1mailutil(1) General Commands Manual mailutil(1)
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6 mailutil - mail utility program
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9 mailutil command [switches] [arguments]
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11 All commands accept the -d, -v, and -u switches in addition to any
12 command-specific switches.
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14 mailutil check [MAILBOX]
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16 mailutil create MAILBOX
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18 mailutil delete MAILBOX
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20 mailutil rename SOURCE DESTINATION
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22 mailutil copy [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION
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24 mailutil move [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION
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26 mailutil append [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION
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28 mailutil appenddelete [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION
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30 mailutil prune MAILBOX CRITERIA
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32 mailutil transfer [-m mode] [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION
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35 mailutil replaces the old chkmail, imapcopy, imapmove, imapxfer,
36 mbxcopy, mbxcreat, and mbxcvt programs.
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38 mailutil check determines whether new mail exists in the given mailbox
39 (the default is INBOX). The number of new messages is defined as the
40 number of messages that have "Recent" status set. If the mailbox
41 contains no new messages, mailutil check will indicate that no new mail
42 is present; otherwise, it will report the number of new messages. In
43 either case, it will also indicate the canonical form of the name of
44 the mailbox.
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46 mailutil create creates a new mailbox with the given name. The mailbox
47 name must not already exist. A mailbox can be created in a particular
48 format by prefixing the name with #driver. followed by the format name
49 and a / character. For example, the command
50 mailutil create #driver.mbx/junkmail
51 will create a new mailbox named "junkmail" in mbx format.
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53 mailutil delete deletes an existing mailbox with the given name.
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55 mailutil rename renames an existing mailbox to a new name (which must
56 not already exist). This only works if the old and new names are in
57 the same mail store. A more general means to rename a mailbox is to do
58 a mailutil copy of the old name to the new name, followed by a mailutil
59 delete of the old name.
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61 mailutil copy creates a new mailbox and copies messages from the old
62 mailbox to the new mailbox. As in mailutil create a mailbox format can
63 be specified with the new mailbox. For example, the command
64 mailutil copy INBOX #driver.mbx/INBOX
65 will copy messages from your existing INBOX to an mbx-format INBOX.
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67 mailutil move is similar to mailutil copy but in addition will also
68 remove (delete and expunge) the messages from the old mailbox after
69 copying them to the new mailbox.
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71 mailutil append and mailutil appenddelete are similar to mailutil copy
72 and mailutil move respectively except that they do not create the
73 destination mailbox.
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75 mailutil prune prunes the mailbox of messages which match certain
76 criteria, which are in the form of IMAP2 (RFC 1176) SEARCH arguments.
77 For example, the command.
78 mailutil prune INBOX "before 1-jan-2004"
79 will delete and expunge all messages written before January 1, 2004.
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81 Note that mailutil implements pruning by deleting the matching
82 messages, and then expunging the mailbox. Consequently, mailutil will
83 also expunge any messages which were deleted at the time of the
84 pruning.
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86 mailutil transfer copies an entire hierarchy of mailboxes from the
87 named source to the named destination. Mailboxes are created on the
88 destination as needed. Any error in copying messages will cause the
89 transfer to stop.
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91 Normally, any error in creation will cause the transfer to stop.
92 However, if -m MODE or -merge MODE is specified, a merging transfer is
93 performed. The MODE argument indicats the type of merge:
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95 -m[erge] prompt indicates that the user should be asked for an
96 alternative name to create. If creating the new name fails, the user
97 will be asked again.
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99 -m[erge] append indicates that it's alright to copy the messages into
100 an existing mailbox with that name. If the mailbox does not exist, the
101 user will be prompted for an alternative name.
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103 -m[erge] suffix=XXXX where XXXX is any string, indicates that an
104 alternative name should be built by appending the given suffix to the
105 name. It that alternative name can't be created, then the user will be
106 prompted for an alternative name.
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108 The source hierarchy consists of all mailboxes which start with the
109 given source name. With the exception of a remote system specification
110 (within "{}" braces), the source name is used as the name of the
111 destination. The destination hierarchy is a prefix applied to any new
112 names being created. For example,
113 mailutil transfer foo bar
114 will copy all mailboxes with names beginning with "foo" to names
115 beginning with "bar" (hence "foobar" will be copied to "barfoobar").
116 Similarly,
117 mailutil transfer "{imap.foo.com}" "{imap.bar.com}old/"
118 will copy all mailboxes from the imap.foo.com IMAP server to equivalent
119 names starting with "old/" on the imap.bar.com IMAP server.
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122 The -d or -debug flag prints full debugging telemetry including
123 protocol operations.
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125 The -v or -verbose flag prints verbose (non-error) telemetry.
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127 The -u USERID or -user USERID switch attempts to become the indicated
128 user. This is for the benefit of system administrators who want to do
129 mailutil operations on a userid that does not normally have shell
130 access.
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132 The -rw or -rwcopy flag causes the source mailbox to be open in
133 readwrite mode rather than readonly mode. Normally, mailutil tries to
134 use readonly mode to avoid altering any flags in the source mailbox,
135 but some mailbox types, e.g. POP3, can't be open in readonly mode.
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137 The -kw or -kwcopy flag causes the keywords of the source mailbox to be
138 created in the destination mailbox. Normally, mailutil does not create
139 keywords in the destination mailbox so only those keywords that are
140 already defined in the destination mailbox will be preserved. Note
141 that some IMAP servers may automatically create keywords, so this flag
142 may not be necessary.
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144 The -ig or -ignore flag causes the keywords of the source mailbox to be
145 ignored completely and no attempt is made to copy them to the
146 destination mailbox.
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148 The -ig[nore] and -kw[copy] flags are mutually exclusive.
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151 The arguments are standard c-client mailbox names. A variety of
152 mailbox name formats and types of mailboxes are supported by c-client;
153 examples of the most common forms of names are:
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155 Name Meaning
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157 INBOX primary incoming mail folder on the local system
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159 archive/tx-project
160 mail folder named "tx-project" in "archive" subdirectory
161 of local filesystem home directory
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163 {imapserver.foo.com}INBOX
164 primary incoming mail folder on IMAP server system
165 "imapserver.foo.com"
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167 {imapserver.foo.com}archive/tx-project
168 mail folder named "tx-project" in "archive" subdirectory
169 on IMAP server system "imapserver.foo.com"
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171 #news.comp.mail.misc
172 newsgroup "comp.mail.misc" on local filesystem
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174 {newserver.foo.com/nntp}comp.mail.misc
175 newsgroup "comp.mail.misc" on NNTP server system
176 "newserver.foo.com"
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178 {popserver.foo.com/pop3}
179 mail folder on POP3 server system "popserver.foo.com"
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181 See your system manager for more information about the types of
182 mailboxes which are available on your system.
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185 You must surround a {host}mailbox argument with quotation marks if you
186 run mailutil from csh(1) or another shell for which braces have special
187 meaning.
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189 You must surround a #driver.format/mailbox argument with quotation
190 marks if you run mailutil from a shell in which "#" is the comment
191 character.
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194 Mark Crispin, MRC@Washington.EDU
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198 March 3, 2008 mailutil(1)