NAME

mail  −  send or receive mail among users

SYNOPSIS

mail [ + ] [ −i ] [ person ] ... 
mail [ + ] [ −i ] −f file

DESCRIPTION

Mail with no argument prints a user’s mail, message-by-message, in last-in, first-out order; the optional argument + causes first-in, first-out order.  For each message, it reads a line from the standard input to direct disposition of the message. 

newline
Go on to next message.

d Delete message and go on to the next. 

p Print message again. 

− Go back to previous message. 

s [ file ] ...
Save the message in the named files (‘mbox’ default). 

w [ file ] ...
Save the message, without a header, in the named files (‘mbox’ default). 

m [ person ] ...
Mail the message to the named persons (yourself is default). 

EOT (control-D)
Put unexamined mail back in the mailbox and stop.

q Same as EOT. 

!command
Escape to the Shell to do command.

* Print a command summary. 

An interrupt normally causes termination of the command; the mail file is unchanged.  The optional argument −i causes mail to continue after interrupts. 

When persons are named, mail takes the standard input up to an end-of-file (or a line with just ‘.’) and adds it to each person’s ‘mail’ file.  The message is preceded by the sender’s name and a postmark.  Lines that look like postmarks are prepended with ‘>’.  A person is usually a user name recognized by login(1). To denote a recipient on a remote system, prefix person by the system name and exclamation mark (see uucp(1)).

The −f option causes the named file, e.g. ‘mbox’, to be printed as if it were the mail file. 

When a user logs in he is informed of the presence of mail. 

FILES

/etc/passwdto identify sender and locate persons
/usr/spool/mail/*incoming mail for user *
mboxsaved mail
/tmp/ma*temp file
/usr/spool/mail/*.locklock for mail directory
dead.letterunmailable text

SEE ALSO

write(1), uucp(1), uux(1)

BUGS

Race conditions sometimes result in a failure to remove a lock file. 

Normally anybody can read your mail.  An installation can overcome this by making mail a set-user-id command that owns the mail directory. 

7th Edition