NAME¶
mail
,
mailx
,
Mail
—
send and receive mail
SYNOPSIS¶
mail |
[ -dEIinv ]
[-a header ]
[-b bcc-addr ]
[-c cc-addr ]
[-s subject ] to-addr
... |
mail |
[ -dEIiNnv ]
-f
[file ] |
mail |
[ -dEIiNnv ]
[-u
user ] |
DESCRIPTION¶
mail
is an intelligent mail processing system
which has a command syntax reminiscent of
ed(1)
with lines replaced by messages.
The options are as follows:
-a
- Specify additional header fields on the command line such as "X-Loop:
foo@bar" etc. You have to use quotes if the string contains spaces.
This argument may be specified more than once, the headers will then be
concatenated.
-b
bcc-addr
- Send blind carbon copies to
bcc-addr.
-c
cc-addr
- Send carbon copies to list of users.
cc-addr should be a comma separated list
of names.
-d
- Causes
mail
to output all sorts of
information useful for debugging
mail
.
-E
- Don't send messages with an empty body.
-f
- Use an alternate mailbox. Defaults to the user's
mbox if no
file is specified. When quit,
mail
writes undeleted messages back to
this file.
-I
- Forces
mail
to run in interactive mode,
even when input is not a terminal. In particular, the special
~
command character, used when sending
mail, is only available interactively.
-i
- Ignore tty interrupt signals. This is particularly useful when using
mail
on noisy phone lines.
-N
- Inhibits initial display of message headers when reading mail or editing a
mail folder.
-n
- Inhibits reading /etc/mail.rc upon
startup.
-s
subject
- 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
user
- Equivalent to:
$ mail -f
/var/mail/user
except that locking is done.
-v
- Verbose mode. The details of delivery are displayed on the user's
terminal.
Startup actions¶
At startup time,
mail
will execute commands
in the system command file,
/etc/mail.rc,
unless explicitly told not to by using the
-n
option. Next, the commands in the user's
personal command file
~/.mailrc are
executed.
mail
then examines its command
line options to determine whether the user requested a new message to be sent
or existing messages in a mailbox to be examined.
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 (‘^D’) at the beginning of a line. 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 set to the first
message (numbered 1) and can be printed using the
print
command (which can be abbreviated
p
). Moving among the messages is much like
moving between lines in
ed(1); you may use
+
and
-
to shift forwards and backwards, or simply enter a message number to move
directly.
Disposing of mail¶
After examining a message you can
delete
(
d
) 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, however, will 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.
Messages may also be selected using one of the following categories:
- *
- all messages
- $
- last message
- :d
- deleted messages
- :n
- new messages
- :o
- old messages
- :r
- read messages
- :u
- unread messages
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 tilde (‘~’) 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
single tab-stop (see the
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 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/aliases, (see
aliases(5)); 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 an MTA.
Recipient address specifications¶
Recipient addresses (any of the “To”, “Cc” or
“Bcc” header fields) are subject to expansion when the
expandaddr
option is set.
An address may be expanded as follows:
- An address that starts with a pipe
(‘
|
’) character is treated as a
command to run. The command immediately following the
‘|
’ is executed with the message as
its standard input.
- An address that starts with a ‘
+
’
character is treated as a folder.
- An address that contains a ‘
/
’
character but no ‘!
’,
‘%
’, or
‘@
’ characters is also treated as a
folder.
- If none of the above apply, the recipient is treated as a local or network
mail address.
If the
expandaddr
option is not set (the
default), no expansion is performed and the recipient is treated as a local or
network mail address.
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.
-
- Print out the preceding message. If given a numeric argument
n, goes to the
nth previous message and prints it.
?
- Prints a brief summary of commands.
!
- Executes the shell (see sh(1) and
csh(1)) command which follows.
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 “No
more messages.
”
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
.
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.
folders
- List the names of the folders in your folder directory.
from
- (
f
) Takes a list of messages and prints
their message headers.
- (
h
) Lists the current windowful of
headers. To view the next or previous group of headers, see the
z
command.
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
- 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.
list
- (
l
) List the valid
mail
commands.
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.
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.
preserve
- (
pre
) A synonym for
hold
.
Print
- (
P
) Like
print
but also prints out ignored
header fields. See also print
,
ignore
, and
retain
.
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
) Reply to originator. Does not reply
to other recipients of the original message.
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.
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
.
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="->"
.
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
- The
source
command reads 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
) Identical to the
Print
command.
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-
.
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
.
~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
- Identical to
~f
, except all message
headers are included.
~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.
~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
- Identical to
~m
, except all message
headers are included.
~m
messages
- 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.
~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
string
- Use string as the Reply-To field.
~r
filename
-
~<
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.
~x
- Abort the message being sent. No message is copied to
~/dead.letter, even if
save
is set.
~?
- Prints a brief summary of tilde escapes.
~!
command
- Execute the indicated shell command, then return to the message.
~|
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
-
~_
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.
~.
- Simulate end of file on input.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- expandaddr
- Causes
mail
to expand message recipient
addresses, as explained in the section
Recipient
address specifications.
- 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.
- keep
- Setting this option causes
mail
to
truncate your system mailbox instead of deleting it when it's empty.
- keepsave
- Messages saved with the
save
command
are not normally saved in mbox at quit
time. Use this option to retain those messages.
- 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 interrupt characters (usually
control-C),
mail
copies the partial
letter to the file dead.letter in your
home directory. Setting the binary option
nosave prevents this.
- quiet
- Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
- 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. The form “/to:y”
is a special case, and will expand to all messages containing the
substring ‘y’ in the “To”, “Cc”
or “Bcc” header fields. The check for “to” is
case sensitive, so that “/To:y” can be used to limit the
search for ‘y’ to just the “To:” field.
- skipempty
- Don't send messages with an empty body.
- 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,
/usr/bin/ex is used.
LISTER
- Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
folders
command. Default is
/bin/ls.
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.
- Pathname of the program to use in the
more
command or when the
crt variable is set. The default
paginator more(1) is used if this option is
not defined.
REPLYTO
- If set, will be used to initialize the Reply-To field for outgoing
messages.
SHELL
- Pathname of the shell to use in the
!
command and the ~!
escape. A default
shell is used if this option is not defined.
TMPDIR
- Directory in which temporary files are stored.
VISUAL
- Pathname of the text editor to use in the
visual
command and
~v
escape. If not defined,
/usr/bin/vi is used.
- 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.
- indentprefix
- String used by the
~m
tilde escape for
indenting messages, in place of the normal tab character
(‘^I’). Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or
tabs.
- 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.
- screen
- Size of window of message headers for
z
.
- sendmail
- Pathname to an alternative mail delivery system.
- 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.
ENVIRONMENT¶
mail
utilizes the
HOME
,
LOGNAME
,
USER
,
SHELL
,
DEAD
,
PAGER
,
LISTER
,
EDITOR
,
VISUAL
,
REPLYTO
,
MAIL
,
MAILRC
, and
MBOX
environment variables.
If the
MAIL
environment variable is set, its
value is used as the path to the user's mail spool.
FILES¶
- /var/mail/*
- post office (unless overridden by the
MAIL
environment variable)
- ~/mbox
- user's old mail
- ~/.mailrc
- file giving initial mail commands; can be overridden by setting the
MAILRC
environment variable
- /tmp/R*
- temporary files
- /usr/share/bsd-mailx/mail.*help
- help files
- /etc/mail.rc
- system initialization file
EXIT STATUS¶
The
mail
utility exits 0 on success,
and >0 if an error occurs.
SEE ALSO¶
fmt(1),
newaliases(1),
vacation(1),
aliases(5),
mailaddr(7),
mail.local(8),
newaliases(8),
sendmail(8),
smtpd(8)
STANDARDS¶
The
mailx
utility is compliant with the
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
(“POSIX.1”) specification.
The flags [
-iNnu
] are
marked by
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
(“POSIX.1”) as being optional.
The flags [
-eFH
] are
marked by
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
(“POSIX.1”) as being optional, and are not supported by
this implementation of
mailx
.
The flags [
-abcdEIv
]
are extensions to the specification.
HISTORY¶
A
mail
command appeared in
Version 3 AT&T UNIX. This man page is
derived from the
Mail Reference Manual originally
written by Kurt Shoens.
BUGS¶
Usually,
Mail
and
mailx
are just links to
mail
, which can be confusing.