1MAILX(1) User Commands MAILX(1)
2
6 mailx - send and receive Internet mail
7
9 mailx [-BDdEFintv~] [-s subject] [-a attachment ] [-c cc-addr] [-b bcc-
10 addr] [-r from-addr] [-h hops] [-A account] [-S vari‐
11 able[=value]] to-addr . . .
12 mailx [-BDdeEHiInNRv~] [-T name] [-A account] [-S variable[=value]] -f
13 [name]
14 mailx [-BDdeEinNRv~] [-A account] [-S variable[=value]] [-u user]
15
17 Mailx is an intelligent mail processing system, which has a command
18 syntax reminiscent of ed(1) with lines replaced by messages. It is
19 based on Berkeley Mail 8.1, is intended to provide the functionality of
20 the POSIX mailx command, and offers extensions for MIME, IMAP, POP3,
21 SMTP, and S/MIME. Mailx provides enhanced features for interactive
22 use, such as caching and disconnected operation for IMAP, message
23 threading, scoring, and filtering. It is also usable as a mail batch
24 language, both for sending and receiving mail.
25 The following options are accepted:
27 -A name
29 Executes an account command (see below) for name after the
30 startup files have been read.
31 -a file
33 Attach the given file to the message.
34 -B Make standard input and standard output line-buffered.
36 -b address
38 Send blind carbon copies to list. List should be a comma-sepa‐
39 rated list of names.
40 -c address
42 Send carbon copies to list of users.
43 -D Start in disconnected mode; see the description for the discon‐
45 nected variable option.
46 -d Enables debugging messages and disables the actual delivery of
48 messages. Unlike -v, this option is intended for mailx develop‐
49 ment only.
50 -e Just check if mail is present in the system mailbox. If yes,
52 return an exit status of zero, else, a non-zero value.
53 -E If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
55 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently,
56 effectively setting the skipemptybody variable at program
57 startup. This is useful for sending messages from scripts
58 started by cron(8).
59 -f [file]
61 Read in the contents of the user's mbox (or the specified file)
62 for processing; when mailx is quit, it writes undeleted messages
63 back to this file. The string file is handled as described for
64 the folder command below.
65 -F Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of
67 the first recipient's address.
68 -H Print header summaries for all messages and exit.
70 -h hops
72 Invoke sendmail with the specified hop count. This option has
73 no effect when SMTP is used for sending mail.
74 -i Ignore tty interrupt signals. This is particularly useful when
76 using mailx on noisy phone lines.
77 -I Shows the `Newsgroup:' or `Article-Id:' fields in the header
79 summary. Only applicable in combination with -f.
80 -n Inhibits reading /etc/mail.rc upon startup. This option should
82 be activated for mailx scripts that are invoked on more than one
83 machine, because the contents of that file may differ between
84 them.
85 -N Inhibits the initial display of message headers when reading
87 mail or editing a mail folder.
88 -q file
90 Start the message with the contents of the specified file. May
91 be given in send mode only.
92 -r address
94 Sets the From address. Overrides any from variable specified in
95 environment or startup files. Tilde escapes are disabled. The
96 -r address options are passed to the mail transfer agent unless
97 SMTP is used. This option exists for compatibility only; it is
98 recommended to set the from variable directly instead.
99 -R Opens any folders read-only.
101 -s subject
103 Specify subject on command line (only the first argument after
104 the -s flag is used as a subject; be careful to quote subjects
105 containing spaces).
106 -S variable[=value]
108 Sets the internal option variable and, in case of a string
109 option, assigns value to it. Note, that when setting from vari‐
110 able, domain name of host is automatically added if value does
111 not contain any. If you want to enter from address with owner's
112 name, you can use, for example, following format: -S "from=Sys‐
113 tem User <DoNotReply>"
114 -T name
116 Writes the `Message-Id:' and `Article-Id:' header fields of each
117 message read in the file name. Implies -I. Compressed files
118 are handled as described for the folder command below.
119 -t The message to be sent is expected to contain a message header
121 with `To:', `Cc:', or `Bcc:' fields giving its recipients.
122 Recipients specified on the command line are ignored.
123 -u user
125 Reads the mailbox of the given user name.
126 -v Verbose mode. The details of delivery are displayed on the
128 user's terminal.
129 -V Print mailx's version and exit.
131 -~ Enable tilde escapes even if not in interactive mode.
133 Sending mail
135 To send a message to one or more people, mailx can be invoked with
136 arguments which are the names of people to whom the mail will be sent.
137 The user is then expected to type in his message, followed by an `con‐
138 trol-D' at the beginning of a line. The section below Replying to or
139 originating mail, describes some features of mailx available to help
140 when composing letters.
141 Reading mail
143 In normal usage mailx is given no arguments and checks the user's mail
144 out of the post office, then prints out a one line header of each mes‐
145 sage found. The current message is initially the first message (num‐
146 bered 1) and can be printed using the print command which can be abbre‐
147 viated `p'). The user can move among the messages much as he moves
148 between lines in ed(1), with the commands `+' and `-' moving backwards
149 and forwards, and simple numbers.
150 Disposing of mail
152 After examining a message the user can delete `d') the message or reply
153 `r') to it. Deletion causes the mailx program to forget about the mes‐
154 sage. This is not irreversible; the message can be undeleted `u') by
155 giving its number, or the mailx session can be aborted by giving the
156 exit `x') command. Deleted messages will, however, usually disappear
157 never to be seen again.
158 Specifying messages
160 Commands such as print and delete can be given a list of message num‐
161 bers as arguments to apply to a number of messages at once. Thus
162 `delete 1 2' deletes messages 1 and 2, while `delete 1-5' deletes mes‐
163 sages 1 through 5. In sorted or threaded mode (see the sort and thread
164 commands), `delete 1-5' deletes the messages that are located between
165 (and including) messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as
166 shown in the header summary. The following special message names
167 exist:
168 :n All new messages.
170 :o All old messages (any not in state read or new).
172 :u All unread messages.
174 :d All deleted messages (for the undelete command).
176 :r All read messages.
178 :f All `flagged' messages.
180 :a All answered messages (cf. the markanswered variable).
182 :t All messages marked as draft.
184 :k All `killed' messages.
186 :j All messages classified as junk.
188 . The current message.
190 ; The message that was previously the current message.
192 , The parent message of the current message, that is the message
194 with the Message-ID given in the `In-Reply-To:' field or the
195 last entry of the `References:' field of the current message.
196 - The next previous undeleted message, or the next previous
198 deleted message for the undelete command. In sorted/threaded
199 mode, the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded
200 order.
201 + The next undeleted message, or the next deleted message for the
203 undelete command. In sorted/threaded mode, the next such mes‐
204 sage in the sorted/threaded order.
205 ^ The first undeleted message, or the first deleted message for
207 the undelete command. In sorted/threaded mode, the first such
208 message in the sorted/threaded order.
209 $ The last message. In sorted/threaded mode, the last message in
211 the sorted/threaded order.
212 &x In threaded mode, selects the message addressed with x, where x
214 is any other message specification, and all messages from the
215 thread that begins at it. Otherwise, it is identical to x. If
216 x is omitted, the thread beginning with the current message is
217 selected.
218 * All messages.
220 ` All messages that were included in the message list for the pre‐
222 vious command.
223 /string
225 All messages that contain string in the subject field (case
226 ignored). See also the searchheaders variable. If string is
227 empty, the string from the previous specification of that type
228 is used again.
229 address
231 All messages from address. By default, this is a case-sensitive
232 search for the complete email address. If the allnet variable
233 is set, only the local part of the addresses is evaluated for
234 the comparison. Otherwise if the showname variable is set, a
235 case-sensitive search for the complete real name of a sender is
236 performed. The IMAP-style (from address) expression can be used
237 instead if substring matches are desired.
238 (criterion)
240 All messages that satisfy the given IMAP-style SEARCH criterion.
241 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders; for
242 folders not located on IMAP servers, or for servers unable to
243 execute the SEARCH command, mailx will perform the search
244 locally. Strings must be enclosed by double quotes `"' in their
245 entirety if they contain white space or parentheses; within the
246 quotes, only backslash `\' is recognized as an escape character.
247 All string searches are case-insensitive. When the description
248 indicates that the `envelope' representation of an address field
249 is used, this means that the search string is checked against
250 both a list constructed as
251 ("real name" "source-route" "local-part" "domain-part")
253 for each address, and the addresses without real names from the
255 respective header field. Criteria can be nested using parenthe‐
256 ses.
257 (criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN)
259 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
260 (or criterion1 criterion2)
262 All messages that satisfy either criterion1 or criterion2, or
263 both. To connect more than two criteria using `or', (or) speci‐
264 fications have to be nested using additional parentheses, as
265 with `(or a (or b c))'; `(or a b c)' means ((a or b) and c).
266 For a simple `or' operation of independent criteria on the low‐
267 est nesting level, it is possible to achieve similar effects by
268 using three separate criteria, as with `(a) (b) (c)'.
269 (not criterion)
271 All messages that do not satisfy criterion.
272 (bcc string)
274 All messages that contain string in the `envelope' representa‐
275 tion of the Bcc: field.
276 (cc string)
278 All messages that contain string in the `envelope' representa‐
279 tion of the Cc: field.
280 (from string)
282 All messages that contain string in the `envelope' representa‐
283 tion of the From: field.
284 (subject string)
286 All messages that contain string in the Subject: field.
287 (to string)
289 All messages that contain string in the `envelope' representa‐
290 tion of the To: field.
291 (header name string)
293 All messages that contain string in the specified Name: field.
294 (body string)
296 All messages that contain string in their body.
297 (text string)
299 All messages that contain string in their header or body.
300 (larger size)
302 All messages that are larger than size (in bytes).
303 (smaller size)
305 All messages that are smaller than size (in bytes).
306 (before date)
308 All messages that were received before date; date must be in the
309 form d[d]-mon-yyyy, where d[d] is the day of the month as one or
310 two digits, mon is the name of the month—one of `Jan', `Feb',
311 `Mar', `Apr', `May', `Jun', `Jul', `Aug', `Sep', `Oct', `Nov',
312 or `Dec', and yyyy is the year as four digits; e.g.
313 "30-Aug-2004".
314 (on date)
316 All messages that were received on the specified date.
317 (since date)
319 All messages that were received since the specified date.
320 (sentbefore date)
322 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
323 (senton date)
325 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
326 (sentsince date)
328 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
329 () The same criterion as for the previous search. This specifica‐
331 tion cannot be used as part of another criterion. If the previ‐
332 ous command line contained more than one independent criterion,
333 the last of those criteria is used.
334 A practical method to read a set of messages is to issue a from command
336 with the search criteria first to check for appropriate messages, and
337 to read each single message then by typing ``' repeatedly.
338 Replying to or originating mail
340 The reply command can be used to set up a response to a message, send‐
341 ing it back to the person who it was from. Text the user types in
342 then, up to an end-of-file, defines the contents of the message. While
343 the user is composing a message, mailx treats lines beginning with the
344 character `~' specially. For instance, typing `~m' (alone on a line)
345 will place a copy of the current message into the response right shift‐
346 ing it by a tabstop (see indentprefix variable, below). Other escapes
347 will set up subject fields, add and delete recipients to the message,
348 attach files to it and allow the user to escape to an editor to revise
349 the message or to a shell to run some commands. (These options are
350 given in the summary below.)
351 Ending a mail processing session
353 The user can end a mailx session with the quit (`q') command. Messages
354 which have been examined go to the user's mbox file unless they have
355 been deleted in which case they are discarded. Unexamined messages go
356 back to the post office. (See the -f option above).
357 Personal and systemwide distribution lists
359 It is also possible to create a personal distribution lists so that,
360 for instance, the user can send mail to `cohorts' and have it go to a
361 group of people. Such lists can be defined by placing a line like
362 alias cohorts bill ozalp jkf mark kridle@ucbcory
364 in the file .mailrc in the user's home directory. The current list of
366 such aliases can be displayed with the alias command in mailx. System
367 wide distribution lists can be created by editing /etc/aliases, see
368 aliases(5) and sendmail(8); these are kept in a different syntax. In
369 mail the user sends, personal aliases will be expanded in mail sent to
370 others so that they will be able to reply to the recipients. System
371 wide aliases are not expanded when the mail is sent, but any reply
372 returned to the machine will have the system wide alias expanded as all
373 mail goes through sendmail.
374 Recipient address specifications
376 If the expandaddr option is not set (the default), recipient addresses
377 must be names of local mailboxes or Internet mail addresses.
378 If the expandaddr option is set, the following rules apply: When an
380 address is used to name a recipient (in any of To, Cc, or Bcc), names
381 of local mail folders and pipes to external commands can also be speci‐
382 fied; the message text is then written to them. The rules are: Any
383 name which starts with a `|' character specifies a pipe, the command
384 string following the `|' is executed and the message is sent to its
385 standard input; any other name which contains a `@' character is
386 treated as a mail address; any other name which starts with a `+' char‐
387 acter specifies a folder name; any other name which contains a `/'
388 character but no `!' or `%' character before also specifies a folder
389 name; what remains is treated as a mail address. Compressed folders
390 are handled as described for the folder command below.
391 Network mail (Internet / ARPA, UUCP, Berknet)
393 See mailaddr(7) for a description of network addresses. Mailx has a
394 number of options which can be set in the .mailrc file to alter its
395 behavior; thus `set askcc' enables the askcc feature. (These options
396 are summarized below).
397 MIME types
399 For any outgoing attachment, mailx tries to determine the content type.
400 It does this by reading MIME type files whose lines have the following
401 syntax:
402 type/subtype extension [extension . . .]
404 where type/subtype are strings describing the file contents, and exten‐
406 sion is the part of a filename starting after the last dot. Any line
407 not immediately beginning with an ASCII alphabetical character is
408 ignored by mailx. If there is a match with the extension of the file
409 to attach, the given type/subtype pair is used. Otherwise, or if the
410 filename has no extension, the content types text/plain or applica‐
411 tion/octet-stream are used, the first for text or international text
412 files, the second for any file that contains formatting characters
413 other than newlines and horizontal tabulators.
414 Character sets
416 Mailx normally detects the character set of the terminal using the
417 LC_CTYPE locale setting. If the locale cannot be used appropriately,
418 the ttycharset variable should be set to provide an explicit value.
419 When reading messages, their text is converted to the terminal charac‐
420 ter set if possible. Unprintable characters and illegal byte sequences
421 are detected and replaced by Unicode substitute characters or question
422 marks unless the print-all-chars is set at initialization time.
423 The character set for outgoing messages is not necessarily the same as
425 the one used on the terminal. If an outgoing text message contains
426 characters not representable in US-ASCII, the character set being used
427 must be declared within its header. Permissible values can be declared
428 using the sendcharsets variable, separated by commas; mailx tries each
429 of the values in order and uses the first appropriate one. If the mes‐
430 sage contains characters that cannot be represented in any of the given
431 character sets, the message will not be sent, and its text will be
432 saved to the `dead.letter' file. Messages that contain NUL bytes are
433 not converted.
434 Outgoing attachments are converted if they are plain text. If the
436 sendcharsets variable contains more than one character set name, the ~@
437 tilde escape will ask for the character sets for individual attachments
438 if it is invoked without arguments.
439 Best results are usually achieved when mailx is run in a UTF-8 locale
441 on a UTF-8 capable terminal. In this setup, characters from various
442 countries can be displayed, while it is still possible to use more sim‐
443 ple character sets for sending to retain maximum compatibility with
444 older mail clients.
445 Commands
447 Each command is typed on a line by itself, and may take arguments fol‐
448 lowing the command word. The command need not be typed in its entirety
449 – the first command which matches the typed prefix is used. For com‐
450 mands which take message lists as arguments, if no message list is
451 given, then the next message forward which satisfies the command's
452 requirements is used. If there are no messages forward of the current
453 message, the search proceeds backwards, and if there are no good mes‐
454 sages at all, mailx types `applicable messages' and aborts the command.
455 If the command begins with a # sign, the line is ignored.
456 The arguments to commands can be quoted, using the following methods:
458 · An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes "" or
460 single-quotes ''; any white space, shell word expansion, or
461 backslash characters within the quotes are treated literally as
462 part of the argument. A double-quote will be treated literally
463 within single-quotes and vice versa. These special properties of
464 the quote marks occur only when they are paired at the beginning
465 and end of the argument.
466 · A backslash outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded and the
468 following character is treated literally as part of the argu‐
469 ment.
470 · An unquoted backslash at the end of a command line is discarded
472 and the next line continues the command.
473 Filenames, where expected, are subjected to the following transforma‐
475 tions, in sequence:
476 · If the filename begins with an unquoted plus sign, and the
478 folder variable is defined, the plus sign will be replaced by
479 the value of the folder variable followed by a slash. If the
480 folder variable is unset or is set to null, the filename will be
481 unchanged.
482 · Shell word expansions are applied to the filename. If more than
484 a single pathname results from this expansion and the command is
485 expecting one file, an error results.
486 The following commands are provided:
488 - Print out the preceding message. If given a numeric argument n,
490 goes to the n'th previous message and prints it.
491 ? Prints a brief summary of commands.
493 ! Executes the shell (see sh(1) and csh(1)) command which follows.
495 | A synonym for the pipe command.
497 account
499 (ac) Creates, selects or lists an email account. An account is
500 formed by a group of commands, primarily of those to set vari‐
501 ables. With two arguments, of which the second is a `{', the
502 first argument gives an account name, and the following lines
503 create a group of commands for that account until a line con‐
504 taining a single `}' appears. With one argument, the previously
505 created group of commands for the account name is executed, and
506 a folder command is executed for the system mailbox or inbox of
507 that account. Without arguments, the list of accounts and their
508 contents are printed. As an example,
509 account myisp {
511 set folder=imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example
512 set record=+Sent
513 set from="myname@myisp.example (My Name)"
514 set smtp=smtp.myisp.example
515 }
516 creates an account named `myisp' which can later be selected by
518 specifying `account myisp'.
519 alias (a) With no arguments, prints out all currently-defined aliases.
521 With one argument, prints out that alias. With more than one
522 argument, creates a new alias or changes an old one.
523 alternates
525 (alt) The alternates command is useful if the user has accounts
526 on several machines. It can be used to inform mailx that the
527 listed addresses all belong to the invoking user. When he
528 replies to messages, mailx will not send a copy of the message
529 to any of the addresses listed on the alternates list. If the
530 alternates command is given with no argument, the current set of
531 alternate names is displayed.
532 answered
534 (ans) Takes a message list and marks each message as a having
535 been answered. This mark has no technical meaning in the mail
536 system; it just causes messages to be marked in the header sum‐
537 mary, and makes them specially addressable.
538 cache Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes; takes a message list
540 and reads the specified messages into the IMAP cache.
541 call Calls a macro (see the define command).
543 cd Same as chdir.
545 certsave
547 Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages. Takes a message list
548 and a file name and saves the certificates contained within the
549 message signatures to the named file in both human-readable and
550 PEM format. The certificates can later be used to send
551 encrypted messages to the messages' originators by setting the
552 smime-encrypt-user@host variable.
553 chdir (ch) Changes the user's working directory to that specified, if
555 given. If no directory is given, then changes to the user's
556 login directory.
557 classify
559 (cl) Takes a list of messages and examines their contents for
560 characteristics of junk mail using Bayesian filtering. Messages
561 considered to be junk are then marked as such. The junk mail
562 database is not changed.
563 collapse
565 (coll) Only applicable to threaded mode. Takes a message list
566 and makes all replies to these messages invisible in header sum‐
567 maries, unless they are in state `new'.
568 connect
570 (conn) If operating in disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
571 switch to online mode and connect to the mail server while
572 retaining the mailbox status. See the description of the dis‐
573 connected variable for more information.
574 copy (c) The copy command does the same thing that save does, except
576 that it does not mark the messages it is used on for deletion
577 when the user quits. Compressed files and IMAP mailboxes are
578 handled as described for the folder command.
579 Copy (C) Similar to copy, but saves the messages in a file named
581 after the local part of the sender address of the first message.
582 decrypt
584 (dec) For unencrypted messages, this command is identical to
585 copy. Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and
586 then copied.
587 Decrypt
589 (Dec) Similar to decrypt, but saves the messages in a file named
590 after the local part of the sender address of the first message.
591 define (def) Defines a macro. A macro definition is a sequence of com‐
593 mands in the following form:
594 define name {
596 command1
597 command2
598 ...
599 commandN
600 }
601 Once defined, a macro can be explicitly invoked using the call
603 command, or can be implicitly invoked by setting the folder-hook
604 or folder-hook-fullname variables.
605 defines
607 Prints the currently defined macros including their contents.
608 delete (d) Takes a list of messages as argument and marks them all as
610 deleted. Deleted messages will not be saved in mbox, nor will
611 they be available for most other commands.
612 discard
614 Same as ignore.
615 disconnect
617 (disco) If operating in online mode on an IMAP mailbox, switch
618 to disconnected mode while retaining the mailbox status. See
619 the description of the disconnected variable for more informa‐
620 tion. A list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
621 the respective messages are then read into the cache before the
622 connection is closed. Thus `disco *' makes the entire current
623 mailbox available for disconnected use.
624 dp or dt
626 Deletes the current message and prints the next message. If
627 there is no next message, mailx says `at EOF'.
628 draft Takes a message list and marks each message as a draft. This
630 mark has no technical meaning in the mail system; it just causes
631 messages to be marked in the header summary, and makes them spe‐
632 cially addressable.
633 echo Echoes its arguments, resolving special names as documented for
635 the folder command. The escape sequences `\a', `\b', `\c',
636 `\f', `\n', `\r', `\t', `\v', `\\', and `\0num' are interpreted
637 as with the echo(1) command.
638 edit (e) Takes a list of messages and points the text editor at each
640 one in turn. Modified contents are discarded unless the write‐
641 backedited variable is set.
642 else Marks the end of the then-part of an if statement and the begin‐
644 ning of the part to take effect if the condition of the if
645 statement is false.
646 endif Marks the end of an if statement.
648 exit (ex or x) Effects an immediate return to the Shell without modi‐
650 fying the user's system mailbox, his mbox file, or his edit file
651 in -f.
652 file (fi) The same as folder.
654 flag (fl) Takes a message list and marks the messages as `flagged'
656 for urgent/special attention. This mark has no technical mean‐
657 ing in the mail system; it just causes messages to be high‐
658 lighted in the header summary, and makes them specially address‐
659 able.
660 folders
662 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder
663 directory. With an existing folder as an argument, lists then
664 names of folders below the named folder; e.g. the command `fold‐
665 ers @' lists the folders on the base level of the current IMAP
666 server. See also the imap-list-depth variable.
667 folder (fold) The folder command switches to a new mail file or folder.
669 With no arguments, it tells the user which file he is currently
670 reading. If an argument is given, it will write out changes
671 (such as deletions) the user has made in the current file and
672 read in the new file. Some special conventions are recognized
673 for the name. # means the previous file, % means the invoking
674 user's system mailbox, %user means user's system mailbox, &
675 means the invoking user's mbox file, and +file means a file in
676 the folder directory. %:filespec expands to the same value as
677 filespec, but the file is handled as a system mailbox e. g. by
678 the mbox and save commands. If the name matches one of the
679 strings defined with the shortcut command, it is replaced by its
680 long form and expanded. If the name ends with .gz or .bz2, it
681 is treated as compressed with gzip(1) or bzip2(1), respectively.
682 Likewise, if name does not exist, but either name.gz or name.bz2
683 exists, the compressed file is used. If name refers to a direc‐
684 tory with the subdirectories `tmp', `new', and `cur', it is
685 treated as a folder in maildir format. A name of the form
686 protocol://[user@]host[:port][/file]
688 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification. The supported
690 protocols are currently imap (IMAP v4r1), imaps (IMAP with
691 SSL/TLS encryption), pop3 (POP3), and pop3s (POP3 with SSL/TLS
692 encryption). If user contains special characters, in particular
693 `/' or `%', they must be escaped in URL notation, as `%2F' or
694 `%25'. The optional file part applies to IMAP only; if it is
695 omitted, the default `INBOX' is used. If mailx is connected to
696 an IMAP server, a name of the form @mailbox refers to the mail‐
697 box on that server. If the `folder' variable refers to an IMAP
698 account, the special name `%' selects the `INBOX' on that
699 account.
700 Followup
702 (F) Similar to Respond, but saves the message in a file named
703 after the local part of the first recipient's address.
704 followup
706 (fo) Similar to respond, but saves the message in a file named
707 after the local part of the first recipient's address.
708 followupall
710 Similar to followup, but responds to all recipients regardless
711 of the flipr and Replyall variables.
712 followupsender
714 Similar to Followup, but responds to the sender only regardless
715 of the flipr and Replyall variables.
716 forward
718 (fwd) Takes a message and the address of a recipient and for‐
719 wards the message to him. The text of the original message is
720 included in the new one, with the value of the fwdheading vari‐
721 able printed before. The fwdignore and fwdretain commands spec‐
722 ify which header fields are included in the new message. Only
723 the first part of a multipart message is included unless the
724 forward-as-attachment option is set.
725 Forward
727 (Fwd) Similar to forward, but saves the message in a file named
728 after the local part of the recipient's address.
729 from (f) Takes a list of messages and prints their message headers,
731 piped through the pager if the output does not fit on the
732 screen.
733 fwdignore
735 Specifies which header fields are to be ignored with the forward
736 command. This command has no effect when the forward-as-attach‐
737 ment option is set.
738 fwdretain
740 Specifies which header fields are to be retained with the for‐
741 ward command. fwdretain overrides fwdignore. This command has
742 no effect when the forward-as-attachment option is set.
743 good (go) Takes a list of messages and marks all of them as not being
745 junk mail. Data from these messages is then inserted into the
746 junk mail database for future classification.
747 headers
749 (h) Lists the current range of headers, which is an 18-message
750 group. If a `+' argument is given, then the next 18-message
751 group is printed, and if a `-' argument is given, the previous
752 18-message group is printed.
753 help A synonym for ?.
755 hold (ho, also preserve) Takes a message list and marks each message
757 therein to be saved in the user's system mailbox instead of in
758 mbox. Does not override the delete command. mailx deviates
759 from the POSIX standard with this command, as a `next' command
760 issued after `hold' will display the following message, not the
761 current one.
762 if Commands in mailx's startup files can be executed conditionally
764 depending on whether the user is sending or receiving mail with
765 the if command. For example:
766 if receive
768 commands . . .
769 endif
770 An else form is also available:
772 if receive
774 commands . . .
775 else
776 commands . . .
777 endif
778 Note that the only allowed conditions are receive, send, and
780 term (execute command if standard input is a tty).
781 ignore Add the list of header fields named to the ignored list. Header
783 fields in the ignore list are not printed on the terminal when a
784 message is printed. This command is very handy for suppression
785 of certain machine-generated header fields. The Type and Print
786 commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, includ‐
787 ing ignored fields. If ignore is executed with no arguments, it
788 lists the current set of ignored fields.
789 imap Sends command strings directly to the current IMAP server.
791 Mailx operates always in IMAP selected state on the current
792 mailbox; commands that change this will produce undesirable
793 results and should be avoided. Useful IMAP commands are:
794 create Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and cre‐
796 ates it.
797 getquotaroot
799 Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and
800 prints the quotas that apply to the mailbox. Not all
801 IMAP servers support this command.
802 namespace
804 Takes no arguments and prints the Personal Namespaces,
805 the Other User's Namespaces, and the Shared Namespaces.
806 Each namespace type is printed in parentheses; if there
807 are multiple namespaces of the same type, inner parenthe‐
808 ses separate them. For each namespace, a namespace pre‐
809 fix and a hierarchy separator is listed. Not all IMAP
810 servers support this command.
811 inc Same as newmail.
813 junk (j) Takes a list of messages and marks all of them as junk mail.
815 Data from these messages is then inserted into the junk mail
816 database for future classification.
817 kill (k) Takes a list of messages and `kills' them. Killed messages
819 are not printed in header summaries, and are ignored by the next
820 command. The kill command also sets the score of the messages
821 to negative infinity, so that subsequent score commands will not
822 unkill them again. Killing is only effective for the current
823 session on a folder; when it is quit, all messages are automati‐
824 cally unkilled.
825 list Prints the names of all available commands.
827 Mail (M) Similar to mail, but saves the message in a file named after
829 the local part of the first recipient's address.
830 mail (m) Takes as argument login names and distribution group names
832 and sends mail to those people.
833 mbox Indicate that a list of messages be sent to mbox in the user's
835 home directory when mailx is quit. This is the default action
836 for messages if unless the hold option is set. mailx deviates
837 from the POSIX standard with this command, as a `next' command
838 issued after `mbox' will display the following message, not the
839 current one.
840 move (mv) Acts like copy, but marks the messages for deletion if they
842 were transferred successfully.
843 Move (Mv) Similar to move, but moves the messages to a file named
845 after the local part of the sender address of the first message.
846 newmail
848 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any
849 changes before. If new mail is present, a message is printed.
850 If the header variable is set, the headers of each new message
851 are also printed.
852 next (n) like + or CR) Goes to the next message in sequence and types
854 it. With an argument list, types the next matching message.
855 New Same as unread.
857 new Same as unread.
859 online Same as connect.
861 noop If the current folder is located on an IMAP or POP3 server, a
863 NOOP command is sent. Otherwise, no operation is performed.
864 Pipe (Pi) Like pipe but also pipes ignored header fields and all
866 parts of MIME multipart/alternative messages.
867 pipe (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command and pipes the mes‐
869 sages through the command. Without an argument, the current
870 message is piped through the command given by the cmd variable.
871 If the page variable is set, every message is followed by a
872 formfeed character.
873 preserve
875 (pre) A synonym for hold.
876 Print (P) Like print but also prints out ignored header fields and all
878 parts of MIME multipart/alternative messages. See also print,
879 ignore, and retain.
880 print (p) Takes a message list and types out each message on the
882 user's terminal. If the message is a MIME multipart message,
883 all parts with a content type of `text' or `message' are shown,
884 the other are hidden except for their headers. Messages are
885 decrypted and converted to the terminal character set if neces‐
886 sary.
887 probability
889 (prob) For each word given as argument, the contents of its junk
890 mail database entry are printed.
891 quit (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved mes‐
893 sages in the user's mbox file in his login directory, preserving
894 all messages marked with hold or preserve or never referenced in
895 his system mailbox, and removing all other messages from his
896 system mailbox. If new mail has arrived during the session, the
897 message `You have new mail' is given. If given while editing a
898 mailbox file with the -f flag, then the edit file is rewritten.
899 A return to the Shell is effected, unless the rewrite of edit
900 file fails, in which case the user can escape with the exit com‐
901 mand.
902 redirect
904 (red) Same as resend.
905 Redirect
907 (Red) Same as Resend.
908 remove (rem) Removes the named folders. The user is asked for confir‐
910 mation in interactive mode.
911 rename (ren) Takes the name of an existing folder and the name for the
913 new folder and renames the first to the second one. Both fold‐
914 ers must be of the same type and must be located on the current
915 server for IMAP.
916 Reply (R) Reply to originator. Does not reply to other recipients of
918 the original message.
919 reply (r) Takes a message list and sends mail to the sender and all
921 recipients of the specified message. The default message must
922 not be deleted.
923 replyall
925 Similar to reply, but responds to all recipients regardless of
926 the flipr and Replyall variables.
927 replysender
929 Similar to Reply, but responds to the sender only regardless of
930 the flipr and Replyall variables.
931 Resend Like resend, but does not add any header lines. This is not a
933 way to hide the sender's identity, but useful for sending a mes‐
934 sage again to the same recipients.
935 resend Takes a list of messages and a user name and sends each message
937 to the named user. `Resent-From:' and related header fields are
938 prepended to the new copy of the message.
939 Respond
941 Same as Reply.
942 respond
944 Same as reply.
945 respondall
947 Same as replyall.
948 respondsender
950 Same as replysender.
951 retain Add the list of header fields named to the retained list. Only
953 the header fields in the retain list are shown on the terminal
954 when a message is printed. All other header fields are sup‐
955 pressed. The Type and Print commands can be used to print a
956 message in its entirety. If retain is executed with no argu‐
957 ments, it lists the current set of retained fields.
958 Save (S) Similar to save, but saves the messages in a file named
960 after the local part of the sender of the first message instead
961 of taking a filename argument.
962 save (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message
964 in turn to the end of the file. If no filename is given, the
965 mbox file is used. The filename in quotes, followed by the line
966 count and character count is echoed on the user's terminal. If
967 editing a system mailbox, the messages are marked for deletion.
968 Compressed files and IMAP mailboxes are handled as described for
969 the -f command line option above.
970 savediscard
972 Same as saveignore.
973 saveignore
975 Saveignore is to save what ignore is to print and type. Header
976 fields thus marked are filtered out when saving a message by
977 save or when automatically saving to mbox. This command should
978 only be applied to header fields that do not contain information
979 needed to decode the message, as MIME content fields do. If
980 saving messages on an IMAP account, ignoring fields makes it
981 impossible to copy the data directly on the server, thus opera‐
982 tion usually becomes much slower.
983 saveretain
985 Saveretain is to save what retain is to print and type. Header
986 fields thus marked are the only ones saved with a message when
987 saving by save or when automatically saving to mbox. Saveretain
988 overrides saveignore. The use of this command is strongly dis‐
989 couraged since it may strip header fields that are needed to
990 decode the message correctly.
991 score (sc) Takes a message list and a floating point number and adds
993 the number to the score of each given message. All messages
994 start at score 0 when a folder is opened. When the score of a
995 message becomes negative, it is `killed' with the effects
996 described for the kill command; otherwise if it was negative
997 before and becomes positive, it is `unkilled'. Scores only
998 refer to the currently opened instance of a folder.
999 set (se) With no arguments, prints all variable values, piped
1001 through the pager if the output does not fit on the screen.
1002 Otherwise, sets option. Arguments are of the form option=value
1003 (no space before or after =) or option. Quotation marks may be
1004 placed around any part of the assignment statement to quote
1005 blanks or tabs, i.e. `set indentprefix="->"'. If an argument
1006 begins with no, as in `set nosave', the effect is the same as
1007 invoking the unset command with the remaining part of the vari‐
1008 able (`unset save').
1009 seen Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
1011 shell (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
1013 shortcut
1015 Defines a shortcut name and its string for expansion, as
1016 described for the folder command. With no arguments, a list of
1017 defined shortcuts is printed.
1018 show (Sh) Like print, but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryp‐
1020 tion so that the raw message text is shown.
1021 size Takes a message list and prints out the size in characters of
1023 each message.
1024 sort Create a sorted representation of the current folder, and change
1026 the next command and the addressing modes such that they refer
1027 to messages in the sorted order. Message numbers are the same
1028 as in regular mode. If the header variable is set, a header
1029 summary in the new order is also printed. Possible sorting cri‐
1030 teria are:
1031 date Sort the messages by their `Date:' field, that is by the
1033 time they were sent.
1034 from Sort messages by the value of their `From:' field, that
1036 is by the address of the sender. If the showname vari‐
1037 able is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
1038 size Sort the messages by their size.
1040 score Sort the messages by their score.
1042 status Sort the messages by their message status (new, read,
1044 old, etc.).
1045 subject
1047 Sort the messages by their subject.
1048 thread Create a threaded order, as with the thread command.
1050 to Sort messages by the value of their `To:' field, that is
1052 by the address of the recipient. If the showname vari‐
1053 able is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
1054 If no argument is given, the current sorting criterion is
1056 printed.
1057 source The source command reads commands from a file.
1059 thread (th) Create a threaded representation of the current folder,
1061 i.e. indent messages that are replies to other messages in the
1062 header display, and change the next command and the addressing
1063 modes such that they refer to messages in the threaded order.
1064 Message numbers are the same as in unthreaded mode. If the
1065 header variable is set, a header summary in threaded order is
1066 also printed.
1067 top Takes a message list and prints the top few lines of each. The
1069 number of lines printed is controlled by the variable toplines
1070 and defaults to five.
1071 touch Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
1073 mbox file. mailx deviates from the POSIX standard with this
1074 command, as a `next' command issued after `mbox' will display
1075 the following message, not the current one.
1076 Type (T) Identical to the Print command.
1078 type (t) A synonym for print.
1080 unalias
1082 Takes a list of names defined by alias commands and discards the
1083 remembered groups of users. The group names no longer have any
1084 significance.
1085 unanswered
1087 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been
1088 answered.
1089 uncollapse
1091 (unc) Only applicable to threaded mode. Takes a message list
1092 and makes the message and all replies to it visible in header
1093 summaries again. When a message becomes the current message, it
1094 is automatically made visible. Also when a message with col‐
1095 lapsed replies is printed, all of these are automatically uncol‐
1096 lapsed.
1097 undef Undefines each of the named macros. It is not an error to use a
1099 name that does not belong to one of the currently defined
1100 macros.
1101 undelete
1103 (u) Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
1104 deleted.
1105 undraft
1107 Takes a message list and marks each message as a draft.
1108 unflag Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
1110 `flagged'.
1111 unfwdignore
1113 Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields
1114 for the forward command.
1115 unfwdretain
1117 Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields
1118 for the forward command.
1119 ungood Takes a message list and undoes the effect of a good command
1121 that was previously applied on exactly these messages.
1122 unignore
1124 Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields.
1125 unjunk Takes a message list and undoes the effect of a junk command
1127 that was previously applied on exactly these messages.
1128 unkill Takes a message list and `unkills' each message. Also sets the
1130 score of the messages to 0.
1131 Unread Same as unread.
1133 unread (U) Takes a message list and marks each message as not having
1135 been read.
1136 unretain
1138 Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields.
1139 unsaveignore
1141 Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields
1142 for saving.
1143 unsaveretain
1145 Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields
1146 for saving.
1147 unset Takes a list of option names and discards their remembered val‐
1149 ues; the inverse of set.
1150 unshortcut
1152 Deletes the shortcut names given as arguments.
1153 unsort Disable sorted or threaded mode (see the sort and thread com‐
1155 mands), return to normal message order and, if the header vari‐
1156 able is set, print a header summary.
1157 unthread
1159 (unth) Same as unsort.
1160 verify (verif) Takes a message list and verifies each message. If a
1162 message is not an S/MIME signed message, verification will fail
1163 for it. The verification process checks if the message was
1164 signed using a valid certificate, if the message sender's email
1165 address matches one of those contained within the certificate,
1166 and if the message content has been altered.
1167 visual (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each
1169 message. Modified contents are discarded unless the write‐
1170 backedited variable is set.
1171 write (w) For conventional messages, the body without all headers is
1173 written. The output is decrypted and converted to its native
1174 format, if necessary. If the output file exists, the text is
1175 appended.—If a message is in MIME multipart format, its first
1176 part is written to the specified file as for conventional mes‐
1177 sages, and the user is asked for a filename to save each other
1178 part; if the contents of the first part are not to be saved,
1179 `write /dev/null' can be used. For the second and subsequent
1180 parts, if the filename given starts with a `|' character, the
1181 part is piped through the remainder of the filename interpreted
1182 as a shell command. In non-interactive mode, only the parts of
1183 the multipart message that have a filename given in the part
1184 header are written, the other are discarded. The original mes‐
1185 sage is never marked for deletion in the originating mail
1186 folder. For attachments, the contents of the destination file
1187 are overwritten if the file previously existed. No special han‐
1188 dling of compressed files is performed.
1189 xit (x) A synonym for exit.
1191 z Mailx presents message headers in windowfuls as described under
1193 the headers command. The z command scrolls to the next window
1194 of messages. If an argument is given, it specifies the window
1195 to use. A number prefixed by `+' or `-' indicates that the win‐
1196 dow is calculated in relation to the current position. A number
1197 without a prefix specifies an absolute window number, and a `$'
1198 lets mailx scroll to the last window of messages.
1199 Z Similar to z, but scrolls to the next or previous window that
1201 contains at least one new or `flagged' message.
1202 Tilde escapes
1204 Here is a summary of the tilde escapes, which are used when composing
1205 messages to perform special functions. Tilde escapes are only recog‐
1206 nized at the beginning of lines. The name `tilde escape' is somewhat
1207 of a misnomer since the actual escape character can be set by the
1208 option escape.
1209 ~!command
1211 Execute the indicated shell command, then return to the message.
1212 ~. Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
1214 ~<filename
1216 Identical to ~r.
1217 ~<!command
1219 Command is executed using the shell. Its standard output is
1220 inserted into the message.
1221 ~@ [filename . . . ]
1223 With no arguments, edit the attachment list. First, the user
1224 can edit all existing attachment data. If an attachment's file
1225 name is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list.
1226 When the end of the attachment list is reached, mailx will ask
1227 for further attachments, until an empty file name is given. If
1228 filename arguments are specified, all of them are appended to
1229 the end of the attachment list. Filenames which contain white
1230 space can only be specified with the first method (no filename
1231 arguments).
1232 ~A Inserts the string contained in the Sign variable (same as `~i
1234 Sign'). The escape sequences `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (new‐
1235 line) are understood.
1236 ~a Inserts the string contained in the sign variable (same as `~i
1238 sign'). The escape sequences `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (new‐
1239 line) are understood.
1240 ~bname . . .
1242 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients but do
1243 not make the names visible in the Cc: line (`blind' carbon
1244 copy).
1245 ~cname . . .
1247 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
1248 ~d Read the file `dead.letter' from the user's home directory into
1250 the message.
1251 ~e Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far. After
1253 the editing session is finished, the user may continue appending
1254 text to the message.
1255 ~fmessages
1257 Read the named messages into the message being sent. If no mes‐
1258 sages are specified, read in the current message. Message head‐
1259 ers currently being ignored (by the ignore or retain command)
1260 are not included. For MIME multipart messages, only the first
1261 printable part is included.
1262 ~Fmessages
1264 Identical to ~f, except all message headers and all MIME parts
1265 are included.
1266 ~h Edit the message header fields `To:', `Cc:', `Bcc:', and `Sub‐
1268 ject:' by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to
1269 append text to the end or modify the field by using the current
1270 terminal erase and kill characters.
1271 ~H Edit the message header fields `From:', `Reply-To:', `Sender:',
1273 and `Organization:' in the same manner as described for ~h. The
1274 default values for these fields originate from the from,
1275 replyto, and ORGANIZATION variables. If this tilde command has
1276 been used, changing the variables has no effect on the current
1277 message anymore.
1278 ~ivariable
1280 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message
1281 adding a newline character at the end. If the variable is unset
1282 or empty, the message remains unaltered. The escape sequences
1283 `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (newline) are understood.
1284 ~mmessages
1286 Read the named messages into the message being sent, indented by
1287 a tab or by the value of indentprefix. If no messages are spec‐
1288 ified, read the current message. Message headers currently
1289 being ignored (by the ignore or retain command) are not
1290 included. For MIME multipart messages, only the first printable
1291 part is included.
1292 ~Mmessages
1294 Identical to ~m, except all message headers and all MIME parts
1295 are included.
1296 ~p Print out the message collected so far, prefaced by the message
1298 header fields and followed by the attachment list, if any. If
1299 the message text is longer than the screen size, it is piped
1300 through the pager.
1301 ~q Abort the message being sent, copying the message to `dead.let‐
1303 ter' in the user's home directory if save is set.
1304 ~rfilename
1306 Read the named file into the message.
1307 ~sstring
1309 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
1310 ~tname . . .
1312 Add the given names to the direct recipient list.
1313 ~v Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the VISUAL option) on the
1315 message collected so far. Usually, the alternate editor will be
1316 a screen editor. After the editor is quit, the user may resume
1317 appending text to the end of the message.
1318 ~wfilename
1320 Write the message onto the named file. If the file exists, the
1321 message is appended to it.
1322 ~x Same as ~q, except that the message is not saved to the
1324 `dead.letter' file.
1325 ~|command
1327 Pipe the message through the command as a filter. If the com‐
1328 mand gives no output or terminates abnormally, retain the origi‐
1329 nal text of the message. The command fmt(1) is often used as
1330 command to rejustify the message.
1331 ~:mailx-command
1333 Execute the given mailx command. Not all commands, however, are
1334 allowed.
1335 ~_mailx-command
1337 Identical to ~:.
1338 ~~string
1340 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single ~.
1341 If the escape character has been changed, that character must be
1342 doubled in order to send it at the beginning of a line.
1343 Variable options
1345 Options are controlled via set and unset commands, see their entries
1346 for a syntax description. An option is also set if it is passed to
1347 mailx as part of the environment (this is not restricted to specific
1348 variables as in the POSIX standard). A value given in a startup file
1349 overrides a value imported from the environment, but it is not possible
1350 to unset an environment variable in a startup file. Options may be
1351 either binary, in which case it is only significant to see whether they
1352 are set or not; or string, in which case the actual value is of inter‐
1353 est.
1354 Binary options
1356 The binary options include the following:
1357 allnet Causes only the local part to be evaluated when comparing
1359 addresses.
1360 append Causes messages saved in mbox to be appended to the end rather
1362 than prepended. This should always be set.
1363 ask or asksub
1365 Causes mailx to prompt for the subject of each message sent. If
1366 the user responds with simply a newline, no subject field will
1367 be sent.
1368 askatend
1370 Causes the prompts for `Cc:' and `Bcc:' lists to appear after
1371 the message has been edited.
1372 askattach
1374 If set, mailx asks for files to attach at the end of each mes‐
1375 sage. Responding with a newline indicates not to include an
1376 attachment.
1377 askcc Causes the user to be prompted for additional carbon copy recip‐
1379 ients (at the end of each message if askatend or bsdcompat is
1380 set). Responding with a newline indicates the user's satisfac‐
1381 tion with the current list.
1382 askbcc Causes the user to be prompted for additional blind carbon copy
1384 recipients (at the end of each message if askatend or bsdcompat
1385 is set). Responding with a newline indicates the user's satis‐
1386 faction with the current list.
1387 asksign
1389 Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be signed at
1390 the end of each message. The smime-sign variable is ignored
1391 when this variable is set.
1392 autocollapse
1394 Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
1395 is entered (see the collapse command).
1396 autoinc
1398 Same as newmail.
1399 autoprint
1401 Causes the delete command to behave like dp - thus, after delet‐
1402 ing a message, the next one will be typed automatically.
1403 autothread
1405 Causes threaded mode (see the thread command) to be entered
1406 automatically when a folder is opened.
1407 bang Enables the substitution of `!' by the contents of the last
1409 command line in shell escapes.
1410 bsdannounce
1412 Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
1413 folder command.
1414 bsdcompat
1416 Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style; has the
1417 same affect as setting `askatend' and all other variables pre‐
1418 fixed with `bsd', setting prompt to `& ', and changing the
1419 default pager to more.
1420 bsdflags
1422 Changes the letters printed in the first column of a header sum‐
1423 mary to traditional BSD style.
1424 bsdheadline
1426 Changes the display of columns in a header summary to tradi‐
1427 tional BSD style.
1428 bsdmsgs
1430 Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
1431 bsdorder
1433 Causes the `Subject:' field to appear immediately after the
1434 `To:' field in message headers and with the ~h tilde command.
1435 bsdset Changes the output format of the set command to traditional BSD
1437 style.
1438 chained-junk-tokens
1440 Normally, the Bayesian junk mail filter bases its classifica‐
1441 tions on single word tokens extracted from messages. If this
1442 option is set, adjacent words are combined to pairs, which are
1443 then used as additional tokens. This usually improves the accu‐
1444 racy of the filter, but also increases the junk mail database
1445 five- to tenfold.
1446 datefield
1448 The date in a header summary is normally the date of the mailbox
1449 `From ' line of the message. If this variable is set, the date
1450 as given in the `Date:' header field is used, converted to local
1451 time.
1452 debug Prints debugging messages and disables the actual delivery of
1454 messages. Unlike verbose, this option is intended for mailx
1455 development only.
1456 disconnected
1458 When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable is set, no
1459 connection to the server is initiated. Instead, data is
1460 obtained from the local cache (see imap-cache). Mailboxes that
1461 are not present in the cache and messages that have not yet
1462 entirely been fetched from the server are not available; to
1463 fetch all messages in a mailbox at once, the command `copy *
1464 /dev/null' can be used while still in online mode. Changes that
1465 are made to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued and
1466 committed later when a connection to that server is opened in
1467 online mode. This procedure is not completely reliable since it
1468 cannot be guaranteed that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs) on
1469 the server still match the ones in the cache at that time. Data
1470 is saved to `dead.letter' when this problem occurs.
1471 disconnected-user@host
1473 The specified account is handled as described for the discon‐
1474 nected variable above, but other accounts are not affected.
1475 dot The binary option dot causes mailx to interpret a period alone
1477 on a line as the terminator of a message the user is sending.
1478 editheaders
1480 When a message is edited while being composed, its header is
1481 included in the editable text. `To:', `Cc:', `Bcc:', `Sub‐
1482 ject:', `From:', `Reply-To:', `Sender:', and 'Organization:'
1483 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
1484 emptybox
1486 If set, an empty mailbox file is not removed. This may improve
1487 the interoperability with other mail user agents when using a
1488 common folder directory.
1489 emptystart
1491 If the mailbox is empty, mailx normally prints `No mail for
1492 user' and exits immediately. If this option is set, mailx
1493 starts even with an empty mailbox.
1494 expandaddr
1496 Causes mailx to expand message recipient addresses, as explained
1497 in the section, Recipient address specifications.
1498 flipr Exchanges the Respond with the respond commands and vice-versa.
1500 forward-as-attachment
1502 Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the for‐
1503 ward command, and only the first part of a multipart message is
1504 included. With this option, messages are sent as MIME mes‐
1505 sage/rfc822 attachments, and all of their parts are included.
1506 The fwdignore and fwdretain options are ignored when the for‐
1507 ward-as-attachment option is set.
1508 fullnames
1510 When replying to a message, mailx normally removes the comment
1511 parts of email addresses, which by convention contain the full
1512 names of the recipients. If this variable is set, such strip‐
1513 ping is not performed, and comments are retained.
1514 header Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
1516 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of mes‐
1517 sages in the current folder; enabled by default.
1518 hold This option is used to hold messages in the system mailbox by
1520 default.
1521 ignore Causes interrupt signals from the terminal to be ignored and
1523 echoed as @'s.
1524 ignoreeof
1526 An option related to dot is ignoreeof which makes mailx refuse
1527 to accept a control-d as the end of a message. Ignoreeof also
1528 applies to mailx command mode.
1529 imap-use-starttls
1531 Causes mailx to issue a STARTTLS command to make an unencrypted
1532 IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted. This functionality is not sup‐
1533 ported by all servers, and is not used if the session is already
1534 encrypted by the IMAPS method.
1535 imap-use-starttls-user@host
1537 Activates imap-use-starttls for a specific account.
1538 keep This option causes mailx to truncate the user's system mailbox
1540 instead of deleting it when it is empty. This should always be
1541 set, since it prevents malicious users from creating fake mail
1542 folders in a world-writable spool directory.
1543 keepsave
1545 When a message is saved, it is usually discarded from the origi‐
1546 nating folder when mailx is quit. Setting this option causes
1547 all saved message to be retained.
1548 markanswered
1550 When a message is replied to and this variable is set, it is
1551 marked as having been answered. This mark has no technical
1552 meaning in the mail system; it just causes messages to be marked
1553 in the header summary, and makes them specially addressable.
1554 metoo Usually, when a group is expanded that contains the sender, the
1556 sender is removed from the expansion. Setting this option
1557 causes the sender to be included in the group.
1558 newmail
1560 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt
1561 is printed. For IMAP mailboxes, the server is then polled for
1562 new mail, which may result in delayed operation if the connec‐
1563 tion to the server is slow. A maildir folder must be re-scanned
1564 to determine if new mail has arrived.
1565 If this variable is set to the special value nopoll, an IMAP
1567 server is not actively asked for new mail, but new mail may
1568 still be detected and announced with any other IMAP command that
1569 is sent to the server. A maildir folder is not scanned then.
1570 In any case, the IMAP server may send notifications about mes‐
1572 sages that have been deleted on the server by another process or
1573 client. In this case, `Expunged n messages' is printed regard‐
1574 less of this variable, and message numbers may have changed.
1575 noheader
1577 Setting the option noheader is the same as giving the -N flag on
1578 the command line.
1579 outfolder
1581 Causes the filename given in the record variable and the sender-
1582 based filenames for the Copy and Save commands to be interpreted
1583 relative to the directory given in the folder variable rather
1584 than to the current directory unless it is an absolute pathname.
1585 page If set, each message the pipe command prints out is followed by
1587 a formfeed character.
1588 piperaw
1590 Send messages to the pipe command without performing MIME and
1591 character set conversions.
1592 pop3-use-apop
1594 If this variable is set, the APOP authentication method is used
1595 when a connection to a POP3 server is initiated. The advantage
1596 of this method over the usual USER/PASS authentication is that
1597 the password is not sent over the network in clear text. The
1598 connection fails if the server does not support the APOP com‐
1599 mand.
1600 pop3-use-apop-user@host
1602 Enables pop3-use-apop for a specific account.
1603 pop3-use-starttls
1605 Causes mailx to issue a STLS command to make an unencrypted POP3
1606 session SSL/TLS encrypted. This functionality is not supported
1607 by all servers, and is not used if the session is already
1608 encrypted by the POP3S method.
1609 pop3-use-starttls-user@host
1611 Activates pop3-use-starttls for a specific account.
1612 print-all-chars
1614 This option causes all characters to be considered printable.
1615 It is only effective if given in a startup file. With this
1616 option set, some character sequences in messages may put the
1617 user's terminal in an undefined state when printed; it should
1618 only be used as a last resort if no working system locale can be
1619 found.
1620 print-alternatives
1622 When a MIME message part of type multipart/alternative is dis‐
1623 played and it contains a subpart of type text/plain, other parts
1624 are normally discarded. Setting this variable causes all sub‐
1625 parts to be displayed, just as if the surrounding part was of
1626 type multipart/mixed.
1627 quiet Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
1629 record-resent
1631 If both this variable and the record variable are set, the
1632 resend and Resend commands save messages to the record folder as
1633 it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
1634 reply-in-same-charset
1636 If this variable is set, mailx first tries to use the same char‐
1637 acter set of the original message for replies. If this fails,
1638 the sendcharsets variable is evaluated as usual.
1639 Replyall
1641 Reverses the sense of reply and Reply commands.
1642 save When the user aborts a message with two RUBOUT (interrupt char‐
1644 acters) mailx copies the partial letter to the file `dead.let‐
1645 ter' in the home directory. This option is set by default.
1646 searchheaders
1648 If this option is set, then a message-list specifier in the form
1649 `/x:y' will expand to all messages containing the substring `y'
1650 in the header field `x'. The string search is case insensitive.
1651 sendwait
1653 When sending a message, wait until the mail transfer agent exits
1654 before accepting further commands. If the mail transfer agent
1655 returns a non-zero exit status, the exit status of mailx will
1656 also be non-zero.
1657 showlast
1659 Setting this option causes mailx to start at the last message
1660 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
1661 showname
1663 Causes mailx to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
1664 address in the header field summary and in message specifica‐
1665 tions.
1666 showto Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
1668 summary if the message was sent by the user.
1669 skipemptybody
1671 If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
1672 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see
1673 also the -E option).
1674 smime-force-encryption
1676 Causes mailx to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
1677 smime-sign
1679 If this variable is set, outgoing messages are S/MIME signed
1680 with the user's private key. Signing a message enables a recip‐
1681 ient to verify that the sender used a valid certificate, that
1682 the email addresses in the certificate match those in the mes‐
1683 sage header, and that the message content has not been altered.
1684 It does not change the message text, and people will be able to
1685 read the message as usual.
1686 smime-no-default-ca
1688 Do not load the default CA locations when verifying S/MIME
1689 signed messages. Only applicable if S/MIME support is built
1690 using OpenSSL.
1691 smtp-use-starttls
1693 Causes mailx to issue a STARTTLS command to make an SMTP session
1694 SSL/TLS encrypted. Not all servers support this command;
1695 because of common implementation defects, it cannot be automati‐
1696 cally determined whether a server supports it or not.
1697 ssl-no-default-ca
1699 Do not load the default CA locations to verify SSL/TLS server
1700 certificates. Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is built using
1701 OpenSSL.
1702 ssl-v2-allow
1704 Accept SSLv2 connections. These are normally not allowed
1705 because this protocol version is insecure.
1706 stealthmua
1708 Inhibits the generation of the `Message-Id:' and `User-Agent:'
1709 header fields that include obvious references to mailx. There
1710 are two pitfalls associated with this: First, the message id of
1711 outgoing messages is not known anymore. Second, an expert may
1712 still use the remaining information in the header to track down
1713 the originating mail user agent.
1714 verbose
1716 Setting the option verbose is the same as using the -v flag on
1717 the command line. When mailx runs in verbose mode, details of
1718 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations for IMAP,
1719 POP3, and SMTP, as well as of other internal processes, are dis‐
1720 played on the user's terminal, This is sometimes useful to debug
1721 problems. Mailx prints all data that is sent to remote servers
1722 in clear texts, including passwords, so care should be taken
1723 that no unauthorized option can view the screen if this option
1724 is enabled.
1725 writebackedited
1727 If this variable is set, messages modified using the edit or
1728 visual commands are written back to the current folder when it
1729 is quit. This is only possible for writable folders in mbox
1730 format. Setting this variable also disables MIME decoding and
1731 decryption for the editing commands.
1732 String Options
1734 The string options include the following:
1735 attrlist
1737 A sequence of characters to print in the `attribute' column of a
1738 header summary, each for one type of messages in the following
1739 order: new, unread but old, new but read, read and old, saved,
1740 preserved, mboxed, flagged, answered, draft, killed, start of a
1741 collapsed thread, collapsed, classified as junk. The default is
1742 `NUROSPMFATK+-J', or `NU *HMFATK+-J' if bsdflags or the SYSV3
1743 environment variable are set.
1744 autobcc
1746 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of
1747 each outgoing message will be sent automatically.
1748 autocc Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each
1750 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
1751 autosort
1753 Causes sorted mode (see the sort command) to be entered automat‐
1754 ically with the value of this option as sorting method when a
1755 folder is opened.
1756 cmd The default value for the pipe command.
1758 crt The valued option crt is used as a threshold to determine how
1760 long a message must be before PAGER is used to read it. If crt
1761 is set without a value, then the height of the terminal screen
1762 stored in the system is used to compute the threshold (see
1763 stty(1)).
1764 DEAD The name of the file to use for saving aborted messages. This
1766 defaults to `dead.letter' in the user's home directory.
1767 EDITOR Pathname of the text editor to use in the edit command and ~e
1769 escape. If not defined, then a default editor is used.
1770 encoding
1772 The default MIME encoding to use in outgoing text messages and
1773 message parts. Valid values are 8bit or quoted-printable. The
1774 default is 8bit. In case the mail transfer system is not ESMTP
1775 compliant, quoted-printable should be used instead. If there is
1776 no need to encode a message, 7bit transfer mode is used, without
1777 regard to the value of this variable. Binary data is always
1778 encoded in base64 mode.
1779 escape If defined, the first character of this option gives the charac‐
1781 ter to use in the place of ~ to denote escapes.
1782 folder The name of the directory to use for storing folders of mes‐
1784 sages. All folder names that begin with `+' refer to files
1785 below that directory. If the directory name begins with a `/',
1786 mailx considers it to be an absolute pathname; otherwise, the
1787 folder directory is found relative to the user's home directory.
1788 The directory name may also refer to an IMAP account; any names
1790 that begin with `+' then refer to IMAP mailboxes on that
1791 account. An IMAP folder is normally given in the form
1792 imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example
1794 In this case, the `+' and `@' prefixes for folder names have the
1796 same effect (see the folder command).
1797 Some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in the
1799 hierarchy base; they require that they are created as subfolders
1800 of `INBOX'. With such servers, a folder name of the form
1801 imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.
1803 should be used (the last character is the server's hierarchy
1805 delimiter). Folder names prefixed by `+' will then refer to
1806 folders below `INBOX', while folder names prefixed by `@' refer
1807 to folders below the hierarchy base. See the imap namespace
1808 command for a method to detect the appropriate prefix and delim‐
1809 iter.
1810 folder-hook
1812 When a folder is opened and this variable is set, the macro cor‐
1813 responding to the value of this variable is executed. The macro
1814 is also invoked when new mail arrives, but message lists for
1815 commands executed from the macro only include newly arrived mes‐
1816 sages then.
1817 folder-hook-fullname
1819 When a folder named fullname is opened, the macro corresponding
1820 to the value of this variable is executed. Unlike other folder
1821 specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder, without
1822 metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities. The macro speci‐
1823 fied with folder-hook is not executed if this variable is effec‐
1824 tive for a folder (unless it is explicitly invoked within the
1825 called macro).
1826 from The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the `From:'
1828 field of the message header. If replying to a message, these
1829 addresses are handled as if they were in the alternates list.
1830 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for
1831 example at a dialup machine), either this variable or hostname
1832 have to be set to get correct Message-ID header fields. If from
1833 contains more than one address, the sender variable must also be
1834 set.
1835 fwdheading
1837 The string to print before the text of a message with the for‐
1838 ward command (unless the forward-as-attachment variable is set).
1839 Defaults to ``-------- Original Message --------'' if unset. If
1840 it is set to the empty string, no heading is printed.
1841 headline
1843 A format string to use for the header summary, similar to printf
1844 formats. A `%' character introduces a format specifier. It may
1845 be followed by a number indicating the field width. If the
1846 field is a number, the width may be negative, which indicates
1847 that it is to be left-aligned. Valid format specifiers are:
1848 %a Message attributes.
1851 %c The score of the message.
1852 %d The date when the message was received.
1853 %e The indenting level in threaded mode.
1854 %f The address of the message sender.
1855 %i The message thread structure.
1856 %l The number of lines of the message.
1857 %m Message number.
1858 %o The number of octets (bytes) in the message.
1859 %s Message subject (if any).
1860 %S Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
1861 %t The position in threaded/sorted order.
1862 %> A `>' for the current message, otherwise ` '.
1863 %< A `<' for the current message, otherwise ` '.
1864 %% A `%' character.
1865 The default is `%>%a%m %18f %16d %4l/%-5o %i%s', or
1867 `%>%a%m %20f %16d %3l/%-5o %i%S' if bsdcompat is set.
1868 hostname
1870 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses
1871 instead of the value obtained from uname(2) and getaddrinfo(3).
1872 imap-auth
1874 Sets the IMAP authentication method. Valid values are `login'
1875 for the usual password-based authentication (the default),
1876 `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication that does
1877 not send the password over the network in clear text, and `gss‐
1878 api' for GSSAPI-based authentication.
1879 imap-auth-user@host
1881 Sets the IMAP authentication method for a specific account.
1882 imap-cache
1884 Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes. The value of this variable
1885 must point to a directory that is either existent or can be cre‐
1886 ated by mailx. All contents of the cache can be deleted by
1887 mailx at any time; it is not safe to make assumptions about
1888 them.
1889 imap-keepalive
1891 IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of inactiv‐
1892 ity; the standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes, but
1893 practical experience may vary. Setting this variable to a
1894 numeric value greater than 0 causes a NOOP command to be sent
1895 each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
1896 imap-list-depth
1898 When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the fold‐
1899 ers command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid
1900 possible infinite loops. The value of this variable sets the
1901 maximum depth allowed. The default is 2. If the folder separa‐
1902 tor on the current IMAP server is a slash `/', this variable has
1903 no effect, and the folders command does not descend to subfold‐
1904 ers.
1905 indentprefix
1907 String used by the `~m' and `~M' tilde escapes and by the quote
1908 option for indenting messages, in place of the normal tab char‐
1909 acter (^I). Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or
1910 tabs.
1911 junkdb The location of the junk mail database. The string is treated
1913 like a folder name, as described for the folder command.
1914 The files in the junk mail database are normally stored in com‐
1916 press(1) format for saving space. If processing time is consid‐
1917 ered more important, uncompress(1) can be used to store them in
1918 plain form. Mailx will then work using the uncompressed files.
1919 LISTER Pathname of the directory lister to use in the folders command
1921 when operating on local mailboxes. Default is /bin/ls.
1922 MAIL Is used as the user's mailbox, if set. Otherwise, a system-
1924 dependent default is used. Can be a protocol:// string (see the
1925 folder command for more information).
1926 MAILX_HEAD
1928 A string to put at the beginning of each new message. The
1929 escape sequences `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (newline) are under‐
1930 stood.
1931 MAILX_TAIL
1933 A string to put at the end of each new message. The escape
1934 sequences `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (newline) are understood.
1935 maximum-unencoded-line-length
1937 Messages that contain lines longer than the value of this vari‐
1938 able are encoded in quoted-printable even if they contain only
1939 ASCII characters. The maximum effective value is 950. If set
1940 to 0, all ASCII text messages are encoded in quoted-printable.
1941 S/MIME signed messages are always encoded in quoted-printable
1942 regardless of the value of this variable.
1943 MBOX The name of the mbox file. It can be the name of a folder. The
1945 default is `mbox' in the user's home directory.
1946 NAIL_EXTRA_RC
1948 The name of an optional startup file to be read after ~/.mailrc.
1949 This variable is ignored if it is imported from the environment;
1950 it has an effect only if it is set in /etc/mail.rc or ~/.mailrc
1951 to allow bypassing the configuration with e. g.
1952 `MAILRC=/dev/null'. Use this file for commands that are not
1953 understood by other mailx implementations.
1954 newfolders
1956 If this variable has the value maildir, newly created local
1957 folders will be in maildir format.
1958 nss-config-dir
1960 A directory that contains the files certN.db to retrieve cer‐
1961 tificates, keyN.db to retrieve private keys, and secmod.db,
1962 where N is a digit. These are usually taken from Mozilla
1963 installations, so an appropriate value might be
1964 `~/.mozilla/firefox/default.clm'. Mailx opens these files read-
1965 only and does not modify them. However, if the files are modi‐
1966 fied by Mozilla while mailx is running, it will print a `Bad
1967 database' message. It may be necessary to create copies of
1968 these files that are exclusively used by mailx then. Only
1969 applicable if S/MIME and SSL/TLS support is built using Network
1970 Security Services (NSS).
1971 ORGANIZATION
1973 The value to put into the `Organization:' field of the message
1974 header.
1975 PAGER Pathname of the program to use in the more command or when crt
1977 variable is set. The default paginator pg(1) or, in BSD compat‐
1978 ibility mode, more(1) is used if this option is not defined.
1979 password-user@host
1981 Set the password for user when connecting to host. If no such
1982 variable is defined for a host, the user will be asked for a
1983 password on standard input. Specifying passwords in a startup
1984 file is generally a security risk, the file should be readable
1985 by the invoking user only.
1986 pipe-content/subcontent
1988 When a MIME message part of content/subcontent type is displayed
1989 or it is replied to, its text is filtered through the value of
1990 this variable interpreted as a shell command. Special care must
1991 be taken when using such commands as mail viruses may be dis‐
1992 tributed by this method; if messages of type application/x-sh
1993 were filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1994 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system mailx is run‐
1995 ning on.
1996 pop3-keepalive
1998 POP3 servers may close the connection after a period of inactiv‐
1999 ity; the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes, but
2000 practical experience may vary. Setting this variable to a
2001 numeric value greater than 0 causes a NOOP command to be sent
2002 each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
2003 prompt The string printed when a command is accepted. Defaults to
2005 `? ', or to `& ' if the bsdcompat variable is set.
2006 quote If set, mailx starts a replying message with the original mes‐
2008 sage prefixed by the value of the variable indentprefix. Nor‐
2009 mally, a heading consisting of `Fromheaderfield wrote:' is
2010 printed before the quotation. If the string noheading is
2011 assigned to the quote variable, this heading is omitted. If the
2012 string headers is assigned, the headers selected by the
2013 ignore/retain commands are printed above the message body, thus
2014 quote acts like an automatic ~m command then. If the string
2015 allheaders is assigned, all headers are printed above the mes‐
2016 sage body, and all MIME parts are included, thus quote acts like
2017 an automatic ~M command then.
2018 record If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all
2020 outgoing mail. If not defined, then outgoing mail is not so
2021 saved. When saving to this folder fails, the message is not
2022 sent but saved to the `dead.letter' file instead.
2023 replyto
2025 A list of addresses to put into the `Reply-To:' field of the
2026 message header. If replying to a message, such addresses are
2027 handled as if they were in the alternates list.
2028 screen When mailx initially prints the message headers, it determines
2030 the number to print by looking at the speed of the terminal.
2031 The faster the terminal, the more it prints. This option over‐
2032 rides this calculation and specifies how many message headers
2033 are printed. This number is also used for scrolling with the z
2034 command.
2035 sendcharsets
2037 A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used
2038 in Internet mail. When a message that contains characters not
2039 representable in US-ASCII is prepared for sending, mailx tries
2040 to convert its text to each of the given character sets in order
2041 and uses the first appropriate one. The default is `utf-8'.
2042 Character sets assigned to this variable should be ordered in
2044 ascending complexity. That is, the list should start with e.g.
2045 `iso-8859-1' for compatibility with older mail clients, might
2046 contain some other language-specific character sets, and should
2047 end with `utf-8' to handle messages that combine texts in multi‐
2048 ple languages.
2049 sender An address that is put into the `Sender:' field of outgoing mes‐
2051 sages. This field needs not normally be present. It is, how‐
2052 ever, required if the `From:' field contains more than one
2053 address. It can also be used to indicate that a message was
2054 sent on behalf of somebody other; in this case, `From:' should
2055 contain the address of the person that took responsibility for
2056 the message, and `Sender:' should contain the address of the
2057 person that actually sent the message. The sender address is
2058 handled as if it were in the alternates list.
2059 sendmail
2061 To use an alternate mail delivery system, set this option to the
2062 full pathname of the program to use. This should be used with
2063 care.
2064 SHELL Pathname of the shell to use in the ! command and the ~! escape.
2066 A default shell is used if this option is not defined.
2067 Sign A string for use with the ~A command.
2070 sign A string for use with the ~a command.
2072 signature
2074 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
2075 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart
2076 message and to the first part of each multipart message.
2077 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signa‐
2078 ture for an individual message.
2079 smime-ca-dir
2081 Specifies a directory with CA certificates for verifica‐
2082 tion of S/MIME signed messages. The format is the same
2083 as described in SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(3). Only
2084 applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.
2085 smime-ca-file
2087 Specifies a file with CA certificates for verification of
2088 S/MIME signed messages. The format is the same as
2089 described in SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(3). Only
2090 applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.
2091 smime-cipher-user@host
2093 Specifies a cipher to use when generating S/MIME
2094 encrypted messages for user@host. Valid ciphers are
2095 rc2-40 (RC2 with 40 bits), rc2-64 (RC2 with 64 bits), des
2096 (DES, 56 bits) and des-ede3 (3DES, 112/168 bits). The
2097 default is 3DES. It is not recommended to use the other
2098 ciphers unless a recipient's client is actually unable to
2099 handle 3DES since they are comparatively weak; but even
2100 so, the recipient should upgrade his software in prefer‐
2101 ence.
2102 smime-crl-file
2104 Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use
2105 when verifying S/MIME messages. Only applicable if
2106 S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.
2107 smime-crl-dir
2109 Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in
2110 PEM format to use when verifying S/MIME messages. Only
2111 applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.
2112 smime-encrypt-user@host
2114 If this variable is set, messages to user@host are
2115 encrypted before sending. If S/MIME support is built
2116 using OpenSSL, the value of the variable must be set to
2117 the name of a file that contains a certificate in PEM
2118 format. If S/MIME support is built using NSS, the value
2119 of this variable is ignored, but if multiple certificates
2120 for user@host are available, the smime-nickname-user@host
2121 variable should be set. Otherwise a certificate for the
2122 recipient is automatically retrieved from the certificate
2123 database, if possible.
2124 If a message is sent to multiple recipients, each of them
2126 for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
2127 individually encrypted message; other recipients will
2128 continue to receive the message in plain text unless the
2129 smime-force-encryption variable is set. It is recom‐
2130 mended to sign encrypted messages, i.e. to also set the
2131 smime-sign variable.
2132 smime-nickname-user@host
2134 Specifies the nickname of a certificate to be used when
2135 encrypting messages for user@host . Only applicable if
2136 S/MIME support is built using NSS.
2137 smime-sign-cert
2139 Points to a file in PEM format that contains the user's
2140 private key as well as his certificate. Both are used
2141 with S/MIME for signing and decrypting messages. Only
2142 applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.
2143 smime-sign-cert-user@host
2145 Overrides smime-sign-cert for the specific addresses.
2146 When signing messages and the value of the from variable
2147 is set to user@host, the specific file is used. When
2148 decrypting messages, their recipient fields (To: and Cc:)
2149 are searched for addresses for which such a variable is
2150 set. Mailx always uses the first address that matches,
2151 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the
2152 user's addresses using different encryption keys, decryp‐
2153 tion might fail. Only applicable if S/MIME support is
2154 built using OpenSSL.
2155 smime-sign-nickname
2157 Specifies that the named certificate be used for signing
2158 mail. If this variable is not set, but a single certifi‐
2159 cate matching the current from address is found in the
2160 database, that one is used automatically. Only applica‐
2161 ble if S/MIME support is built using NSS.
2162 smime-sign-nickname-user@host
2164 Overrides smime-sign-nickname for a specific address.
2165 Only applicable if S/MIME support is built using NSS.
2166 smtp Normally, mailx invokes sendmail(8) directly to transfer
2168 messages. If the smtp variable is set, a SMTP connection
2169 to the server specified by the value of this variable is
2170 used instead. If the SMTP server does not use the stan‐
2171 dard port, a value of server:port can be given, with port
2172 as a name or as a number.
2173 There are two possible methods to get SSL/TLS encrypted
2175 SMTP sessions: First, the STARTTLS command can be used to
2176 encrypt a session after it has been initiated, but before
2177 any user-related data has been sent; see
2178 smtp-use-starttls above. Second, some servers accept
2179 sessions that are encrypted from their beginning on. This
2180 mode is configured by assigning smtps://server[:port] to
2181 the smtp variable.
2182 The SMTP transfer is executed in a child process; unless
2184 either the sendwait or the verbose variable is set, this
2185 process runs asynchronously. If it receives a TERM sig‐
2186 nal, it will abort and save the message to the `dead.let‐
2187 ter' file.
2188 smtp-auth
2190 Sets the SMTP authentication method. If set to `login',
2191 or if unset and smtp-auth-user is set, AUTH LOGIN is
2192 used. If set to `cram-md5', AUTH CRAM-MD5 is used; if
2193 set to `plain', AUTH PLAIN is used. Otherwise, no SMTP
2194 authentication is performed.
2195 smtp-auth-user@host
2197 Overrides smtp-auth for specific values of sender
2198 addresses, depending on the from variable.
2199 smtp-auth-password
2201 Sets the global password for SMTP AUTH. Both user and
2202 password have to be given for AUTH LOGIN and AUTH CRAM-
2203 MD5.
2204 smtp-auth-password-user@host
2206 Overrides smtp-auth-password for specific values of
2207 sender addresses, depending on the from variable.
2208 smtp-auth-user
2210 Sets the global user name for SMTP AUTH. Both user and
2211 password have to be given for AUTH LOGIN and AUTH CRAM-
2212 MD5.
2213 If this variable is set but neither smtp-auth-password or
2215 a matching smtp-auth-password-user@host can be found,
2216 mailx will as for a password on the user's terminal.
2217 smtp-auth-user-user@host
2219 Overrides smtp-auth-user for specific values of sender
2220 addresses, depending on the from variable.
2221 ssl-ca-dir
2223 Specifies a directory with CA certificates for verifica‐
2224 tion of SSL/TLS server certificates. See
2225 SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(3) for more information.
2226 Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is built using
2227 OpenSSL.
2228 ssl-ca-file
2230 Specifies a file with CA certificates for verification of
2231 SSL/TLS server certificates. See SSL_CTX_load_ver‐
2232 ify_locations(3) for more information. Only applicable
2233 if SSL/TLS support is built using OpenSSL.
2234 ssl-cert
2236 Sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client certificate
2237 required by some servers. Only applicable if SSL/TLS
2238 support is built using OpenSSL.
2239 ssl-cert-user@host
2241 Sets an account-specific file name for a SSL/TLS client
2242 certificate required by some servers. Overrides ssl-cert
2243 for the specified account. Only applicable if SSL/TLS
2244 support is built using OpenSSL.
2245 ssl-cipher-list
2247 Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections. See
2248 ciphers(1) for more information. Only applicable if
2249 SSL/TLS support is built using OpenSSL.
2250 ssl-crl-file
2252 Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use
2253 when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates. Only appli‐
2254 cable if SSL/TLS support is built using OpenSSL.
2255 ssl-crl-dir
2257 Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in
2258 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certifi‐
2259 cates. Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is built using
2260 OpenSSL.
2261 ssl-key
2263 Sets the file name for the private key of a SSL/TLS
2264 client certificate. If unset, the name of the certifi‐
2265 cate file is used. The file is expected to be in PEM
2266 format. Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is built
2267 using OpenSSL.
2268 ssl-key-user@host
2270 Sets an account-specific file name for the private key of
2271 a SSL/TLS client certificate. Overrides ssl-key for the
2272 specified account. Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is
2273 built using OpenSSL.
2274 ssl-method
2276 Selects a SSL/TLS protocol version; valid values are
2277 `ssl2', `ssl3', and `tls1'. If unset, the method is
2278 selected automatically, if possible.
2279 ssl-method-user@host
2281 Overrides ssl-method for a specific account.
2282 ssl-rand-egd
2284 Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
2285 RAND_egd(3).
2286 ssl-rand-file
2288 Gives the pathname to a file with entropy data, see
2289 RAND_load_file(3). If the file is a regular file
2290 writable by the invoking user, new data is written to it
2291 after it has been loaded. Only applicable if SSL/TLS
2292 support is built using OpenSSL.
2293 ssl-verify
2295 Sets the action to be performed if an error occurs during
2296 SSL/TLS server certificate validation. Valid values are
2297 `strict' (fail and close connection immediately), `ask'
2298 (ask whether to continue on standard input), `warn'
2299 (print a warning and continue), `ignore' (do not perform
2300 validation). The default is `ask'.
2301 ssl-verify-user@host
2303 Overrides ssl-verify for a specific account.
2304 toplines
2306 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be
2307 printed out with the top command; normally, the first
2308 five lines are printed.
2309 ttycharset
2311 The character set of the terminal mailx operates on.
2312 There is normally no need to set this variable since
2313 mailx can determine this automatically by looking at the
2314 LC_CTYPE locale setting; if this succeeds, the value is
2315 assigned at startup and will be displayed by the set com‐
2316 mand. Note that this is not necessarily a character set
2317 name that can be used in Internet messages.
2318 VISUAL Pathname of the text editor to use in the visual command
2320 and ~v escape.
2321
2323 Besides the variables described above, mailx uses the following
2324 environment strings:
2325 HOME The user's home directory.
2327 LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES
2329 See locale(7).
2330 MAILRC Is used as startup file instead of ~/.mailrc if set.
2332 When mailx scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
2333 this variable should be set to `/dev/null' to avoid side-
2334 effects from reading their configuration files.
2335 NAILRC If this variable is set and MAILRC is not set, it is read
2337 as startup file.
2338 SYSV3 Changes the letters printed in the first column of a
2340 header summary.
2341 TMPDIR Used as directory for temporary files instead of /tmp, if
2343 set.
2344
2346 ~/.mailrc
2347 File giving initial commands.
2348 /etc/mail.rc
2350 System wide initialization file.
2351 ~/.mime.types
2353 Personal MIME types.
2354 /etc/mime.types
2356 System wide MIME types.
2357
2359 Getting started
2360 The mailx command has two distinct usages, according to whether
2361 one wants to send or receive mail. Sending mail is simple: to
2362 send a message to a user whose email address is, say,
2363 <bill@host.example>, use the shell command:
2364 $ mailx bill@host.example
2366 then type your message. Mailx will prompt you for a message
2368 subject first; after that, lines typed by you form the body of
2369 the message. When you reach the end of the message, type an EOT
2370 (control-d) at the beginning of a line, which will cause mailx
2371 to echo `EOT' and return you to the shell.
2372 If, while you are composing the message you decide that you do
2374 not wish to send it after all, you can abort the letter with a
2375 RUBOUT. Typing a single RUBOUT causes mailx to print `(Inter‐
2376 rupt -- one more to kill letter)'. Typing a second RUBOUT
2377 causes mailx to save your partial letter on the file `dead.let‐
2378 ter' in your home directory and abort the letter. Once you have
2379 sent mail to someone, there is no way to undo the act, so be
2380 careful.
2381 If you want to send the same message to several other people,
2383 you can list their email addresses on the command line. Thus,
2384 $ mailx sam@workstation.example bob@server.example
2386 Subject: Fees
2387 Tuition fees are due next Friday. Don't forget!
2388 <Control-d>
2389 EOT
2390 $
2391 will send the reminder to <sam@workstation.example>. and
2393 <bob@server.example>.
2394 To read your mail, simply type
2396 $ mailx
2398 Mailx will respond by typing its version number and date and
2400 then listing the messages you have waiting. Then it will type a
2401 prompt and await your command. The messages are assigned num‐
2402 bers starting with 1—you refer to the messages with these num‐
2403 bers. Mailx keeps track of which messages are new (have been
2404 sent since you last read your mail) and read (have been read by
2405 you). New messages have an N next to them in the header listing
2406 and old, but unread messages have a U next to them. Mailx keeps
2407 track of new/old and read/unread messages by putting a header
2408 field called Status into your messages.
2409 To look at a specific message, use the type command, which may
2411 be abbreviated to simply t . For example, if you had the fol‐
2412 lowing messages:
2413 O 1 drfoo@myhost.example Wed Sep 1 19:52 18/631 "Fees"
2415 O 2 sam@friends.example Thu Sep 2 00:08 30/895
2416 you could examine the first message by giving the command:
2418 type 1
2420 which might cause mailx to respond with, for example:
2422 Message 1:
2424 From drfoo@myhost.example Wed Sep 1 19:52:25 2004
2425 Subject: Fees
2426 Status: R
2427 Tuition fees are due next Wednesday. Don't forget!
2429 Many mailx commands that operate on messages take a message num‐
2432 ber as an argument like the type command. For these commands,
2433 there is a notion of a current message. When you enter the
2434 mailx program, the current message is initially the first (or
2435 the first recent) one. Thus, you can often omit the message
2436 number and use, for example,
2437 t
2439 to type the current message. As a further shorthand, you can
2441 type a message by simply giving its message number. Hence,
2442 1
2444 would type the first message.
2446 Frequently, it is useful to read the messages in your mailbox in
2448 order, one after another. You can read the next message in
2449 mailx by simply typing a newline. As a special case, you can
2450 type a newline as your first command to mailx to type the first
2451 message.
2452 If, after typing a message, you wish to immediately send a
2454 reply, you can do so with the reply command. This command, like
2455 type, takes a message number as an argument. mailx then begins
2456 a message addressed to the user who sent you the message. You
2457 may then type in your letter in reply, followed by a <control-d>
2458 at the beginning of a line, as before.
2459 Note that mailx copies the subject header from the original mes‐
2461 sage. This is useful in that correspondence about a particular
2462 matter will tend to retain the same subject heading, making it
2463 easy to recognize. If there are other header fields in the mes‐
2464 sage, like `Cc:', the information found will also be used.
2465 Sometimes you will receive a message that has been sent to sev‐
2467 eral people and wish to reply only to the person who sent it.
2468 Reply with a capital R replies to a message, but sends a copy to
2469 the sender only.
2470 If you wish, while reading your mail, to send a message to some‐
2472 one, but not as a reply to one of your messages, you can send
2473 the message directly with the mail command, which takes as argu‐
2474 ments the names of the recipients you wish to send to. For
2475 example, to send a message to <frank@machine.example>, you would
2476 do:
2477 mail frank@machine.example
2479 To delete a message from the mail folder, you can use the delete
2481 command. In addition to not saving deleted messages, mailx will
2482 not let you type them, either. The effect is to make the mes‐
2483 sage disappear altogether, along with its number.
2484 Many features of mailx can be tailored to your liking with the
2486 set command. The set command has two forms, depending on
2487 whether you are setting a binary option or a valued option.
2488 Binary options are either on or off. For example, the askcc
2489 option informs mailx that each time you send a message, you want
2490 it to prompt you for a `Cc:' header, to be included in the mes‐
2491 sage. To set the askcc option, you would type
2492 set askcc
2494 Valued options are values which mailx uses to adapt to your
2496 tastes. For example, the record option tells mailx where to
2497 save messages sent by you, and is specified by
2498 set record=Sent
2500 for example. Note that no spaces are allowed in set record=Sent
2502 .
2503 Mailx includes a simple facility for maintaining groups of mes‐
2505 sages together in folders. To use the folder facility, you must
2506 tell mailx where you wish to keep your folders. Each folder of
2507 messages will be a single file. For convenience, all of your
2508 folders are kept in a single directory of your choosing. To
2509 tell mailx where your folder directory is, put a line of the
2510 form
2511 set folder=letters
2513 in your .mailrc file. If, as in the example above, your folder
2515 directory does not begin with a `/', mailx will assume that your
2516 folder directory is to be found starting from your home direc‐
2517 tory.
2518 Anywhere a file name is expected, you can use a folder name,
2520 preceded with `+'. For example, to put a message into a folder
2521 with the save command, you can use:
2522 save +classwork
2524 to save the current message in the classwork folder. If the
2526 classwork folder does not yet exist, it will be created. Note
2527 that messages which are saved with the save command are automat‐
2528 ically removed from your system mailbox.
2529 In order to make a copy of a message in a folder without causing
2531 that message to be removed from your system mailbox, use the
2532 copy command, which is identical in all other respects to the
2533 save command.
2534 The folder command can be used to direct mailx to the contents
2536 of a different folder. For example,
2537 folder +classwork
2539 directs mailx to read the contents of the classwork folder. All
2541 of the commands that you can use on your system mailbox are also
2542 applicable to folders, including type, delete, and reply. To
2543 inquire which folder you are currently editing, use simply:
2544 folder
2546 To list your current set of folders, use the folders command.
2548 Finally, the help command is available to print out a brief sum‐
2550 mary of the most important mailx commands.
2551 While typing in a message to be sent to others, it is often use‐
2553 ful to be able to invoke the text editor on the partial message,
2554 print the message, execute a shell command, or do some other
2555 auxiliary function. Mailx provides these capabilities through
2556 tilde escapes , which consist of a tilde (~) at the beginning of
2557 a line, followed by a single character which indicates the func‐
2558 tion to be performed. For example, to print the text of the
2559 message so far, use:
2560 ~p
2562 which will print a line of dashes, the recipients of your mes‐
2564 sage, and the text of the message so far. A list of the most
2565 important tilde escapes is available with `~?'.
2566 IMAP or POP3 client setup
2568 First you need the following data from your ISP: the host name
2569 of the IMAP or POP3 server, user name and password for this
2570 server, and a notice whether the server uses SSL/TLS encryption.
2571 Assuming the host name is `server.myisp.example' and your user
2572 name for that server is `mylogin', you can refer to this account
2573 using the folder command or -f command line option with
2574 imaps://mylogin@server.myisp.example
2576 (This string is not necessarily the same as your Internet mail
2578 address.) You can replace `imaps://' with `imap://' if the
2579 server does not support SSL/TLS. (If SSL/TLS support is built
2580 using NSS, the nss-config-dir variable must be set before a con‐
2581 nection can be initiated, see above). Use `pop3s://' or
2582 `pop3://' if the server does not offer IMAP. You should use
2583 IMAP if you can, though; first because it requires fewer network
2584 operations than POP3 to get the contents of the mailbox and is
2585 thus faster; and second because message attributes are main‐
2586 tained by the IMAP server, so you can easily distinguish new and
2587 old messages each time you connect. Even if the server does not
2588 accept IMAPS or POP3S connections, it is possible that it sup‐
2589 ports the STARTTLS method to make a session SSL/TLS encrypted
2590 after the initial connection has been performed, but before
2591 authentication begins. The only reliable method to see if this
2592 works is to try it; enter one of
2593 set imap-use-starttls
2595 set pop3-use-starttls
2596 before you initiate the connection.
2598 As you probably want messages to be deleted from this account
2600 after saving them, prefix it with `%:'. The shortcut command
2601 can be used to avoid typing that many characters every time you
2602 want to connect:
2603 shortcut myisp %:imaps://mylogin@server.myisp.example
2605 You might want to put this string into a startup file. As the
2607 shortcut command is specific to this implementation of mailx and
2608 will confuse other implementations, it should not be used in
2609 ~/.mailrc, instead, put
2610 set NAIL_EXTRA_RC=~/.nailrc
2612 in ~/.mailrc and create a file ~/.nailrc containing the shortcut
2614 command above. You can then access your remote mailbox by
2615 invoking `mailx -f myisp' on the command line, or by executing
2616 `fi myisp' within mailx.
2617 If you want to use more than one IMAP mailbox on a server, or if
2619 you want to use the IMAP server for mail storage too, the
2620 account command (which is also mailx-specific) is more appropri‐
2621 ate than the shortcut command. You can put the following in
2622 ~/.nailrc:
2623 account myisp {
2625 set folder=imaps://mylogin@server.myisp.example
2626 set record=+Sent MBOX=+mbox outfolder
2627 }
2628 and can then access incoming mail for this account by invoking
2630 `mailx -A myisp' on the command line, or by executing `ac myisp'
2631 within mailx. After that, a command like `copy 1 +otherfolder'
2632 will refer to otherfolder on the IMAP server. In particular,
2633 `fi &' will change to the mbox folder, and `fi +Sent' will show
2634 your recorded sent mail, with both folders located on the IMAP
2635 server.
2636 Mailx will ask you for a password string each time you connect
2638 to a remote account. If you can reasonably trust the security
2639 of your workstation, you can give this password in the startup
2640 file as
2641 set password-mylogin@server.myisp.example="SECRET"
2643 You should change the permissions of this file to 0600, see
2645 chmod(1).
2646 Mailx supports different authentication methods for both IMAP
2648 and POP3. If Kerberos is used at your location, you can try to
2649 activate GSSAPI-based authentication by
2650 set imap-auth=gssapi
2652 The advantage of this method is that mailx does not need to know
2654 your password at all, nor needs to send sensitive data over the
2655 network. Otherwise, the options
2656 set imap-auth=cram-md5
2658 set pop3-use-apop
2659 for IMAP and POP3, respectively, offer authentication methods
2661 that avoid to send the password in clear text over the network,
2662 which is especially important if SSL/TLS cannot be used. If the
2663 server does not offer any of these authentication methods, con‐
2664 ventional user/password based authentication must be used. It
2665 is sometimes helpful to set the verbose option when authentica‐
2666 tion problems occur. Mailx will display all data sent to the
2667 server in clear text on the screen with this option, including
2668 passwords. You should thus take care that no unauthorized per‐
2669 son can look at your terminal when this option is set.
2670 If you regularly use the same workstation to access IMAP
2672 accounts, you can greatly enhance performance by enabling local
2673 caching of IMAP messages. For any message that has been fully
2674 or partially fetched from the server, a local copy is made and
2675 is used when the message is accessed again, so most data is
2676 transferred over the network once only. To enable the IMAP
2677 cache, select a local directory name and put
2678 set imap-cache=~/localdirectory
2680 in the startup file. All files within that directory can be
2682 overwritten or deleted by mailx at any time, so you should not
2683 use the directory to store other information.
2684 Once the cache contains some messages, it is not strictly neces‐
2686 sary anymore to open a connection to the IMAP server to access
2687 them. When mailx is invoked with the -D option, or when the
2688 disconnected variable is set, only cached data is used for any
2689 folder you open. Messages that have not yet been completely
2690 cached are not available then, but all other messages can be
2691 handled as usual. Changes made to IMAP mailboxes in discon‐
2692 nected mode are committed to the IMAP server next time it is
2693 used in online mode. Synchronizing the local status with the
2694 status on the server is thus partially within your responsibil‐
2695 ity; if you forget to initiate a connection to the server again
2696 before you leave your location, changes made on one workstation
2697 are not available on others. Also if you alter IMAP mailboxes
2698 from a workstation while uncommitted changes are still pending
2699 on another, the latter data may become invalid. The same might
2700 also happen because of internal server status changes. You
2701 should thus carefully evaluate this feature in your environment
2702 before you rely on it.
2703 Many servers will close the connection after a short period of
2705 inactivity. Use one of
2706 set pop3-keepalive=30
2708 set imap-keepalive=240
2709 to send a keepalive message each 30 seconds for POP3, or each 4
2711 minutes for IMAP.
2712 If you encounter problems connecting to a SSL/TLS server, try
2714 the ssl-rand-egd and ssl-rand-file variables (see the OpenSSL
2715 FAQ for more information) or specify the protocol version with
2716 ssl-method. Contact your ISP if you need a client certificate
2717 or if verification of the server certificate fails. If the
2718 failed certificate is indeed valid, fetch its CA certificate by
2719 executing the shell command
2720 $ openssl s_client </dev/null -showcerts -connect \
2722 server.myisp.example:imaps 2>&1 | tee log
2723 (see s_client(1)) and put it into the file specified with ssl-
2725 ca-file. The data you need is located at the end of the cer‐
2726 tificate chain within (and including) the `BEGIN CERTIFICATE'
2727 and `END CERTIFICATE' lines. (Note that it is possible to fetch
2728 a forged certificate by this method. You can only completely
2729 rely on the authenticity of the CA certificate if you fetch it
2730 in a way that is trusted by other means, such as by personally
2731 receiving the certificate on storage media.)
2732 Creating a score file or message filter
2734 The scoring commands are best separated from other configuration
2735 for clarity, and are mostly mailx specific. It is thus recom‐
2736 mended to put them in a separate file that is sourced from your
2737 NAIL_EXTRA_RC as follows:
2738 source ~/.scores
2740 The .scores file could then look as follows:
2742 define list {
2744 score (subject "important discussion") +10
2745 score (subject "annoying discussion") -10
2746 score (from "nicefellow@goodnet") +15
2747 score (from "badguy@poornet") -5
2748 move (header x-spam-flag "+++++") +junk
2749 }
2750 set folder-hook-imap://user@host/public.list=list
2751 In this scheme, you would see any mail from `nicefellow@good‐
2753 net', even if the surrounding discussion is annoying; but you
2754 normally would not see mail from `badguy@poornet', unless he
2755 participates in the important discussion. Messages that are
2756 marked with five or more plus characters in their `X-Spam-Flag'
2757 field (inserted by some server-side filtering software) are
2758 moved to the folder `junk' in the folder directory.
2759 Be aware that all criteria in () lead to substring matches, so
2761 you would also score messages from e.g. `notsobadguy@poornetmak‐
2762 ers' negative here. It is possible to select addresses exactly
2763 using "address" message specifications, but these cannot be exe‐
2764 cuted remotely and will thus cause all headers to be downloaded
2765 from IMAP servers while looking for matches.
2766 When searching messages on an IMAP server, best performance is
2768 usually achieved by sending as many criteria as possible in one
2769 large () specification, because each single such specification
2770 will result in a separate network operation.
2771 Activating the Bayesian filter
2773 The Bayesian junk mail filter works by examining the words con‐
2774 tained in messages. You decide yourself what a good and what a
2775 bad message is. Thus the resulting filter is your very personal
2776 one; once it is correctly set up, it will filter only messages
2777 similar to those previously specified by you.
2778 To use the Bayesian filter, a location for the junk mail data‐
2780 base must be defined first:
2781 set junkdb=~/.junkdb
2783 The junk mail database does not contain actual words extracted
2785 from messages, but hashed representations of them. A foreign
2786 person who can read the database could only examine the fre‐
2787 quency of previously known words in your mail.
2788 If you have sufficient disk space (several 10 MB) available, it
2790 is recommended that you set the chained-junk-tokens option. The
2791 filter will then also consider two-word tokens, improving its
2792 accuracy.
2793 A set of good messages and junk messages must now be available;
2795 it is also possible to use the incoming new messages for this
2796 purpose, although it will of course take some time until the
2797 filter becomes useful then. Do not underestimate the amount of
2798 statistical data needed; some hundred messages are typically
2799 necessary to get satisfactory results, and many thousand mes‐
2800 sages for best operation. You have to pass the good messages to
2801 the good command, and the junk messages to the junk command. If
2802 you ever accidentally mark a good message as junk or vice-versa,
2803 call the ungood or unjunk command to correct this.
2804 Once a reasonable amount of statistics has been collected, new
2806 messages can be classified automatically. The classify command
2807 marks all messages that the filter considers to be junk, but it
2808 does not perform any action on them by default. It is recom‐
2809 mended that you move these messages into a separate folder just
2810 for the case that false positives occur, or to pass them to the
2811 junk command later again to further improve the junk mail data‐
2812 base. To automatically move incoming junk messages every time
2813 the inbox is opened, put lines like the following into your
2814 .scores file (or whatever name you gave to the file in the last
2815 example):
2816 define junkfilter {
2818 classify (smaller 20000) :n
2819 move :j +junk
2820 }
2821 set folder-hook-imap://user@host/INBOX=junkfilter
2822 If you set the verbose option before running the classify com‐
2824 mand, mailx prints the words it uses for calculating the junk
2825 status along with their statistical probabilities. This can
2826 help you to find out why some messages are not classified as you
2827 would like them to be. To see the statistical probability of a
2828 given word, use the probability command.
2829 If a junk message was not recognized as such, use the junk com‐
2831 mand to correct this. Also if you encounter a false positive (a
2832 good message that was wrongly classified as junk), pass it to
2833 the good command.
2834 Since the classify command must examine the entire text of all
2836 new messages in the respective folder, this will also cause all
2837 of them to be downloaded from the IMAP server. You should thus
2838 restrict the size of messages for automatic filtering. If
2839 server-based filtering is also available, you might try if that
2840 works for you first.
2841 Reading HTML mail
2843 You need either the w3m or lynx utility or another command-line
2844 web browser that can write plain text to standard output.
2845 set pipe-text/html="w3m -dump -T text/html"
2847 or
2849 set pipe-text/html="lynx -dump -force_html /dev/stdin"
2851 will then cause HTML message parts to be converted into a more
2853 friendly form.
2854 Viewing PDF attachments
2856 Most PDF viewers do not accept input directly from a pipe. It
2857 is thus necessary to store the attachment in a temporary file,
2858 as with
2859 set pipe-application/pdf="cat >/tmp/mailx$$.pdf; \
2861 acroread /tmp/mailx$$.pdf; rm /tmp/mailx$$.pdf"
2862 Note that security defects are discovered in PDF viewers from
2864 time to time. Automatical command execution like this can com‐
2865 promise your system security, in particular if you stay not
2866 always informed about such issues.
2867 Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME
2869 S/MIME provides two central mechanisms: message signing and mes‐
2870 sage encryption. A signed message contains some data in addi‐
2871 tion to the regular text. The data can be used to verify that
2872 the message was sent using a valid certificate, that the
2873 sender's address in the message header matches that in the cer‐
2874 tificate, and that the message text has not been altered. Sign‐
2875 ing a message does not change its regular text; it can be read
2876 regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to handle
2877 S/MIME. It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing mes‐
2878 sages if so desired.—Encryption, in contrast, makes the message
2879 text invisible for all people except those who have access to
2880 the secret decryption key. To encrypt a message, the specific
2881 recipient's public encryption key must be known. It is thus not
2882 possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their key has
2883 been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
2884 directories. A message should always be signed before it is
2885 encrypted. Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted
2886 message text is altered.
2887 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification author‐
2889 ity (CA). A CA is a trusted institution that issues certifi‐
2890 cates. For each of these certificates, it can be verified that
2891 it really originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own
2892 certificate is previously known. A set of CA certificates is
2893 usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed on your system. If
2894 you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation, this
2895 offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet. In gen‐
2896 eral, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
2897 certificate has been retrieved with, though. Thus if you down‐
2898 load a CA certificate from the Internet, you can only trust the
2899 messages you verify using that certificate as much as you trust
2900 the download process.
2901 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message
2903 exchange is your personal certificate, including a private key.
2904 The certificate contains public information, in particular your
2905 name and your email address, and the public key that is used by
2906 others to encrypt messages for you, and to verify signed mes‐
2907 sages they supposedly received from you. The certificate is
2908 included in each signed message you send. The private key must
2909 be kept secret. It is used to decrypt messages that were previ‐
2910 ously encrypted with your public key, and to sign messages.
2911 For personal use, it is recommended that you get a S/MIME cer‐
2913 tificate from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your
2914 WWW browser. (Many CAs offer such certificates for free.) You
2915 will usually receive a combined certificate and private key in
2916 PKCS#12 format which mailx does not directly accept if S/MIME
2917 support is built using OpenSSL. To convert it to PEM format,
2918 use the following shell command:
2919 $ openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out cert.pem -clcerts \
2921 -nodes
2922 If you omit the -nodes parameter, you can specifiy an additional
2924 PEM pass phrase for protecting the private key. Mailx will then
2925 ask you for that pass phrase each time it signs or decrypts a
2926 message. You can then use
2927 set smime-sign-cert-myname@myisp.example=cert.pem
2929 to make this private key and certificate known to mailx.
2931 If S/MIME support is built using NSS, the PKCS#12 file must be
2933 installed using Mozilla (provided that nss-config-dir is set
2934 appropriately, see above), and no further action is necessary
2935 unless multiple user certificates for the same email address are
2936 installed. In this case, the smime-sign-nickname variable has
2937 to be set appropriately.
2938 You can now sign outgoing messages. Just use
2940 set smime-sign
2942 to do so.
2944 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
2946 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
2947 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do
2948 the same. First use the verify command to check the validity of
2949 the certificate. After that, retrieve the certificate and tell
2950 mailx that it should use it for encryption:
2951 certsave filename
2953 set smime-encrypt-user@host=filename
2954 If S/MIME support is built using NSS, the saved certificate must
2956 be installed using Mozilla. The value of the smime-encrypt-
2957 user@host is ignored then, but if multiple certificates for the
2958 recipient are available, the smime-nickname-user@host variable
2959 must be set.
2960 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted
2962 messages in decrypted form. If you do, anybody who has access
2963 to your mail folders can read them, but if you do not, you might
2964 be unable to read them yourself later if you happen to lose your
2965 private key. The decrypt command saves messages in decrypted
2966 form, while the save, copy, and move commands leave them
2967 encrypted.
2968 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to mes‐
2970 sage subjects or other header fields. Thus they may not contain
2971 sensitive information for encrypted messages, and cannot be
2972 trusted even if the message content has been verified. When
2973 sending signed messages, it is recommended to repeat any impor‐
2974 tant header information in the message text.
2975 Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS
2977 Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
2978 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis. These lists contain the serial
2979 numbers of certificates that have been declared invalid after
2980 they have been issued. Such usually happens because the private
2981 key for the certificate has been compromised, because the owner
2982 of the certificate has left the organization that is mentioned
2983 in the certificate, etc. To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS
2984 verification, an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
2985 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
2986 invalidated certificates. Mailx currently offers no mechanism
2987 to fetch CRLs, or to access them on the Internet, so you have to
2988 retrieve them by some external mechanism.
2989 If S/MIME and SSL/TLS support are built using OpenSSL, mailx
2991 accepts CRLs in PEM format only; CRLs in DER format must be con‐
2992 verted, e.g. with the shell command
2993 $ openssl crl -inform DER -in crl.der -out crl.pem
2995 To tell mailx about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL
2997 files (and no other files) must be created. The smime-crl-dir
2998 or ssl-crl-dir variables, respectively, must then be set to
2999 point to that directory. After that, mailx requires a CRL to be
3000 present for each CA that is used to verify a certificate.
3001 If S/MIME and SSL/TLS support are built using NSS, CRLs can be
3003 imported in Mozilla applications (provided that nss-config-dir
3004 is set appropriately).
3005 Sending mail from scripts
3007 If you want to send mail from scripts, you must be aware that
3008 mailx reads the user's configuration files by default. So
3009 unless your script is only intended for your own personal use
3010 (as e.g. a cron job), you need to circumvent this by invoking
3011 mailx like
3012 MAILRC=/dev/null mailx -n
3014 You then need to create a configuration for mailx for your
3016 script. This can be done by either pointing the MAILRC variable
3017 to a custom configuration file, or by passing the configuration
3018 in environment variables. Since many of the configuration
3019 options are not valid shell variables, the env command is useful
3020 in this situation. An invocation could thus look like
3021 env MAILRC=/dev/null from=scriptreply@domain smtp=host \
3023 smtp-auth-user=login smtp-auth-password=secret \
3024 smtp-auth=login mailx -n -s "subject" \
3025 -a attachment_file recipient@domain <content_file
3026
3028 fmt(1), newaliases(1), openssl(1), pg(1), more(1), vacation(1),
3029 ssl(3), aliases(5), locale(7), mailaddr(7), sendmail(8)
3030
3032 Variables in the environment passed to mailx cannot be unset.
3033 The character set conversion relies on the iconv(3) function.
3035 Its functionality differs widely between the various system
3036 environments mailx runs on. If the message `Cannot convert from
3037 a to b' appears, either some characters within the message
3038 header or text are not appropriate for the currently selected
3039 terminal character set, or the needed conversion is not sup‐
3040 ported by the system. In the first case, it is necessary to set
3041 an appropriate LC_CTYPE locale (e.g. en_US) or the ttycharset
3042 variable. In the second case, the sendcharsets and ttycharset
3043 variables must be set to the same value to inhibit character set
3044 conversion. If iconv() is not available at all, the value
3045 assigned to sendcharsets must match the character set that is
3046 used on the terminal.
3047 Mailx expects input text to be in Unix format, with lines sepa‐
3049 rated by newline (^J, \n) characters only. Non-Unix text files
3050 that use carriage return (^M, \r) characters in addition will be
3051 treated as binary data; to send such files as text, strip these
3052 characters e. g. by
3053 tr -d '\015' <input | mailx . . .
3055 or fix the tools that generate them.
3057 Limitations with IMAP mailboxes are: It is not possible to edit
3059 messages, but it is possible to append them. Thus to edit a
3060 message, create a local copy of it, edit it, append it, and
3061 delete the original. The line count for the header display is
3062 only appropriate if the entire message has been downloaded from
3063 the server. The marking of messages as `new' is performed by
3064 the IMAP server; use of the exit command instead of quit will
3065 not cause it to be reset, and if the autoinc/newmail variables
3066 are unset, messages that arrived during a session will not be in
3067 state `new' anymore when the folder is opened again. Also if
3068 commands queued in disconnected mode are committed, the IMAP
3069 server will delete the `new' flag for all messages in the
3070 changed folder, and new messages will appear as unread when it
3071 is selected for viewing later. The `flagged', `answered', and
3072 `draft' attributes are usually permanent, but some IMAP servers
3073 are known to drop them without notification. Message numbers
3074 may change with IMAP every time before the prompt is printed if
3075 mailx is notified by the server that messages have been deleted
3076 by some other client or process. In this case, `Expunged n mes‐
3077 sages' is printed, and message numbers may have changed.
3078 Limitations with POP3 mailboxes are: It is not possible to edit
3080 messages, they can only be copied and deleted. The line count
3081 for the header display is only appropriate if the entire message
3082 has been downloaded from the server. The status field of a mes‐
3083 sage is maintained by the server between connections; some
3084 servers do not update it at all, and with a server that does,
3085 the `exit' command will not cause the message status to be
3086 reset. The `newmail' command and the `newmail' variable have no
3087 effect. It is not possible to rename or to remove POP3 mail‐
3088 boxes.
3089 If a RUBOUT (interrupt) is typed while an IMAP or POP3 operation
3091 is in progress, mailx will wait until the operation can be
3092 safely aborted, and will then return to the command loop and
3093 print the prompt again. When a second RUBOUT is typed while
3094 mailx is waiting for the operation to complete, the operation
3095 itself will be canceled. In this case, data that has not been
3096 fetched yet will have to be fetched before the next command can
3097 be performed. If the canceled operation was using an SSL/TLS
3098 encrypted channel, an error in the SSL transport will very
3099 likely result, and the connection is no longer usable.
3100 As mailx is a mail user agent, it provides only basic SMTP ser‐
3102 vices. If it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will
3103 not make further attempts to transfer the message at a later
3104 time, and it does not leave other information about this condi‐
3105 tion than an error message on the terminal and a `dead.letter'
3106 file. This is usually not a problem if the SMTP server is
3107 located in the same local network as the computer on which mailx
3108 is run. However, care should be taken when using a remote
3109 server of an ISP; it might be better to set up a local SMTP
3110 server then which just acts as a proxy.
3111 Mailx immediately contacts the SMTP server (or
3113 /usr/lib/sendmail) even when operating in disconnected mode. It
3114 would not make much sense for mailx to defer outgoing mail since
3115 SMTP servers usually provide much more elaborated delay handling
3116 than mailx could perform as a client. Thus the recommended set‐
3117 up for sending mail in disconnected mode is to configure a local
3118 SMTP server such that it sends outgoing mail as soon as an
3119 external network connection is available again, i.e. to advise
3120 it to do that from a network startup script.
3121 The junk mail filter follows the concepts developed by Paul Gra‐
3123 ham in his articles, ``A Plan for Spam'', August 2002,
3124 <http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html>, and ``Better Bayesian
3125 Filtering'', January 2003,
3126 <http://www.paulgraham.com/better.html>. Chained tokens are due
3127 to a paper by Jonathan A. Zdziarski, ``Advanced Language Classi‐
3128 fication using Chained Tokens'', February 2004,
3129 <http://www.nuclearelephant.com/papers/chained.html>.
3130 A mail command appeared in Version 1 AT&T Unix. Berkeley Mail
3132 was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens. This man page is derived
3133 from from The Mail Reference Manual originally written by Kurt
3134 Shoens. Heirloom Mailx enhancements are maintained and docu‐
3135 mented by Gunnar Ritter.
3136 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
3138 form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Informa‐
3139 tion Technology — Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open
3140 Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright © 2001-2003 by the
3141 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The
3142 Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version
3143 and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original
3144 IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
3145 original Standard can be obtained online at
3146 http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html . Redistribution of
3147 this material is permitted so long as this notice remains
3148 intact.
3149Heirloom mailx 12.5 10/9/10 MAILX(1)