man > MUNPACK(1)

MUNPACK(1)                             General Commands Manual                            MUNPACK(1)

NAME
       munpack - unpack messages in MIME or split-uuencode format

SYNOPSIS
       munpack [ -f ] [ -q ] [ -t ] [ -r character ] [ -C directory ] [ filename ...  ]

DESCRIPTION
       The munpack program reads each RFC-822 message filename and writes all non-text MIME parts or
       split-uuencoded  files  as files.  If no filename argument is given, munpack reads from stan‐
       dard input.

       If the message suggests a file name to use for the imbedded part, that name is cleaned of po‐
       tential problem characters and used for the output file.  If the suggested filename  includes
       subdirectories,  they  will  be created as necessary.  If the message does not suggest a file
       name, the names "part1", "part2", etc are used in sequence.

       If the imbedded part was preceded with textual information, that information is also  written
       to  a file.  The file is named the same as the imbedded part, with any filename extension re‐
       placed with ".desc".

OPTIONS
       -f     Force overwriting of existing files.  If a message suggests a file name of an existing
              file, the file will be overwritten.  Without this flag, munpack  appends  ".1",  ".2",
              etc to find a nonexistent file.

       -q     Be  quiet.   Suppresses messages about saving partial messages and about messages with
              no interesting information.

       -t     Also write the text MIME parts of multipart messages as files.  By default, text parts
              that do not have a filename parameter do not get unpacked.   This  option  effectively
              disables the ".desc" file feature for MIME messages.

       -r character
              If  the  suggested  filename  contains invalid characters, they are replaced with this
              character. The default replacement character is "X".

       -C directory
              Change the current directory to directory before reading any files.   This  is  useful
              when invoking munpack from a mail or news reader.

DECODING MIME
       To  decode a MIME message, first save it to a text file.  If possible, save it with all head‐
       ers included.  Munpack can decode some MIME files when the headers are missing or incomplete,
       other files it cannot decode without having the information in the headers.  In general, mes‐
       sages which have a statement at the beginning that they are in MIME  format  can  be  decoded
       without  the  headers.   Messages which have been split into multiple parts generally require
       all headers in order to be reassembled and decoded.

       Some LAN-based mail systems and some mail providers (including  America  Online,  as  of  the
       writing  of this document) place the mail headers at the bottom of the message, instead of at
       the top of the message.  If you are having problems decoding a MIME message on such a system,
       you need to convert the mail back into the standard format by removing the system's  nonstan‐
       dard  headers  and  moving the standard Internet headers at the top of the message (separated
       from the message body with a blank line).

       There must be exactly one message per file.  Munpack cannot deal with multiple messages in  a
       single  file,  to decode things correctly it must know when one message ends and the next one
       begins.

       To decode a message, run the command:

              munpack file

       where "file" is the name of the file containing the message.  More than one filename  may  be
       specified, munpack will try to decode the message in each file.  For more information on ways
       to run munpack, see the section "OPTIONS" above.

ENVIRONMENT
       TMPDIR Directory to store temporary files.  Default is /tmp.

FILES
       $TMPDIR/m-prts-$USER/
              Directory used to store partial messages awaiting reassembly.

REPORTING BUGS
       Send all bug reports to mpack-bugs AT andrew.edu.

                                                                                          MUNPACK(1)