MAIL
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: February 13, 1989
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NAME
mail - send and receive mail
SYNOPSIS
mail
[
-iInv
]
[
-s
subject
]
[
-c
cc-addr
]
[
-b
bcc-addr
]
to-addr...
mail
[
-iInNv
]
-f
[
name
]
mail
[
-iInNv
]
[
-u
user
]
INTRODUCTION
Mail
is a intelligent mail processing system, which has
a command syntax reminiscent of
ed
with lines replaced by messages.
The
-v
flag puts mail into verbose mode; the details of
delivery are displayed on the users terminal.
The
-i
flag causes tty interrupt signals to be ignored. This is
particularly useful when using
mail
on noisy phone lines.
The
-I
flag 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.
The
-n
flag inhibits the reading of /usr/lib/Mail.rc.
The
-N
flag inhibits the initial display of message headers
when reading mail or editing a mail folder.
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 an EOT (control-D) at the beginning of a line.
A subject may be specified on the command line by using the
-s
flag. (Only the first argument after the
-s
flag is used as a subject; be careful to quote subjects
containing spaces.) Lists of users to send carbon copies and
blind carbon copies to may be specified using the
-c
and
-b
options, respectively. The single argument following the
flag is taken to be a comma-separated list of names.
The section below, labeled
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 there.
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,
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.
Commands such as
print
and
delete
can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply
to a number of messages at once.
Thus ``delete 1 2'' deletes messages 1 and 2, while ``delete 1-5''
deletes messages 1 through 5.
The special name ``*'' addresses all messages, and ``$'' addresses
the last message; thus the command
top
which prints the first few lines of a message could be used in
``top *'' to print the first few lines of all messages.
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 tabstop
(see ``tabstr'' 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.
The
-f
option causes
mail
to read in the contents of your
mbox
(or the specified file)
for processing; when you
quit,
mail
writes undeleted messages back to this file.
The
-u
flag is a short way of doing
"mail
-f
/usr/spool/mail/user".
Personal and systemwide 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
(a)
command in
mail.
System wide distribution lists can be created by editing
/usr/lib/aliases, see
aliases(5)
and
sendmail(8);
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.
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.
- -
-
Goes to the previous message and prints it out. If given a numeric
argument
n,
goes to the
n-th
previous message and prints it.
- ?
-
Prints a brief summary of commands.
- !
-
Executes the UNIX shell command which follows.
- Print
-
(P)
Like
print
but also prints out ignored header fields. See also
print
,
ignore
and
retain.
- Reply
-
(R)
Reply to originator. Does not reply to other
recipients of the original message.
- Type
-
(T)
Identical to the
Print
command.
- 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 alternate
names is displayed.
- 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.
- delete
-
(d) Takes a list of messages as argument and marks them all as deleted.
Deleted messages will not be saved in
mbox,
nor will they be available for most other commands.
- dp
-
(also dt) Deletes the current message and prints the next message.
If there is no next message,
mail
says ``at EOF.''
- 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.
- 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.
- file
-
(fi)
The same as
folder.
- 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 +folder means a file in your folder
directory.
- 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 ?
- 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.
- ignore
-
N.B.:
Ignore
has been superseded by
retain.
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.
- 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.
- next
-
(n like + or CR) Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
With an argument list, types the next matching message.
- 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.
- respond
-
A synonym for
reply.
- retain
-
Add the list of header fields named to the
retained list.
Only the header fields in the retain 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.
- 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 tabstr="-> "''.
- 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.
- size
-
Takes a message list and prints out the size in characters of each
message.
- source
-
(so)
The
source
command reads
mail
commands from a file.
- 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.
- 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
-
(U) 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.
- 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-.
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.
- ~b name ...
-
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).
- ~c name ...
-
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.
- ~f messages
-
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.
- ~F messages
-
Identical to ~f, except all message headers are included.
- ~h
-
Edit the message header fields 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.
- ~m messages
-
Read the named messages into the message being sent, shifted right one
tab or by the value of tabstr. If no messages are specified,
read the current message.
Message headers currently being ignored (by the ignore or retain
command) are not included.
- ~M messages
-
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.
- ~r filename
-
Read the named file into the message.
- ~s string
-
Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
- ~t name ...
-
Add the given names to the direct recipient list.
- ~v
-
Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the VISUAL option) on the
message collected so far. Usually, the alternate editor will be a
screen editor. After you quit the editor, you may resume appending
text to the end of your message.
- ~w filename
-
Write the message onto the named file.
- ~|command
-
Pipe the message 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.
Options are controlled via the
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 /usr/lib/Mail.rc).
- ask
-
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.
- autoprint
-
Causes the
delete
command to behave like
dp
- thus, after deleting a message, the next one will be typed
automatically.
- 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.
- 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.
- ignoreeof
-
An option related to
dot
is
ignoreeof
which makes
mail
refuse to accept a control-d as the end of a message.
Ignoreeof
also applies to
mail
command mode.
- 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.
- 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,
mail
copies the partial letter to the file ``dead.letter''
in your home directory. Setting the binary option
nosave
prevents this.
- Replyall
-
Reverses the sense of
reply
and
Reply
commands.
- quiet
-
Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
- 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 he users
terminal.
The following options have 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.
- crt
-
The valued option
crt
is used as a threshold to determine how long a message must
be before
PAGER
is used to read it. If crt is set without a value,
then the height of the terminal screen stored in the system
is used to compute the threshold (see stty(1)).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- tabstr
-
String used by the ``~m'' tilde escape for tabbing messages, in place of
the normal tab character (^I). Be sure to quote the value if it contains
spaces or tabs.
- 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.
FILES
/usr/spool/mail/* post office
~/mbox your old mail
~/.mailrc file giving initial mail commands
/tmp/R* temporary files
/usr/lib/Mail.help* help files
/usr/lib/Mail.rc system initialization file
SEE ALSO
binmail(1), fmt(1), newaliases(1), aliases(5),
mailaddr(7), sendmail(8)
`The Mail Reference Manual'
BUGS
There are some flags 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.
AUTHOR
Kurt Shoens
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- INTRODUCTION
-
- SUMMARY
-
- FILES
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- BUGS
-
- AUTHOR
-
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Time: 04:52:01 GMT, January 31, 2023