NAME
mail
, mailx
,
Mail
—
send and receive mail
SYNOPSIS
mail |
[-dEIinv ]
[-b list]
[-c list]
[-s subject] to-addr
...
[- sendmail-options ...] |
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:
-b
list- Send blind carbon copies to list.
-c
list- Send carbon copies to list of users. list should be a comma separated list of names.
-d
- Causes
mail
to output all sorts of information useful for debuggingmail
. -E
- Don't send messages with an empty body.
-f
[file]- Read in the contents of your mailbox (or the specified
file) for processing; when you 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/mail/aliases (see
aliases(5) and
sendmail(8)); these are kept in a different syntax. In mail you send,
personal aliases will be expanded in mail sent to others so that they will
be able to reply
to the recipients. System wide
aliases are not expanded when the mail is sent, but any reply returned to
the machine will have the system wide alias expanded as all mail goes
through sendmail.
Network mail (ARPA, UUCP, Berknet)
See mailaddr(7) for a description of network addresses.
mail
has a number of options which can be
set in the .mailrc file to alter its behavior; thus
set askcc
enables the askcc
feature. (These options are summarized below.)
SUMMARY
(Adapted from the “Mail Reference Manual”.)
Each command is typed on a line by itself, and may take arguments
following the command word. The command need not be typed in its entirety --
the first command which matches the typed prefix is used. For commands which
take message lists as arguments, if no message list is given, then the next
message forward which satisfies the command's requirements is used. If there
are no messages forward of the current message, the search proceeds
backwards, and if there are no good messages at all,
mail
types “No applicable messages”
and aborts the command.
-
- 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
) Thealternates
command is useful if you have accounts on several machines. It can be used to informmail
that the listed addresses are really you. When youreply
to messages,mail
will not send a copy of the message to any of the addresses listed on thealternates
list. If thealternates
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
) Thecopy
command does the same thing thatsave
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
orx
) 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 asfolder
. folder
- (
fo
) Thefolder
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 thez
command. help
- A synonym for
?
. hold
- (
ho
, alsopreserve
) 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 thedelete
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
andPrint
commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, including ignored fields. Ifignore
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 validmail
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 forhold
. Print
- (
P
) Likeprint
but also prints out ignored header fields. See alsoprint
,ignore
, andretain
. 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 withhold
orpreserve
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 theexit
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
andPrint
commands can be used to print a message in its entirety. Ifretain
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 tosave
whatignore
is toprint
andtype
. Header fields thus marked are filtered out when saving a message bysave
or when automatically saving to mbox.saveretain
saveretain
is tosave
whatretain
is toprint
andtype
. Header fields thus marked are the only ones saved with a message when saving bysave
or when automatically saving to mbox.saveretain
overridessaveignore
.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 thePrint
command. type
- (
t
) A synonym forprint
. 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 tosave
, except thatonly
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 forexit
. z
mail
presents message headers in windowfuls as described under theheaders
command. You can movemail
's attention forward to the next window with thez
command. Also, you can move to the previous window by usingz-
.
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
orretain
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
orretain
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
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 likedp
; 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 causesmail
to output all sorts of information useful for debuggingmail
. - 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 tomail
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
andReply
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. Whenmail
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. 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
,
MAIL
, MAILRC
, and
USER
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/misc/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), lockspool(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 [-bcdEIv
] 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
There are some flags that are not documented here. Most are not useful to the general user.
Usually, mail
and
mailx
are just links to
Mail
, which can be confusing.