NetBSD/usr.bin/mail/mail.1

.\"	$NetBSD: mail.1,v 1.40 2006/11/28 18:45:32 christos Exp $
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.\"	@(#)mail.1	8.8 (Berkeley) 4/28/95
.\"
.Dd November 3, 2006
.Dt MAIL 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mail ,
.Nm mailx ,
.Nm Mail
.Nd send and receive mail
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl EIinv
.Op Fl a Ar file
.Op Fl b Ar bcc-addr
.Op Fl c Ar cc-addr
.Op Fl s Ar subject
.Ar to-addr ...
.Op Ar sendmail-flags
.Nm
.Op Fl EIiNnv
.Op Fl H Ns Op colon-modifier
.Fl f
.Op Ar name
.Nm
.Op Fl EIiNnv
.Op Fl H Ns Op colon-modifier
.Op Fl u Ar user
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
is an intelligent mail processing system, which has
a command syntax reminiscent of
.Xr \&ed 1
with lines replaced by messages.
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width flag
.It Fl a
Attach
.Ar file
to the message.
.Ar file
may be a white-space delimited list of filenames, so care must be
taken to properly quote filenames that contain white-space.
.It Fl b
Send blind carbon copies to
.Ar list .
List should be a comma-separated list of names.
.It Fl c
Send carbon copies to
.Ar list
of users.
.It Fl E
Don't send messages with an empty body.
This is useful for piping errors from cron scripts.
.It Fl f
Read in the contents of your
.Ar mbox
(or the specified file)
for processing; when you
.Ic quit ,
.Nm
writes undeleted messages back to this file.
.It Fl H
Print the header summaries and exit.
The optional colon-modifier string must begin with a
.Sq \&:
and be followed by one or more of the characters described in the
.Dq Selecting Messages
section below.
E.g.,
.Qo
.Nm
.Fl H Ns :n
.Qc
will display just new message headers.
.It Fl I
Forces mail to run in interactive mode even when
input isn't a terminal.
In particular, the
.Sq Ic \&~
special
character when sending mail is only active in interactive mode.
.It Fl i
Ignore tty interrupt signals.
This is particularly useful when using
.Nm
on noisy phone lines.
.It Fl N
Inhibits the initial display of message headers
when reading mail or editing a mail folder.
.It Fl n
Inhibits reading
.Pa /etc/mail.rc
upon startup.
.It Fl s
Specify subject on command line
(only the first argument after the
.Fl s
flag is used as a subject; be careful to quote subjects
containing spaces.)
.It Fl u
Is equivalent to:
.Pp
.Dl mail -f /var/mail/user
.It Fl v
Verbose mode.
The details of delivery are displayed on the user's terminal.
.El
.Ss Sending mail
To send a message to one or more people,
.Nm
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
.Sq Li control\-D
at the beginning of a line.
.Pp
Any flags following the list of recipients, with arguments, will
be passed directly to
.Xr sendmail 1 .
For example to change your
.Dv From
address to
.Dv somebody@somewhere.net
you can specify:
.Pp
.Dl mail recipient -f somebody@somewhere.net
.Pp
To prevent multiple copies of a message being sent to the same
address, duplicate addresses (after alias expansion) are removed from
the
.Ar bcc-addr ,
.Ar cc-addr ,
and
.Ar to-addr
lists.
In addition, addresses on the
.Ar cc-addr
and
.Ar to-addr
lists are removed if they occur on the
.Ar bcc-addr
list and addresses on the
.Ar cc-addr
list are removed if they occur on the
.Ar to-addr
list.
If the
.Ar to-addr
list is empty after these deletions, most systems will insert the line
.Dq To: undisclosed recipients:; .
.Pp
The section below
.Sx Replying to or originating mail ,
describes some features of
.Nm
available to help you compose your letter.
.Ss Reading mail
In normal usage
.Nm
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
.Ic print
command (which can be abbreviated
.Ql Ic p ) .
You can move among the messages much as you move between lines in
.Xr \&ed 1 ,
with the commands
.Ql Ic \&+
and
.Ql Ic \&\-
moving backwards and forwards, and simple numbers.
.Ss Disposing of mail
After examining a message you can
.Ic delete
.Pq Ql Ic d
the message or
.Ic reply
.Pq Ql Ic r
to it.
Deletion causes the
.Nm
program to forget about the message.
This is not irreversible; the message can be
.Ic undeleted
.Pq Ql Ic u
by giving its number, or the
.Nm
session can be aborted by giving the
.Ic exit
.Pq Ql Ic x
command.
Deleted messages will, however, usually disappear never to be seen again.
.Ss Specifying messages
Commands such as
.Ic print
and
.Ic delete
can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply
to a number of messages at once.
Thus
.Dq Li delete 1 2
deletes messages 1 and 2, while
.Dq Li delete 1\-5
deletes messages 1 through 5.
The special name
.Ql Li \&*
addresses all messages,
.Ql Li \&^
denotes the first message,
.Ql Li \&.
denotes the current message, and
.Ql Li \&$
denotes the last message; thus the command
.Ic top
which prints the first few lines of a message could be used in
.Dq Li top \&*
to print the first few lines of all messages or
.Dq Li top \&.-$
to print the first few lines of current to last messages.
The previous and next messages are denoted by
.Ql Li \&-
and
.Ql Li \&+
respectively, when not used in a range.
.Pp
Messages may also be specified by the sender's name, by the subject,
or (if
.Ar searchheaders
is defined) by any header field.
A non-numeric string that does not begin a
.Sq /
or with any of the above special
characters is assumed to specify sender's name: a case insensitive
substring compare with the senders name is done, unless
.Ar regex-search
is defined.
If the string begins with a
.Sq /
then what follows is compared with the subject field, again the
matching is controled by the
.Ar regex-search
variable.
To search other header fields, see the
.Ar searchheader
variable.
Multiple search specs may be given and they may be mixed with numeric
lists.
.Pp
A list of messages may be restricted by a
.Sq colon-modifier
string, i.e., a
.Sq \&:
followed by one or more of the characters:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
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
.Ed
.Pp
If there are no address specifications other than colon-modifiers,
the colon-modifiers apply to all messags.
Thus
.Dq Li from netbsd :n
would display the headers of all new messages with
.Sq netbsd
in the sender's address, while
.Dq Li from :!r
and
.Dq Li from :nu
would both display all new and unread messages.
Multiple colon-modifiers may be specified and a single
.Sq \&:
with no letters following indicates the colon-modifier from the
preceeding command.
Note: commands cannot select messages that are not displayed, such as
deleted or hidden messages, the exception being the
.Ic undelete
command.
.Pp
.Ss Replying to or originating mail
You can use the
.Ic 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,
.Nm
treats lines beginning with the character
.Ql Ic \&~
specially.
For instance, typing
.Ql Ic \&~m
(alone on a line) will place a copy
of the current message into the response right shifting it by a tabstop
(see
.Em 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.)
.Ss Ending a mail processing session
You can end a
.Nm
session with the
.Ic quit
.Pq Ql Ic q
command.
Messages which have been examined go to your
.Ar mbox
file unless they have been deleted in which case they are discarded.
Unexamined messages go back to the post office.
(See the
.Fl f
option above).
.Ss Personal and systemwide distribution lists
It is also possible to create a personal distribution lists so that,
for instance, you can send mail to
.Dq Li cohorts
and have it go
to a group of people.
Such lists can be defined by placing a line like
.Pp
.Dl alias cohorts bill ozalp jkf mark kridle@ucbcory
.Pp
in the file
.Pa \&.mailrc
in your home directory.
The current list of such aliases can be displayed with the
.Ic alias
command in
.Nm .
System wide distribution lists can be created by editing
.Pa /etc/mail/aliases ,
see
.Xr aliases 5
and
.Xr 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
.Ic reply
to the recipients.
System wide
.Ic 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
.Xr sendmail 1 .
.Ss Network mail (ARPA, UUCP, Berknet)
See
.Xr mailaddr 7
for a description of network addresses.
.Pp
.Nm
has a number of options which can be set in the
.Pa .mailrc
file to alter its behavior; thus
.Dq Li set askcc
enables the
.Ar askcc
feature.
(These options are summarized below.)
.Sh SUMMARY
(Adapted from the
.Dq Mail Reference Manual )
.Pp
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,
.Nm
types
.Dq Li \&No applicable messages
and aborts the command.
.Bl -tag -width delete
.It Ic \&\-
Print out the preceding message.
If given a numeric
argument
.Ar n ,
goes to the
.Ar n Ap th
previous message and prints it.
.It Ic \&?
Prints a brief summary of commands.
.It Ic \&!
Executes the shell
(see
.Xr sh 1
and
.Xr csh 1 )
command which follows.
.It Ic \&|
Pipe the current message body through the shell
(see
.Xr sh 1
and
.Xr csh 1 )
command which follows.
.It Ic Detach
Like
.Ic 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.
.It Ic More
.Pq Ic M
Like
.Ic more
but also prints out ignored header fields.
.It Ic Page
.Pq Ic \&Pa
A synonym for
.Ic More .
.It Ic Print
.Pq Ic P
Like
.Ic print
but also prints out ignored header fields.
See also
.Ic print ,
.Ic more ,
.Ic page ,
.Ic view ,
.Ic ignore ,
and
.Ic retain .
.It Ic Reply
.Pq Ic R
Reply to originator.
Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
.It Ic Save
.Pq Ic S
Same as
.Ic save
except that all header fields are saved ignoring the
.Ic saveignore
or
.Ic saveretain
lists.
.It Ic Type
.Pq Ic T
Identical to the
.Ic Print
command.
.It Ic View
.Pq Ic V
Like
.Ic Print
but has the opposite MIME decoding behavior.
(See the
.Ar mime-decode-message
variable.)
.It Ic alias
.Pq Ic 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.
.It Ic alternates
.Pq Ic alt
The
.Ic alternates
command is useful if you have accounts on several machines.
It can be used to inform
.Nm
that the listed addresses are really you.
When you
.Ic reply
to messages,
.Nm
will not send a copy of the message to any of the addresses
listed on the
.Ic alternates
list.
If the
.Ic alternates
command is given with no argument, the current set of alternative
names is displayed.
.It Ic chdir
.Pq Ic 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.
.It Ic copy
.Pq Ic co
The
.Ic copy
command does the same thing that
.Ic save
does, except that it does not mark the messages it
is used on for deletion when you quit.
.It Ic delete
.Pq Ic d
Takes a list of messages as argument and marks them all as deleted.
Deleted messages will not be saved in
.Ar mbox ,
nor will they be available for most other commands.
.It Ic detach
Takes a message list followed by a target directory, 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
.Ar mime-detach-dir
variable and, if that is empty, default to the directory
.Nm
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.
Only MIME parts with an associated filename in the Content-Type or
Content-Disposition fields are decoded.
(See
.Ic Detach
to detach all parts.)
The MIME extension hooks and character set conversion are ignored.
.It Ic dp
(also
.Ic dt )
Deletes the current message and prints the next message.
If there is no next message,
.Nm
says
.Dq Li "at EOF" .
.It Ic down
XXX - document me!
.It Ic edit
.Pq Ic 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.
.It Ic else
Switch the command execution condition set by the previous
.Ic if ,
.Ic ifdef ,
or
.Ic ifndef
command.
.It Ic endif
Terminate an
.Ic if ,
.Ic ifdef ,
or
.Ic ifndef
command.
.It Ic exit
.Po Ic ex
or
.Ic x
.Pc
Effects an immediate return to the Shell without
modifying the user's system mailbox, his
.Ar mbox
file, or his edit file in
.Fl f .
.It Ic expose
XXX - document me!
.It Ic file
.Pq Ic fi
The same as
.Ic folder .
.It Ic folders
List the names of the folders in your folder directory.
.It Ic folder
.Pq Ic fo
The
.Ic 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.
.Sq #
means the previous file,
.Sq %
means your system mailbox,
.Dq %user
means user's system mailbox,
.Sq \*[Am]
means your
.Ar mbox
file, and
.Dq +folder
means a file in your folder directory.
.It Ic from
.Pq Ic f
Takes a list of messages and prints their message headers.
.It Ic headers
.Pq Ic h
Lists the current range of headers, which is an 18\-message group.
If a
.Ql \&+
argument is given, then the next 18\-message group is printed, and
if a
.Ql \&\-
argument is given, the previous 18\-message group is printed.
.It Ic help
A synonym for
.Ic \&?
.It Ic hide
XXX - document me!
.It Ic hold
.Po Ic ho ,
also
.Ic preserve
.Pc
Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in
the user's system mailbox instead of in
.Ar mbox .
Does not override the
.Ic delete
command.
.It Ic 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:
.Bd -literal -offset 0
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
.Ed
.It Ic ifdef
Execute commands that follow if the specified variable is defined.
Note: This includes environment variables.
.It Ic ifndef
Execute commands that follow if the specified variable is not
defined.
.It Ic ignore
Add the list of header fields named to the
.Ar 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
.Ic Type
and
.Ic Print
commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, including
ignored fields.
.It Ic 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.
If
.Ic ignore
is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of
ignored fields.
.It Ic mail
.Pq Ic m
Takes as argument login names and distribution group names and sends
mail to those people.
.It Ic mbox
Indicate that a list of messages be sent to
.Ic mbox
in your home directory when you quit.
This is the default action for messages if you do
.Em not
have the
.Ic hold
option set.
.It Ic mkread
.Pq Ic mk
Takes a message list and marks each message as
having been read.
.It Ic more
.Pq Ic \&mo
Takes a message list and invokes the pager on that list.
.It Ic next
.Pf ( Ic n ,
like
.Ic \&+
or
.Tn CR )
Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
With an argument list, types the next matching message.
.It Ic page
.Pq Ic pa
A synonym for
.Ic more .
.It Ic preserve
.Pq Ic pre
A synonym for
.Ic hold .
.It Ic print
.Pq Ic p
Takes a message list and types out each message on the user's terminal.
.It Ic quit
.Pq Ic q
Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
the user's
.Ar mbox
file in his login directory, preserving all messages marked with
.Ic hold
or
.Ic 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
.Dq Li "You have new mail"
is given.
If given while editing a mailbox file with the
.Fl 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
.Ic exit
command.
.It Ic reply
.Pq Ic 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.
.It Ic respond
A synonym for
.Ic reply .
.It Ic retain
Add the list of header fields named to the
.Ar 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
.Ic type
and
.Ic print
commands can be used to print a message in its entirety.
If
.Ic retain
is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of
retained fields.
.It Ic reverse
XXX - document me!
.It Ic save
.Pq Ic 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.
.It Ic set
.Pq Ic se
With no arguments, prints all variable values.
Otherwise, sets option.
Arguments are of the form
.Ar option=value
(no space before or after =) or
.Ar option .
Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
statement to quote blanks or tabs, i.e.
.Dq Li "set indentprefix=\*q-\*[Gt]\*q"
.It Ic saveignore
.Ic Saveignore
is to
.Ic save
what
.Ic ignore
is to
.Ic print
and
.Ic type .
Header fields thus marked are filtered out when
saving a message by
.Ic save
or when automatically saving to
.Ar mbox .
.\" .pl +1
.It Ic saveretain
.Ic Saveretain
is to
.Ic save
what
.Ic retain
is to
.Ic print
and
.Ic type .
Header fields thus marked are the only ones saved
with a message when saving by
.Ic save
or when automatically saving to
.Ar mbox .
.Ic Saveretain
overrides
.Ic saveignore .
.It Ic shell
.Pq Ic sh
Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
.It Ic show
.Pq Ic sho
Takes a list of variables and prints out their values in the form
.Ar option=value .
If the list is empty, all variable values are shown.
.It Ic size
Takes a message list and prints out the size in characters of each
message.
.It Ic smopts
Takes an
.Sq address-spec
followed by the sendmail flags that should be used when sending mail
to an address that matches that
.Sq address-spec .
If no sendmail flags are specified, then list the sendmail flags in
effect for the
.Sq address-spec .
If the
.Sq address-spec
is also omitted, then list all
.Ic smopts
settings.
The
.Sq address-spec
may be an alias, address, domain (beginning with a
.Sq @ ) ,
or subdomain
(begining with a
.Sq \&. ) .
If mail is sent to multiple users, the sendmail flags are
used only if the flags are the same for each recipients.
If
.Ar 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.
.Pp
For example if
you have:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
smopts mylist -F "List Maintainer"
smopts @NetBSD.org -f anon@somewhere.net -F "Anon Ymous"
smopts friend@NetBSD.org ""
.Ed
.Pp
then mail sent to any of the addresses that the
.Sq mylist
alias expands to would have the sender's name set to
.Qq List Maintainer .
Mail sent to anyone at NetBSD.org other than
.Sq friend@NetBSD.org
would look like it was sent from
.Sq anon@somewhere.net
by
.Qq Anon Ymous .
Mail sent to
.Sq friend@NetBSD.org
would not have any sendmail flags set (unless they are set by the
.Ic \&~h
escape).
.It Ic sort
XXX - document me!
.It Ic source
The
.Ic source
command reads commands from a file.
.It Ic thread
XXX - document me!
.It Ic top
Takes a message list and prints the top few lines of each.
The number of lines printed is controlled by the variable
.Ic toplines
and defaults to five.
.It Ic type
.Pq Ic t
A synonym for
.Ic print .
.It Ic unalias
Takes a list of names defined by
.Ic alias
commands and discards the remembered groups of users.
The group names no longer have any significance.
.It Ic undelete
.Pq Ic u
Takes a message list and marks each message as
.Ic not
being deleted.
.It Ic unread
.Pq Ic unr
Takes a message list and marks each message as
.Em not
having been read.
.It Ic unset
Takes a list of option names and discards their remembered values;
the inverse of
.Ic set .
.It Ar unsmopts
Takes a list of
.Sq address-specs
defined by
.Ic smopts
commands and discards them from the smopts datebase.
.It Ic unthread
XXX - document me!
.It Ic up
XXX - document me!
.It Ic view
.Pq Ic vie
Like
.Ic print
but has the opposite MIME decoding behavior.
(See the
.Ar mime-decode-message
variable.)
.It Ic visual
.Pq Ic v
Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
.It Ic write
.Pq Ic w
Similar to
.Ic save ,
except that
.Em only
the message body
.Em ( without
the header) is saved.
Extremely useful for such tasks as sending and receiving source
program text over the message system.
.It Ic xit
.Pq Ic x
A synonym for
.Ic exit .
.It Ic z
.Nm
presents message headers in windowfuls as described under the
.Ic headers
command.
You can move
.Nm Ns Ap s
attention forward to the next window with the
.Ic \&z
command.
Also, you can move to the previous window by using
.Ic \&z\&\- .
.El
.Ss 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
.Dq Em tilde\ escape
is somewhat of a misnomer since the actual escape character can be set
by the option
.Ic escape .
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Ic \&~! Ns Ar command
Execute the indicated shell command, then return to the message.
.It Ic \&~@ Op Ar filelist
Add the files in the white-space delimited
.Ar filelist
to the attachment list.
If
.Ar 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
.Qq edit
mode.
.It Ic \&~a
Inserts the autograph string from the sign= option into the message.
.It Ic \&~A
Inserts the autograph string from the Sign= option into the message.
.It Ic \&~b Ns Ar name ...
Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients but do not make
the names visible in the Cc: line
.Dq ( blind
carbon copy).
.It Ic \&~c Ns Ar name ...
Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
.It Ic \&~d
Read the file
.Dq Pa dead.letter
from your home directory into the message.
.It Ic \&~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.
.It Ic \&~f Ns Ar 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
.Ic ignore
or
.Ic retain
command) are not included.
.It Ic \&~F Ns Ar messages
Identical to
.Ic \&~f ,
except all message headers are included.
.It Ic \&~h
Edit the message header fields, and the options passed to sendmail, 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
.Xr editline 3
support is included, then that line editor is used.
.It Ic \&~i Ns Ar string
Inserts the value of the named option into the text of the message.
.It Ic \&~m Ns Ar messages
Read the named messages into the message being sent, indented by a
tab or by the value of
.Ar indentprefix .
If no messages are specified, read the current message.
Message headers currently being ignored (by the
.Ic ignore
or
.Ic retain
command) are not included.
.It Ic \&~M Ns Ar messages
Identical to
.Ic \&~m ,
except all message headers are included.
.It Ic \&~p
Print out the message collected so far, prefaced by the message header
fields.
.It Ic \&~q
Abort the message being sent, copying the message to
.Dq Pa dead.letter
in your home directory if
.Ic save
is set.
.It Ic \&~x
Exits as with \&~q, except the message is not saved in dead.letter.
.It Ic \&~r Ns Ar filename
.It Ic \&~\*[Lt] Ns Ar filename
Reads the named file into the message.
If the argument begins with
.Sq \&! ,
the rest of the string is taken as an arbitrary system command and is
executed, with the standard output inserted into the message.
.It Ic \&~s Ns Ar string
Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
.It Ic \&~\&t Ns Ar name ...
Add the given names to the direct recipient list.
.It Ic \&~\&v
Invoke an alternative editor (defined by the
.Ev 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.
.It Ic \&~w Ns Ar filename
Write the message onto the named file.
.It Ic \&~\&| Ns Ar 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
.Xr fmt 1
is often used as
.Ic command
to rejustify the message.
.It Ic \&~: Ns Ar mail-command
Execute the given mail command.
Not all commands, however, are allowed.
.It Ic \&~~ Ns Ar 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.
.El
.Ss Mail Options
Options are controlled via
.Ic set
and
.Ic 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:
.Bl -tag -width append
.It Ar append
Causes messages saved in
.Ar mbox
to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
This should always be set (perhaps in
.Pa /etc/mail.rc ) .
.It Ar ask , Ar asksub
Causes
.Nm
to prompt you for the subject of each message you send.
If you respond with simply a newline, no subject field will be sent.
.It Ar 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.
.It Ar autoinc
Causes new mail to be automatically incorporated when it arrives.
Setting this is similar to issuing the
.Ic inc
command at each prompt, except that the current message is not
reset when new mail arrives.
.It Ar 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.
.It Ar autoprint
Causes the
.Ic delete
command to behave like
.Ic dp
\- thus, after deleting a message, the next one will be typed
automatically.
.It Ar debug
Setting the binary option
.Ar debug
is the same as specifying
.Fl d
on the command line and causes
.Nm
to output all sorts of information useful for debugging
.Nm .
.It Ar dot
The binary option
.Ar dot
causes
.Nm
to interpret a period alone on a line as the terminator
of a message you are sending.
.It Ar hold
This option is used to hold messages in the system mailbox
by default.
.It Ar ignore
Causes interrupt signals from your terminal to be ignored and echoed as
@'s.
.It Ar ignoreeof
An option related to
.Ar dot
is
.Ar ignoreeof
which makes
.Nm
refuse to accept a control-D as the end of a message.
.Ar Ignoreeof
also applies to
.Nm
command mode.
.It Ar 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.
.It Ar mime-attach-list
If set, the command line flag
.Fl 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
.Nm .
.It Ar mime-decode-message
If set, the
.Ic More ,
.Ic more ,
.Ic Page ,
.Ic page ,
.Ic Print ,
.Ic print ,
.Ic Type ,
and
.Ic type
commands will display decoded the MIME messages.
Otherwise, they display the undecoded message.
Recall that the
.Ic View
and
.Ic view
commands always have the opposite MIME decoding behavior from these
commands.
.It Ar noheader
Setting the option
.Ar noheader
is the same as giving the
.Fl N
flag on the command line.
.It Ar nosave
Normally, when you abort a message with two
.Tn RUBOUT
(erase or delete)
.Nm
copies the partial letter to the file
.Dq Pa dead.letter
in your home directory.
Setting the binary option
.Ar nosave
prevents this.
.It Ar quiet
Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
.It Ar recursive-commands
When defined, and threading is in effect, the following commands
operate on the entire thread (if it is
.Sq hidden )
rather than just the top displayed message of the thread:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
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
.Ed
.Pp
If not defined, or if the threads are
.Sq exposed ,
commands behave exactly as they do in non-threaded mode, i.e., each
operates on individual messages.
.It Ar Replyall
Reverses the sense of
.Ic reply
and
.Ic Reply
commands.
.It Ar searchheaders
If this option is set, then a message-list specifier in the form
.Dq /x:y
will expand to all messages containing the substring
.Dq y
in the header field
.Dq x .
The string search is case insensitive.
If
.Dq x
is omitted, it will default to the
.Dq Subject
header field.
The two forms
.Dq /from:y
and
.Dq /to:y
are special.
The first will match all messages which contain the substring
.Dq y
in the headline (which is added locally at receipt time and begins
with 
.Dq From \& ) .
The second will match all messages containing the substring
.Dq y
in the
.Dq To ,
.Dq Cc ,
or
.Dq Bcc
header fields.
The check for
.Dq from
and
.Dq to
is case sensitive, so that
.Dq /From:y
and
.Dq /To:y
can be used to search the
.Dq From:
and
.Dq To:
fields, respectively.
.It Ar smopts-verify
Verify the sendmail options used on outgoing mail if they were obtained from a
.Ar smopts
match.
This has no effect if there are no sendmail flags or if the flags
were set by the
.Ic \&~h
escape.
.It Ar verbose
Setting the option
.Ar verbose
is the same as using the
.Fl v
flag on the command line.
When mail runs in verbose mode, the actual delivery of messages is
displayed on the user's terminal.
.El
.Ss Option String Values
.Bl -tag -width Va
.It Ev EDITOR
Pathname of the text editor to use in the
.Ic edit
command and
.Ic \&~e
escape.
If not defined, then a default editor is used.
.It Ev LISTER
Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
.Ic folders
command.
Default is
.Pa /bin/ls .
.It Ev PAGER
Pathname of the program to use in the
.Ic more
command or when
.Ic crt
variable is set.
The default paginator
.Xr more 1
is used if this option is not defined.
.It Ev SHELL
Pathname of the shell to use in the
.Ic \&!
command and the
.Ic \&~!
escape.
A default shell is used if this option is not defined.
.It Ev VISUAL
Pathname of the text editor to use in the
.Ic visual
command and
.Ic \&~v
escape.
.It Va crt
The valued option
.Va crt
is used as a threshold to determine how long a message must
be before
.Ev PAGER
is used to read it.
If
.Va crt
is set without a value, then the height of the terminal screen
stored in the system is used to compute the threshold (see
.Xr stty 1 ) .
.It Ar el-completion-keys
A comma or space delimited list of keys to do
.Xr editline 3
completion.
For example
.Nm set el-completion-keys=^I,^D
will bind completion to both the tab and CTRL-D keys.
(Requires
.Xr editline 3
support.)
.It Ar el-editor
The line editing mode: must be
.Dq emacs
or
.Dq vi .
If unset, editing is not enabled.
(Requires
.Xr editline 3
support.)
.It Ar el-history-size
The number of lines of history to remember.
If unset, history is not enable.
(Requires
.Xr editline 3
support.)
.It Ar escape
If defined, the first character of this option gives the character to
use in the place of
.Sq ~
to denote escapes.
.It Ar folder
The name of the directory to use for storing folders of
messages.
If this name begins with a
.Sq / ,
.Nm
considers it to be an absolute pathname; otherwise, the
folder directory is found relative to your home directory.
.It Ar 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
.Xr strftime 3 :
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Ar \&%?key?" -compact
.It Ar \&%?key?
The header field with name
.Sq key .
Note: if key[0] is
.Sq \&- ,
ignore the
.Sq \&-
and extract the address
portion of the field (i.e.,
.Sq skin
the field).
.It Ar \&%?*string?
If the depth is
.Ar n
.Sq string
.Ar n
times.
This is intended to be used when displaying an
.Qq exposed thread .
.It Ar \&%?&string?
Like
.Ar \&%?*string? ,
but uses the depth relative to the current depth rather than the
absolute depth.
.It Ar \&%J
The number of header lines in the message.
.It Ar \&%K
The number of body lines in the message.
.It Ar \&%L
The total number of lines in the message.
.It Ar \&%N
The sender's full name (as in the "From:" or "Sender:" fields).
.It Ar \&%O
The message size.
.It Ar \&%P
The current
.Qq dot
.Pq Sq \*[Gt]
messsage.
.It Ar \&%Q
The message status flag.
.It Ar \&%Z
The time zone name (if it exists).
.It Ar \&%f
The email address of sender.
.It Ar \&%i
The message number.
.It Ar \&%n
The sender's login name (taken from the address).
.It Ar \&%q
The subject.
.It Ar \&%t
The total number of messages.
.It Ar \&%z
The GMT offset (if found).
.El
.Pp
If the format string begins with
.Qq \&%??
then the date will be extracted from the headline.
Otherwise it will be extracted from the
.Ar Date:
header falling back to the headline if that extraction fails.
For example, the default format is:
.Bd -literal -offset 0
set header-format \&"\&%??%P%Q%?* ?%3i \&%-21.20f \&%a \&%b \&%e \&%R \&%3K/%-5O \&\\"%q\\""
.Ed
.Pp
Note:
.Ar \&%n
and
.Ar \&%t
as used by
.Xr strftime 3
were redundant with \\t and \\n, respectively, so nothing is lost
using them here.
.It Ar indentpreamble
If set, this format string will be inserted before quoting a message
.Po Ic \&~m
or
.Ic \&~M
.Pc .
The format syntax is the same as for
.Ar header-format .
For example, the following:
.Bd -literal -offset 0
set indentpreamble=\&"On \&%b \&%e \&%T, \&%Y \&%z (%Z), \&%n (%.50N) wrote:\\n-- Subject: \&%.65q\\n"
.Ed
.Pp
would insert something like
.Bd -literal -offset 0
On Oct 27 11:00:07, 2006 -0400 (EDT), anon (Anon Ymous) wrote:
-- Subject: suggestions for mail(1)
.Ed
.Pp
before the quoted message.
.It Ar indentprefix
String used by the
.Dq ~m
tilde escape for indenting messages, in place of
the normal tab character
.Pq Sq ^I .
Be sure to quote the value if it contains
spaces or tabs.
.It Ar indentpostscript
If set, this format string will be inserted after quoting a message
.Po Ic \&~m
or
.Ic \&~M
.Pc .
The format syntax is the same as for
.Ar header-format .
For example, the following:
.Bd -literal -offset 0
set indentpostscript="-- End of excerpt from \&%.50N"
.Ed
.Pp
would insert something like
.Bd -literal -offset 0
-- End of excerpt from Anon Ymous
.Ed
.Pp
after the quoted message.
.It Ar mime-body-TYPE-SUBTYPE
MIME-hook for the body of a MIME block of
.Qq Content-Type: TYPE/SUBTYPE .
(See
.Sy MIME Enhancements
below.)
.It Ar mime-charset
Convert Content-type:
.Sq text
messages to this character set or
.Qq us-ascii
if the value is empty.
If unset, no character set conversion is done.
.It Ar mime-decode-header
If set, decode the headers along with the body when
.Ar mime-decode-message
is set.
The header decode follows the same rulse as the body (see
.Ar mime-decode-message ) .
.It Ar mime-decode-insert
When inserting
a message into the mail buffer
.Po Ic \&~f
or
.Ic \&~F
.Pc ,
the text inserted will be decoded according to the settings of the
.Ar mime-decode-message
and
.Ar mime-decode-header
variables.
.It Ar mime-decode-quote
When quoting
a message into the mail buffer
.Po Ic \&~m
or
.Ic \&~M
.Pc ,
the text inserted will be decoded according to the settings of the
.Ar mime-decode-message
and
.Ar mime-decode-header
variables.
.It Ar mime-detach-dir
The directory to detach files to if the
.Ar detach
command is given no arguments.
.It Ar mime-detach-batch
If set, the detach command does not prompt for anything
.Po unless
.Ar mime-detach-overwrite
is set to
.Qq ask
.Pc ,
overwriting target files depending on the setting of
.Ar mime-detach-overwrite .
.It Ar mime-detach-overwrite
This controls overwriting of existing files by the detach command.
If set to
.Qq ask
the user will be prompted before overwriting a file.
If set to
.Qq yes ,
or to the empty string, existing target files will be overwritten.
If set to
.Qq no ,
no target files will be overwritten.
.It Ar 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
.Qq 7bit ,
.Qq 8bit ,
.Qq binary ,
.Qq quoted-printable ,
or
.Qq base64 .
.It Ar mime-head-TYPE-SUBTYPE
MIME-hook for the header of a MIME block of
.Qq Content-Type: TYPE/SUBTYPE .
(See
.Sy MIME Enhancements
below.)
.It Ar mime-hook-TYPE-SUBTYPE
MIME-hook for MIME block of
.Qq Content-Type: TYPE/SUBTYPE .
(See
.Sy MIME Enhancements
below.)
.It Ev MBOX
The name of the
.Ar mbox
file.
It can be the name of a folder.
The default is
.Dq Li mbox
in the user's home directory.
.It Ar prompt
If defined, it specifies the prompt to use when in command mode.
Otherwise, the default
.Qq &\
is used.
The format syntax is the same as for
.Ar header-format .
.It Ar 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.
.It Ar 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
.Ar searchheaders
is defined); see the
.Dq Selecting Message
section.
The value of the variable is a space or comma delimited list of
options.
Valid options are "icase" to do case insensitive searches and
"expanded" to use extended (rather than basic) regular expressions.
.It Ar ReplyAsRecipient
This is used when replying to email (see the
.Ic reply
or
.Ic 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
.Dq 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
.Ar 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
.Xr sendmail 1
with the
.Fl f
option.
Note: the sendmail options can be edited with the
.Ic \&~h
escape.
.It Ar toplines
If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be printed out
with the
.Ic top
command; normally, the first five lines are printed.
.El
.Ss 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
.Ar mime-decode-message ) ,
.Nm
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:
.Pp
.Dl mail -\*[Gt] MIME-decoder -\*[Gt] MIME-hook -\*[Gt] pager -\*[Gt] screen
.Pp
The
.Em MIME-decoder
decodes
.Qq base64
or
.Qq quoted-printable
encoding and is enabled according to the
.Qq Content-Transfer-Encoding:
of the part.
The
.Em MIME-hook
is an external program to further process the part (see below).
The
.Em pager
is the program that pages the message
(see
.Va PAGER ) .
Any of these intermediate pipe stages may be missing and/or different
for the head and body of each MIME part.
Certain
.Qq Content-Types:
may disable the entire pipeline (e.g.,
.Qq application/octet ) .
.Pp
The
.Em MIME-hook
stage is not present unless one of the following variables is set:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
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
.Ed
.Pp
where TYPE and SUBTYPE are the Content-Type type and subtype
(respectively) of the MIME part to which the hook applies.
If the
.Dq -SUBTYPE
is missing, any subtype is matched.
The value of these variables has the format:
.Bd -filled -offset indent
.Op Ar flags
.Ar command
.Ed
.Pp
where the
.Ar command
is expected to read from stdin and writes to stdout, and the possible
flags are
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent
.It !
Execute
.Ar command
in a sub-shell rather than doing an
.Xr exec 3
(see
.Va Shell ) .
This is necessary for shell scripts.
.It +
Use this hook when selecting the part to display in a
.Qq multipart/alternative
block.
Multipart blocks contain
.Qq 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
.Qq plain text
and
.Qq html ,
but more complex subtypes are also possible.
.It -
Do not decode before executing
.Ar command .
.El
.Pp
If your
.Ar command
begins with one of these flags, precede it with a space to signal the
end of the flags.
.Pp
WARNING: automatically running a program is a potential security risk
if that program has bugs, so be careful what you run.
.Pp
.Em Examples :
View all "Content-Type: image/jpeg" parts with
.Xr xv 1
(assuming it is installed):
.Pp
.Dl set mime-body-image-jpeg="/usr/pkg/bin/xv -"
.Pp
Decode all "Content-Type: images/*" blocks with
.Xr uudeview 1
(assuming it is installed), placing the results in
.Pa /tmp :
.Pp
.Dl set mime-hook-image="-/usr/pkg/bin/uudeview -p /tmp -i -a +o -q -"
.Pp
Read all "Content-Type: text/html" parts using
.Xr lynx 1
(assuming it is installed) and add this support to
multipart/alternative blocks:
.Pp
.Bd -literal -offset indent
set mime-body-text-html="+/usr/pkg/bin/lynx -force_html -dump -stdin"
.Ed
.Pp
Generally, the incoming mail will have a better
.Qq plain/text
alternative.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Nm
uses the
.Ev HOME ,
.Ev TMPDIR ,
and
.Ev USER
environment variables.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /usr/share/misc/mail.*help -compact
.It Pa /var/mail/*
Post office.
.It ~/mbox
User's old mail.
.It ~/.mailrc
File giving initial mail commands.
This can be overridden by setting the
.Ev MAILRC
environment variable.
.It Pa /tmp/mail.R*
Temporary files.
.It Pa /usr/share/misc/mail.*help
Help files.
.It Pa /etc/mail.rc
System initialization file.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr fmt 1 ,
.Xr newaliases 1 ,
.Xr sendmail 1 ,
.Xr vacation 1 ,
.Xr aliases 5 ,
.Xr mailaddr 7
and
.Rs
.%T "The Mail Reference Manual"
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command
appeared in
.At v6 .
This man page is derived from
.%T "The Mail Reference Manual"
originally written by Kurt Shoens.
.Sh BUGS
There are some flags that are not documented here.
Most are not useful to the general user.
.Pp
Usually,
.Nm
is just a link to
.Nm Mail ,
which can be confusing.
.Pp
The name of the
.Ic alternates
list is incorrect English (it should be
.Dq alternatives ) ,
but is retained for compatibility.
.Pp
There must be sufficient space on $TMPDIR for various temporary files.
.Pp
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.
.Pp
The internal sh-like parser is not terribly sh-like.