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. 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
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) 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.
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.
- 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.
- ~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
- Identical to ~f, except all message
headers are included.
- ~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.
- ~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.
- ~Mmessages
- Identical to ~m, except all message
headers are included.
- ~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.
- ~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.
- ~Rstring
- Use string as the Reply-To field.
- ~rfilename
-
- ~<filename
- Read the named file 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 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.
- ~wfilename
- 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.
- 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.
PAGER
- 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)
STANDARDS¶
The
mailx utility is compliant with the
IEEE
Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) specification.
The flags [
-abcdeEIv] are extensions
to that 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.