NAME

Mail − interactive mail processing system

SYNOPSIS

Mail [ −f [ name ] ] [ people ...  ]

DESCRIPTION

Mail is a intelligent mail processing system, which has a command syntax reminiscent of ed with lines replaced by messages.  In normal usage, it is given no arguments and checks your mail out of the post office, then printing out a one line header of each message there.  The current message is initially the first message (numbered 1) and can be printed using the print command (which can be abbreviated p).  You can move among the messages much as you move between lines in ed, with the commands ‘+’ and ‘-’ moving backwards and forwards, and simple numbers typing the addressed message. 

After examining a message you can delete (d) the message 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 will, however, usually disappear never to be seen again. 

When you give the reply command, Mail sets up a response to the original 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 character ‘~’ specially.  The following ‘~’ escapes are the most useful:

~m Places a copy of the current message in the response message text, right shifting it by a tab stop. 

~s Sets a subject for the message.  The subject follows the ‘~s’ on the same line, and appears in the header for the message when received with Mail.  If there was a subject in the mail being responded to, then this is the subject of the response unless you give a new one. 

~c Adds carbon copies, users who will receive the message also.  By default, only the originator of the message receives a reply. 

~e Invokes an editor on the response composed so far.  When editing terminates, message composition continues. 

~p Prints the message composed so far. 

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. 

By giving ‘people’ arguments to Mail on the command line, or by using the internal mail (m) command you can originate mail.  The escapes available during reply commands are available here also. 

The −f option causes Mail to read in the contents of your mbox (or the specified file) for processing; when you quit Mail writes undeleted messages back to this file. 

Mail has a number of other facilities as well as options which can be set in the file .mailrc in your home directory.  See the ‘Mail Reference Manual’ for details. 

FILES

/usr/spool/mail/*post office
~/mboxyour old mail
~/.mailrcfile giving initial mail commands
/tmp/R#temporary for editor escape
/usr/lib/Mail.groupsnamed groupings for bulk mailing
/usr/lib/Mail.help*help files
/usr/lib/Mail.rcsystem-wide initialization file
/bin/mailto do actual mailing

SEE ALSO

mail(1), ‘The Mail Reference Manual’

AUTHOR

Kurt Shoens

BUGS

7th Edition  —  2/24/79