history to remember. If unset,
history is not enable. (Requires
editline(3) support.)
-
-
- escape
- If defined, the first character of this option gives the
character to use in the place of ~ to denote
escapes.
-
-
- folder
- The name of the directory to use for storing folders of
messages. If this name begins with a
‘
/
’, mail considers
it to be an absolute pathname; otherwise, the folder directory is found
relative to your home directory.
-
-
- header-format
- If set, use this format string when displaying headers in
command mode. The format string supports the following conversions in
addition to those of
strftime(3):
- %?key?
- The header field with name
‘
key
’. Note: if key[0] is
‘-
’, ignore the
‘-
’ and extract the address
portion of the field (i.e., “skin” the field).
- %?*string?
- If the depth is n, substitute
‘
string
’ n
times. This is intended to be used when displaying an “exposed
thread”.
- %?&string?
- Like %?*string?, but uses the
depth relative to the current depth rather than the absolute
depth.
- %J
- The number of header lines in the message.
- %K
- The number of body lines in the message.
- %L
- The total number of lines in the message.
- %N
- The sender's full name (as in the
‘
From
’ or
‘Sender
’ fields).
- %O
- The message size.
- %P
- The current “dot” (‘>’)
message.
- %Q
- The message status flag.
- %Z
- The time zone name (if it exists).
- %f
- The email address of sender.
- %i
- The message number.
- %n
- The sender's login name (taken from the address).
- %q
- The subject.
- %t
- The total number of messages.
- %z
- The GMT offset (if found).
If the format string begins with ‘%??
’
then the date will be extracted from the headline. Otherwise it will be
extracted from the ‘Date
’ header
falling back to the headline if that extraction fails. For example, the
default format is:
set header-format="%??%P%Q%?* ?%3i %-21.20f %a %b %e %R %3K/%-5O \"%q\""
Note 1: The message status flag ‘%Q
’
will display the single character ‘+
’
for the parent of a subthread. This will be overwritten by a
‘T
’,
‘E
’,
‘*
’,
‘P
’,
‘U
’,
‘N
’,
‘M
’ indicating, respectively, a
tagged, modified, saved, preserved, unread, new, or modified message, in
that order with the last matching condition being the one displayed. In
the case of hidden threads, the entire subthread is searched and the
letters above will be displayed in lower case if the property is that of a
hidden child with the case ‘*
’ being
displayed as ‘&
’.
Note 2: %n and %t as used by
strftime(3) were redundant
with \t and \n, respectively, so nothing is lost using them here.
-
-
- ignoreeof
- An option related to dot is
ignoreeof which makes mail refuse
to accept a ‘
control-D
’ as the end of
a message. If given a numeric argument n, a
‘control-D
’ will be accepted after
n tries. Ignoreeof also
applies to mail command mode.
-
-
- indentpreamble
- If set, this format string will be inserted before quoting
a message (~m or ~M). The format
syntax is the same as for header-format. For
example, the following:
set indentpreamble=
"On %b %e %T, %Y %z (%Z), %n (%.50N) wrote:\n-- Subject: %.65q\n"
would insert something like
On Oct 27 11:00:07, 2006 -0400 (EDT), anon (Anon Ymous) wrote:
-- Subject: suggestions for mail(1)
before the quoted message.
-
-
- indentprefix
- String used by the ~m and
~M tilde escapes for indenting messages, in place of the
normal tab character (‘^I’). Be sure to quote the value if it
contains spaces or tabs.
-
-
- indentpostscript
- If set, this format string will be inserted after quoting a
message (~m or ~M). The format syntax
is the same as for header-format. For example, the
following:
set indentpostscript="-- End of excerpt from %.50N"
would insert something like
-- End of excerpt from Anon Ymous
after the quoted message.
-
-
- mime-body-TYPE-SUBTYPE
- MIME-hook for the body of a MIME block of
‘
Content-Type: TYPE/SUBTYPE
’. (See
MIME Enhancements below.)
-
-
- mime-charset
- Convert ‘
Content-type:
text
’ messages to this character set or
‘us-ascii
’ if the value is empty. If
unset, no character set conversion is done.
-
-
- mime-detach-dir
- The directory to detach files to if the
detach command is given no arguments. (See
detach.)
-
-
- mime-detach-overwrite
- This controls overwriting of existing files by the detach
command. If set to ‘
ask
’ the user will
be prompted before overwriting a file. If set to
‘yes
’, or to the empty string,
existing target files will be overwritten. If set to
‘no
’, no target files will be
overwritten.
-
-
- mime-encode-message
- If set, encode the body of the message as required.
Typically, this is just an issue of whether
‘
quoted-printable
’ encoding is used or
not. If it has a value, then use it to determine the encoding type.
Allowed values are ‘7bit
’,
‘8bit
’,
‘binary
’,
‘quoted-printable
’, or
‘base64
’.
-
-
- mime-head-TYPE-SUBTYPE
- MIME-hook for the header of a MIME block of
‘
Content-Type: TYPE/SUBTYPE
’. (See
MIME Enhancements below.)
-
-
- mime-hook-TYPE-SUBTYPE
- MIME-hook for MIME block of
‘
Content-Type: TYPE/SUBTYPE
’. (See
MIME Enhancements below.)
-
-
MBOX
- The name of the mbox file. It can be
the name of a folder. The default is
“
mbox
” in the user's home
directory.
-
-
- prompt
- If defined, it specifies the prompt to use when in command
mode. Otherwise, the default ‘
&
’
is used. The format syntax is the same as for
header-format.
-
-
- record
- If defined, gives the pathname of the file used to record
all outgoing mail. If not defined, then outgoing mail is not so
saved.
-
-
- regex-search
- If set, regular expression searches are used, instead of
simple case insensitive substring matches, when determining message lists
by searching sender names, subjects, or header fields (if
searchheaders is defined); see the
Specifying messages section.
The value of the variable is a space or comma delimited list of options.
Valid options are ‘
icase
’ to do case
insensitive searches, ‘extended
’ to
use extended (rather than basic) regular expressions, and
‘nospec
’ to turn off all special
character meanings and do literal string searches. Note that
‘extended
’ and
‘nospec
’ are not compatible (see
regcomp(3)).
-
-
- ReplyAsRecipient
- This is used when replying to email (see the
reply or Reply commands). It is useful
if you have multiple email addresses and wish to ensure that replies
respect them. If set, grab the email address(es) from the
‘
To
’ field of the message being
replied to. If there is only one such address, and if it does not match
any address in the value of ReplyAsRecipient (a
comma or space delimited list of addresses, possibly empty), then use this
address in the ‘From
’ field of the
reply. This is accomplished by passing the address to
sendmail(1) with the
-f option. Note: the sendmail options can be edited with
the ~h escape. (See also the smopts
command.)
-
-
- toplines
- If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be
printed out with the top command; normally, the first
five lines are printed.
MIME Enhancements
A MIME message is (recursively) divided into a series of MIME parts that can be
thought of as sub-messages, each with a header and body. When MIME support is
enabled (by setting
mime-decode-message),
mail splits a message into a series of its smallest MIME
parts and processes those parts as if they were messages themselves, passing
the header and body through a pipeline of the form:
mail -> MIME-decoder -> MIME-hook ->
pager -> screen
The
MIME-decoder decodes
‘
base64
’ or
‘
quoted-printable
’ encoding and is enabled
according to the
‘
Content-Transfer-Encoding
’ of the part.
The
MIME-hook is an external program to further process the
part (see below). The
pager is the program that pages the
message (see
PAGER
). Any of these intermediate pipe
stages may be missing and/or different for the head and body of each MIME
part. Certain ‘
Content-Types
’ may disable
the entire pipeline (e.g.,
‘
application/octet
’).
The
MIME-hook stage is not present unless one of the following
variables is set:
mime-hook-TYPE-SUBTYPE applies to the entire MIME part
mime-head-TYPE-SUBTYPE applies to the header of the MIME part
mime-body-TYPE-SUBTYPE applies to the body of the MIME part
where TYPE and SUBTYPE are the
‘
Content-Type
’ type and subtype
(respectively) of the MIME part to which the hook applies. If the
“-SUBTYPE” is missing, any subtype is matched. The value of these
variables has the format:
[flags]
command
where the
command is expected to read from stdin and write
to stdout, and the possible flags are
-
-
- !
- Execute command in a sub-shell rather
than doing an exec(3) (see
SHELL).
-
-
- +
- Use this hook when selecting the part to display in a
‘
multipart/alternative
’ block.
Multipart blocks contain “alternative” versions with the same
information, in increasing order of preference (and decoding complexity).
The last one the mail agent understands is the one to be displayed. This
is typically used for sending a message in both “plain text”
and “html”, but more complex subtypes are also possible.
-
-
- -
- Do not decode before executing
command.
If your
command begins with one of these flags, precede it
with a space to signal the end of the flags.
WARNING: automatically running a program is a potential security risk if that
program has bugs, so be careful what you run.
Examples: View all ‘
Content-Type:
image/jpeg
’ parts with
xv(1) (assuming it is installed):
set mime-body-image-jpeg="/usr/pkg/bin/xv
-"
Decode all ‘
Content-Type: images/*
’ blocks
with
uudeview(1) (assuming it
is installed), placing the results in
/tmp:
set
mime-hook-image="-/usr/pkg/bin/uudeview -p /tmp -i -a +o -q
-"
Read all ‘
Content-Type: text/html
’ parts
using
lynx(1) (assuming it is
installed) and add this support to
‘
multipart/alternative
’ blocks:
set mime-body-text-html="+/usr/pkg/bin/lynx -force_html -dump -stdin"
ENVIRONMENT
mail uses the
HOME
,
TMPDIR
, and
USER
environment
variables.
FILES
- /var/mail/*
- Post office. This can be overwritten by setting the
MAIL
environment variable.
- ~/mbox
- User's old mail. This can be overwritten by setting the
MBOX
environment variable.
- ~/.mailrc
- File giving initial mail commands. This can be overridden
by setting the
MAILRC
environment variable.
- /tmp/mail.R*
- Temporary files.
- /usr/share/misc/mail.*help
- Help files.
- /etc/mail.rc
- System initialization file.
SEE ALSO
fmt(1),
newaliases(1),
sendmail(1),
vacation(1),
aliases(5),
mailaddr(7) and
The Mail Reference Manual.
HISTORY
A
mail command appeared in
Version 6
AT&T UNIX. This man page is derived from “The Mail Reference
Manual” originally written by Kurt Shoens.
BUGS
There are some flags and commands that are not documented here. Most are not
useful to the general user.
Usually,
mail is just a link to
Mail, which
can be confusing.
The name of the
alternates list is incorrect English (it
should be “alternatives”), but is retained for compatibility.
There must be sufficient space on $TMPDIR for various temporary files.
If an unrecoverable character set conversion error occurs (during display), the
message is truncated and a warning is printed. This seems to be rare, but
probably the remainder of the message should be printed without conversion.
The internal sh-like parser is not terribly sh-like.
Selecting messages by their content (i.e., with
‘
/body:
’) is rather slow.