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MAIL(1) BSD General Commands Manual MAIL(1)
NAME
mail, mailx, Mail -- send and receive mail
SYNOPSIS
mail [-dEIinv] [-a header] [-b bcc-addr] [-c cc-addr] [-r from-addr] [-s subject] [--]
to-addr ...
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:
-a Specify additional header fields on the command line such as "X-Loop: foo@bar" etc.
It can be also used to override MIME headers mail adds by default to each outgoing
mail, see Character sets and MIME below. You have to use quotes if the string con-
tains spaces. This argument may be specified more than once, the headers will then
be concatenated.
-b bcc-addr
Send blind carbon copies to bcc-addr.
-c cc-addr
Send carbon copies to list of users. cc-addr should be a comma separated list of
names.
-d Causes mail to output all sorts of information useful for debugging mail.
-E Don't send messages with an empty body.
-f Use an alternate mailbox. Defaults to the user's mbox if no file is specified.
When 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 par-
ticular, 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.
-r from-addr
Use from-addr as the from address in the message and envelope. Overrides any from
options in the startup files.
-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.
-- End of options. Any further argument is treated as a direct receipient address.
Note: For security reasons the -- separator is strongly recommended for scripts that
need to send mails to addresses obtained from untrusted sources (such as web forms).
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 deter-
mine 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 mes-
sage, 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 com-
pose 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 ap-
ply 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.
Messages may also be selected using one of the following categories:
* all messages
$ last message
:d deleted messages
:n new messages
:o old messages
:r read messages
:u unread messages
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 per-
son 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 re-
cipients 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. Unexam-
ined 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 dis-
played with the alias command in mail. System wide distribution lists can be created by
editing /etc/aliases, (see aliases(5)); 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 an MTA.
Recipient address specifications
Recipient addresses (any of the "To", "Cc" or "Bcc" header fields) are subject to expansion
when the expandaddr option is set.
An address may be expanded as follows:
o An address that starts with a pipe ('|') character is treated as a command to run.
The command immediately following the '|' is executed with the message as its stan-
dard input.
o An address that starts with a '+' character is treated as a folder.
o An address that contains a '/' character but no '!', '%', or '@' characters is also
treated as a folder.
o If none of the above apply, the recipient is treated as a local or network mail ad-
dress.
If the expandaddr option is not set (the default), no expansion is performed and the recipi-
ent is treated as a local or network mail address.
Character sets and MIME
Generally mail does not handle neither different character sets nor any other MIME feature.
Especially it does not perform any any conversions between character sets while displaying
or sending mails.
Starting from April 2017, however, as a Debian extension this version of mail adds a few
MIME headers to every outgoing mail in order to indicate that the mail is sent as 8-bit
plain text data that uses character set encoding detected from the current locale(7) set-
tings. The -a command-line option can be used to override those headers, for example:
$ mail -a 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"'
sets header indicating legacy character encoding.
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 back-
wards, 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 the currently selected message number.
? 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) The alternates command is useful if you have accounts on several machines. It
can be used to inform mail that the listed addresses are really you. When you reply
to messages, mail will not send a copy of the message to any of the addresses listed
on the alternates list. If the alternates command is given with no argument, the
current set of alternate names is displayed.
chdir (cd or ch) 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 (c) The copy command does the same thing that save 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 com-
mands.
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 re-
turn from the editor, the message is read back in.
exit (ex or x) Effects an immediate return to the shell without modifying the user's sys-
tem mailbox, his mbox file, or his edit file in -f.
file (fi) The same as folder.
folder (fo) The 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. #
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 the z command.
help A synonym for ?.
hold (ho, also preserve) 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 the delete com-
mand.
ignore Add the list of header fields named to the ignored list. Header fields in the ig-
nore 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
and Print commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, including ignored
fields. If ignore is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of ig-
nored 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 valid mail 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 argu-
ment list, types the next matching message.
preserve
(pre) A synonym for hold.
Print (P) Like print but also prints out ignored header fields. See also print, ignore,
and retain.
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 with hold or
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
"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 the exit com-
mand.
Reply (R) Reply to originator. Does not reply to other recipients of the original mes-
sage.
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 and Print commands can be used to print a
message in its entirety. If retain is executed with no arguments, it lists the cur-
rent 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 to save what ignore is to print and type. Header fields thus marked
are filtered out when saving a message by save or when automatically saving to mbox.
saveretain
saveretain is to save what retain is to print and type. Header fields thus marked
are the only ones saved with a message when saving by save or when automatically
saving to mbox. saveretain overrides saveignore.
set (se) With no arguments, prints all variable values. Otherwise, sets option. Argu-
ments are of the form option=value (no space before or after =) or option. Quota-
tion 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 the Print command.
type (t) A synonym for print.
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 to save, except that only 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 for exit.
z mail presents message headers in windowfuls as described under the headers command.
You can move mail's attention forward to the next window with the z command. Also,
you can move to the previous window by using z-.
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.
~bname ...
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).
~cname ...
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.
~Fmessages
Identical to ~f, except all message headers are included.
~fmessages
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
or retain 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.
~Mmessages
Identical to ~m, except all message headers are included.
~mmessages
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 or retain 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 direc-
tory if save is set.
~Rstring
Use string as the Reply-To field.
~rfilename
~<filename
Read the named file into the message.
~sstring
Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
~tname ...
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.
~wfilename
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
A number of options can be set in the .mailrc file to alter the behavior of mail, controlled
via the set and unset commands. Options may be either binary, in which case it is only sig-
nificant 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 cur-
rent 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 like dp; 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
causes mail to output all sorts of information useful for debugging mail.
dot The binary option dot causes mail to interpret a period alone on a line as the ter-
minator of a message you are sending.
expandaddr
Causes mail to expand message recipient addresses, as explained in the section
Recipient address specifications.
from Causes mail to use the specified sender address in the "From:" field of the message
header. A stripped down version of the address is also used in the message enve-
lope. If unset, the message will not include an explicit sender address and a de-
fault value will be added by the MTA, typically "user@host". This value can be
overridden by specifying the -r flag on the command line.
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 to mail 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 and Reply 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.
When mail 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.
REPLYTO If set, will be used to initialize the Reply-To field for outgoing messages.
SHELL Pathname of the shell to use in the ! command and the ~! escape. A default
shell is used if this option is not defined.
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; other-
wise, 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, USER, SHELL, DEAD, PAGER, LISTER, EDITOR, VISUAL, REPLYTO,
MAIL, MAILRC, and MBOX 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/bsd-mailx/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), newaliases(1), vacation(1), aliases(5), mail.local(8), newaliases(8), sendmail(8),
smtpd(8)
STANDARDS
The mailx utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 ("POSIX.1") specification.
The flags [-iNnu] are marked by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 ("POSIX.1") as being optional.
The flags [-eFH] are marked by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 ("POSIX.1") as being optional, and are
not supported by this implementation of mailx.
The flags [-abcdEIrv] are extensions to the 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
Usually, Mail and mailx are just links to mail, which can be confusing.
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