1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2017 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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7 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
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34 .\"@ S-nail(1): v14.9.0-pre4 / 2017-04-13
36 .ds VV \\%v14.9.0-pre4
46 .\" If not ~/.mailrc, it breaks POSIX compatibility. And adjust main.c.
51 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
52 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
53 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
64 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
70 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
78 .Op : Ns Fl a Ar attachment Ns \&:
79 .Op : Ns Fl b Ar bcc-addr Ns \&:
80 .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&:
81 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
84 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
87 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
89 .Pf : Ar to-addr Ns \&:
90 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
100 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
103 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
104 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
113 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
115 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
117 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
119 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
124 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
127 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
130 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
131 .Sy Compatibility note:
132 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2018).
133 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
136 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
137 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
138 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
141 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
142 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
143 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
147 enables obsoletion warnings.
151 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
153 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
155 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
156 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
157 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
158 the user to deal with them in any order.
162 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
163 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
164 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
165 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
166 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
168 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
171 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
174 Explicitly control which of the
176 shall be loaded: if the letter
178 is (case-insensitively) part of the
182 is loaded, likewise the letter
184 controls loading of the user's personal
186 file, whereas the letters
190 explicitly forbid loading of any resource files.
191 This option should be used by scripts: to avoid environmental noise they
194 from any configuration files and create a script-local environment,
195 explicitly setting any of the desired
196 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
199 This option overrides
206 command for the given user email
208 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
210 setting is being established; only
212 commands have not been evaluated yet).
213 Being a special incarnation of
215 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived settings, activating
216 such an email account also switches to the accounts
218 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
223 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
226 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
230 .Sx "Filename transformations"
233 will be performed, but shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
237 not be accessible but contain a
239 character, then anything before the
241 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
244 If an input character set is specified,
245 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
246 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
247 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
248 giving the special string hyphen-minus
250 will be treated as if
252 has been specified (the default).
253 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
254 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
255 file's type and content.
256 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as hyphen-minus
258 then the default conversion algorithm (see
259 .Sx "Character sets" )
260 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
262 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first).
263 It is an error to specify anything but
265 if no character set conversion is available
267 does not include the term
272 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
273 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
278 Send a blind carbon copy to
280 ess, if the setting of
283 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
285 The option may be used multiple times.
287 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
291 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
293 May be used multiple times.
298 the internal variable
300 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
301 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
307 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
308 This command line option is \*(OB.
312 Just check if mail is present (in the system
314 or the one specified via
316 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
317 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
318 specification can be added with the option
323 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
324 first recipient's address (instead of in
329 Read in the contents of the user's
331 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
333 (or the specified file) for processing;
334 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
340 argument will undergo some special
341 .Sx "Filename transformations"
346 is not a argument to the flag
348 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
352 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
353 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
359 and exit; a configurable summary view is available via the
365 Show a short usage summary.
371 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
377 of all messages that match the given
381 .Sx "Specifying messages"
388 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
389 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
395 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
396 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
401 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
405 and use it as the main message body.
406 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
407 .Va message-inject-head ,
410 .Va message-inject-tail .
416 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
418 and use it as the main message body.
419 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
420 .Va message-inject-head ,
423 .Va message-inject-tail .
429 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
430 editing a mail folder by calling
432 for the internal variable
437 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
442 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
443 .Sx "Resource files" .
447 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
448 contents of the specified
450 which may be standard input
452 only in non-interactive context.
458 Any folder opened will be in read-only mode.
462 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
463 The source address that appears in the
466 header of a message (or in the
469 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is not used for
470 relaying and delegating a message over the wire via SMTP, but instead an
471 envelope will enwrap the message content and provide the necessary
472 information (i.e., the RFC 5321 reverse-path, also used to report, e.g.,
473 delivery errors) to transmit the message to its destination(s).
474 Whereas said headers and internal variables will be used by \*(UA to
475 create the envelope if the builtin SMTP
477 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) is used, a file-based MTA will instead use the
478 identity of the message-originating user.
480 This command line option can be used to specify the reverse-path, to be
481 passed to a file-based
483 when a message is sent, via
484 .Ql -f Ar from-addr .
487 include a user name, then the address components will be separated and
488 the name part will be passed to a file-based
494 is also assigned to the internal variable
496 Many default installations and sites disallow explicit overriding of the
497 user identity which could be adjusted by this option, unless either
499 has been configured accordingly, or the user is member of a group with
500 special privileges, respectively.
502 If an empty string is passed as
504 then the content of the variable
506 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
508 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
511 Note that \*(UA by default, without
513 that is, neither passes
517 command line options to a file-based MTA by itself, unless this
518 automatic deduction is enforced by
520 ing the internal variable
521 .Va r-option-implicit .
525 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
529 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
533 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
537 may be overwritten from within resource files,
538 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
539 have been loaded in the order they have been given on the command line.
543 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
544 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
545 normalized to space (SP) characters.
549 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
550 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
555 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
556 specified on the command line.
557 If a message subject is specified via
559 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
575 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
576 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
577 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
579 Any other custom header field (also see
582 is passed through entirely
583 unchanged, and in conjunction with the option
585 it is possible to embed
586 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
594 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
597 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
607 will also show the list of
609 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
614 ting the internal variable
616 enables display of some informational context messages.
617 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
621 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
623 to the list of commands to be executed,
624 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
625 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
626 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
627 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
637 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
638 in compose mode even in non-interactive use cases.
639 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
640 text before sending the message:
641 .Bd -literal -offset indent
642 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.';\e
643 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
644 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d~:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 bob@exam.ple
649 Enables batch mode: standard input is made line buffered, the complete
650 set of (interactive) commands is available, processing of
651 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
652 is enabled in compose mode, and diverse
653 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
654 are adjusted for batch necessities, exactly as if done via
670 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
671 .Bd -literal -offset indent
672 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' |\e
673 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d#:/ -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
678 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
681 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
682 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
690 argument, as well as all receivers established by the command line options
694 are subject to checks established via
697 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
699 .Op Ar mta-option ...
701 arguments that are given at the end of the command line after a
703 separator will be passed through to a file-based
705 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for an entire (interactive) session
706 \(en if the setting of the internal variable
708 allows their recognition; no such constraints apply to the variable
712 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
715 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
717 Mail, a successor of the Research
720 .Dq was there from the start
723 It thus represents the user side of the
725 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
726 traditionally taken by
728 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
733 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
737 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
739 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
740 using it is a smooth experience.
743 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
744 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
745 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety, however, e.g., it
750 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to the
752 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
754 that would otherwise occur (see
755 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
758 to not remove empty system (MBOX) mailbox files in order not to mangle
759 file permissions when files eventually get recreated \(en
760 \*(UA will remove all empty (MBOX) mailbox files unless this variable is
763 .Pf ( Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
764 mode has been enabled.
765 The file mode creation mask is explicitly managed via
771 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
776 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
778 to allow editing of headers as well as
780 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
782 to include the message that is being responded to when
787 contains some more complete configuration examples.
790 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
791 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
793 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a builtin
795 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
796 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
797 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
801 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
803 .Bd -literal -offset indent
805 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
807 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
808 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait \e
809 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
810 -. '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
813 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait \e
814 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=none \e
815 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
821 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
822 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
823 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
825 special \(en these are so-called
826 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
827 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
828 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
830 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
832 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
834 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
837 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
841 at the beginning of an empty line leaves compose mode and causes the
842 message to be sent, whereas typing
845 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
856 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
857 can be used to alter default behavior.
858 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
861 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
866 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
868 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content, whereas
872 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
873 recipients, respectively, if the given list is empty.
877 hook variables may be set to
879 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
880 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
881 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
883 .Va on-compose-splice
884 variables, the latter also to be set to a
886 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
887 adjustments are available.
890 Especially for using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
892 it is often necessary to set
896 (even finer control via
897 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
898 which (even if empty) also causes creation of
904 is set; saving a copy of sent messages in a
906 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
908 targets the value will undergo
909 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
912 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
913 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
916 contains example configurations for sending messages via some of the
917 well-known public mail providers and also gives a compact overview on
918 how to setup a secure SSL/TLS environment).
923 sandbox dry-run tests first will prove correctness.
927 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
928 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
929 account credentials, the
931 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
934 goes into the details of character encodings, and how to use them for
935 interpreting the input data given in
937 and representing messages and MIME part contents in
939 and reading the section
940 .Sx "The mime.types files"
941 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
942 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
943 Over the wire an intermediate, configurable
944 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
945 may be applied to the raw message part data.
948 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
953 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
954 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
957 is not set then only network addresses (see
959 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
960 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
964 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
966 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
967 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
971 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
972 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
974 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
976 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
977 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
979 or the character sequence dot solidus
981 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
982 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
984 Any other name which contains a commercial at
986 character is treated as a network address;
987 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
989 character specifies a mailbox name;
990 Any other name which contains a solidus
992 character but no exclamation mark
996 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
997 What remains is treated as a network address.
999 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1000 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
1001 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
1002 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1003 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait \e
1004 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1009 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1011 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1013 and have it go to a group of people.
1014 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1015 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1019 and are often tracked in a file
1025 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1026 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1027 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1034 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1037 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1039 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1040 environment, ideally with the command line options
1042 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1044 to specify variables:
1046 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1047 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1048 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1049 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1050 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1051 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
1052 -s 'Subject to go' -a attachment_file \e
1053 -. 'Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>' rec2@exam.ple \e
1058 As shown, scripts can
1060 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1063 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1065 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1066 can be sent by calling the
1068 command with a list of recipient addresses \(em the semantics are
1069 completely identical to non-interactive message sending:
1071 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1072 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1073 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1074 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1075 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1076 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1080 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1081 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1083 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1085 When used like that the user's system
1089 for an in-depth description of the different mailbox types that exist)
1090 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed.
1091 The visual style of this summary of
1093 can be adjusted through the variable
1095 and the possible sorting criterion via
1101 can be performed with the command
1103 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1104 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1113 will give a listing of all available commands and
1115 will give a summary of some common ones.
1116 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1119 and see the actual expansion of
1121 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1122 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1123 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1124 however possible to define overwrites with
1125 .Ic commandalias ) .
1126 These commands can also produce a more
1131 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1132 messages; the current message \(en the
1134 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1135 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1137 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1142 ful of header summaries containing the
1146 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1150 Message content can be displayed with the command
1157 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1159 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1161 the sole difference to the command
1163 which will always use the
1167 will instead only show the first
1169 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1174 By default the current message
1176 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1177 a fancy message specification (see
1178 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1181 will display all unread messages,
1186 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1188 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1192 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1195 (a more substantial alias for
1197 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1198 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1201 .Dl from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1204 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1206 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1207 applications by using the command
1209 e.g., to restrict display to a very restricted set:
1210 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain Ar \:from to cc subject .
1211 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1212 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1216 Note that historically the global
1218 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1222 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1223 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1224 aims at making user experience with the many
1227 When reading the system
1233 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1235 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1237 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1238 then messages which have been read will be moved to a
1240 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1243 file, automatically when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1244 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1245 .Sx "Message states" )
1246 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1247 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1252 After examining a message the user can also
1256 to the sender and all recipients or
1258 exclusively to the sender(s).
1259 Messages can also be
1261 ed (shorter alias is
1263 Note that when replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses
1264 will be stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1267 Deletion causes \*(UA to forget about the message;
1268 This is not irreversible, though, one can
1270 the message by giving its number,
1271 or the \*(UA session can be ended by giving the
1276 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1278 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1279 automatic moving of read messages to the
1281 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1283 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1287 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1290 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1291 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1293 Messages which are HTML-only get more and more common and of course many
1294 messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME attachments.
1295 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter to deal
1296 with HTML messages (see
1297 .Sx "The mime.types files" ) ,
1298 it normally cannot deal with any of these itself, but instead programs
1299 need to become registered to deal with specific MIME types or file
1301 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input
1302 in order to enable \*(UA to display the content on the terminal,
1303 or display the content themselves, for example in a graphical window.
1306 To install an external handler program for a specific MIME type set an
1308 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1309 variable; to instead define a handler for a specific file extension set
1312 variable \(en these handlers take precedence.
1313 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1314 RFC 1524; this mechanism, documented in the section
1315 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
1316 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1317 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1318 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1319 A last source for handlers may be the MIME type definition itself, if
1320 the \*(UA specific type-marker extension was used when defining the type
1323 (Many of the builtin MIME types do so by default.)
1327 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1328 can be set to improve dealing with faulty MIME part declarations as are
1329 often seen in real-life messages.
1330 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1331 fancy plain text representation than the builtin converter is capable to
1332 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1336 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1337 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1338 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1340 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1341 if [ "$features" !@ +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1342 #set pipe-text/html='elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1343 set pipe-text/html='lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1344 # Display HTML as plain text instead
1345 #set pipe-text/html=@
1347 mimetype '@ application/mathml+xml mathml'
1348 wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1349 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1350 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1351 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1355 Note: special care must be taken when using such commands as mail
1356 viruses may be distributed by this method: if messages of type
1357 .Ql application/x-sh
1358 or files with the extension
1360 were blindly filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1361 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system \*(UA is running on.
1362 For more on MIME, also in respect to sending of messages, see the
1364 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
1365 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
1370 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1373 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1376 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1378 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1383 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1384 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1385 currently defined mailing lists.
1390 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1391 in the header display.
1394 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1395 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1397 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1398 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1399 (are) matched sequentially.
1401 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1402 set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1403 wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1404 mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1409 .Va followup-to-honour
1411 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1412 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1418 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1419 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1421 .Dq mailing list specific
1426 is used to respond to a message with its
1427 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1431 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1432 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1433 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1434 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1435 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1436 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1438 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1439 address that is presented in the
1441 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1443 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1445 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1448 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1449 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1450 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1454 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
1455 .Ss "Resource files"
1457 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
1459 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
1462 System wide initialization file.
1463 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
1465 (and according argument) or
1467 command line options, or by setting the
1470 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
1474 File giving initial commands.
1475 A different file can be chosen by setting the
1479 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
1481 command line option.
1483 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
1484 Can be used to define an optional startup file to be read after all
1485 other resource files.
1486 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
1488 implementations, for example.
1489 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
1491 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1495 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
1498 .Bl -bullet -compact
1500 A lines' leading whitespace is removed.
1502 Empty lines are ignored.
1504 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
1505 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
1507 by placing a reverse solidus character
1509 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
1510 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
1511 remains in the input.
1513 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
1515 then it is a comment-command \(en a real command! \(en and also ignored.
1516 This command is the only form of comment that is understood.
1520 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
1521 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
1522 More files with syntactically equal content can be
1524 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
1526 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1527 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
1528 es, it is really continued here.
1535 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1536 .Ss "Character sets"
1538 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1539 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1544 should give an overview): the \*(UA internal variable
1546 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly,
1547 and will thus show up in the output of the commands
1553 However, a user supplied
1555 value is not overwritten by this detection mechanism.
1556 I.e., it is actually possible to send mail in a completely
1558 locale environment, an option which can be used to generate and send,
1559 e.g., UTF-8 input data in a
1561 environment (an example of this can be found in the section
1562 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ) .
1563 Changing the value does not mean much beside that, because several
1564 aspects of the real character set are implied by the locale environment
1565 of the system, which stays unaffected by
1569 If no character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into
1572 does not include the term
1576 will be the only supported character set,
1577 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1578 (over the wire an intermediate
1579 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
1581 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1582 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1583 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to the mentioned
1584 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./nail.h:CHARSET_*!)
1588 When reading messages, their text is converted into
1590 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1591 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1592 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1593 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1596 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1597 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1598 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1600 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1601 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1604 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1605 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1606 appear to be binary data,
1607 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1608 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1609 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1610 Permissible values for character sets can be declared using the
1614 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1615 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
1619 When replying to a message and the variable
1620 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1621 is set then the character set of the message being replied to is tried
1622 first (after mapping via
1623 .Ic charsetalias ) .
1624 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1625 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1626 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1627 please see there for more information.
1630 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1631 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1632 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1633 content of the part or attachment,
1634 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1638 In general, if the message
1639 .Dq Cannot convert from a to b
1640 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1641 selected (terminal) character set,
1642 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1643 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1645 locale and/or the variable
1649 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1650 locale on a UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1651 spectrum of characters is available.
1652 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1653 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1654 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1657 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1658 .Dq portable character set
1659 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1660 restricted subset named
1661 .Dq portable filename character set
1662 consisting of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1670 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1671 .Ss "Message states"
1673 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1674 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1676 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1678 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1680 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1681 When operating on the system
1685 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
1686 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
1688 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1690 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1691 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1693 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1696 mail-user-agents, the default global
1702 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1704 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
1706 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1707 Such messages are retained even in the
1709 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1712 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
1713 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
1714 Such messages are retained even in the
1716 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1719 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1738 will always try to automatically
1744 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
1746 command will do so if the internal variable
1751 command is used, messages that are in a
1753 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1756 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in the
1758 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1760 unless the internal variable
1765 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1771 can be used to access such messages.
1774 The message has been processed by a
1776 command and it will be retained in its current location.
1779 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1785 command is used, messages that are in a
1787 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1790 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in the
1792 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1794 when the internal variable
1800 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
1801 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
1802 addressing them when
1803 .Sx "Specifying messages"
1804 can be set on messages.
1805 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
1806 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
1808 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
1810 Mark messages as having been answered.
1812 Mark messages as being a draft.
1814 Mark messages which need special attention.
1818 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
1819 .Ss "Specifying messages"
1826 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
1827 of messages at once.
1830 deletes messages 1 and 2,
1833 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
1834 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
1838 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
1839 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
1842 The following special message names exist:
1845 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
1847 The current message, the so-called
1851 The message that was previously the current message.
1854 The parent message of the current message,
1855 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
1857 field or the last entry of the
1859 field of the current message.
1862 The next previous undeleted message,
1863 or the next previous deleted message for the
1866 In sorted/threaded mode,
1867 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1870 The next undeleted message,
1871 or the next deleted message for the
1874 In sorted/threaded mode,
1875 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1878 The first undeleted message,
1879 or the first deleted message for the
1882 In sorted/threaded mode,
1883 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1887 In sorted/threaded mode,
1888 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
1892 selects the message addressed with
1896 is any other message specification,
1897 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
1898 Otherwise it is identical to
1903 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
1908 All messages that were included in the
1909 .Sx "Message list arguments"
1910 of the previous command.
1913 An inclusive range of message numbers.
1914 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
1919 .Dq any substring matches
1922 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
1924 is set (and POSIX says
1925 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
1928 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
1929 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
1931 is completely ignored.
1932 For finer control and match boundaries use the
1936 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
1937 All messages that contain
1939 in the subject field (case ignored).
1946 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
1948 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
1951 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
1953 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
1955 support is available
1957 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
1959 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
1960 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
1964 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
1965 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
1968 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
1970 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
1972 In order to search for a string that includes a
1974 (commercial at) character the
1976 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
1977 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
1991 respectively and case-insensitively.
1996 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2005 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2006 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2008 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2009 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2010 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2011 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2012 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2013 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2014 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2017 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2020 All messages of state
2024 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2026 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2031 Old messages (any not in state
2053 messages (cf. the variable
2054 .Va markanswered ) .
2059 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2060 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2062 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2068 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2069 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders;
2070 \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2071 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2073 in their entirety if they contain white space or parentheses;
2074 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2076 is recognized as an escape character.
2077 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2078 When the description indicates that the
2080 representation of an address field is used,
2081 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2084 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2085 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2090 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2091 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2095 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2096 .It Ar ( criterion )
2097 All messages that satisfy the given
2099 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2100 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2102 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2103 All messages that satisfy either
2108 To connect more than two criteria using
2110 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2112 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2116 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2119 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2120 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2124 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2125 All messages that do not satisfy
2127 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2128 All messages that contain
2130 in the envelope representation of the
2133 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2134 All messages that contain
2136 in the envelope representation of the
2139 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2140 All messages that contain
2142 in the envelope representation of the
2145 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2146 All messages that contain
2151 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2152 All messages that contain
2154 in the envelope representation of the
2157 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2158 All messages that contain
2163 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2164 All messages that contain
2167 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2168 All messages that contain
2170 in their header or body.
2171 .It Ar ( larger size )
2172 All messages that are larger than
2175 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2176 All messages that are smaller than
2180 .It Ar ( before date )
2181 All messages that were received before
2183 which must be in the form
2187 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2189 is the name of the month \(en one of
2190 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2193 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2197 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2198 .It Ar ( since date )
2199 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2200 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2201 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2202 .It Ar ( senton date )
2203 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2204 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2205 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2207 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2208 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2209 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2210 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2214 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
2215 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
2217 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
2218 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
2219 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
2222 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
2223 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
2224 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
2226 is used by the IMAP protocol but not by POP3);
2231 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
2237 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
2240 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
2241 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
2242 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
2243 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
2244 a well-known notation.
2247 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
2248 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
2253 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
2260 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
2266 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
2269 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
2270 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
2271 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2272 must not be URL percent encoded.
2275 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
2276 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
2277 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
2278 .Ql smtp://our.house
2279 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
2280 .Va smtp-use-starttls
2281 \*(UA first looks for whether
2282 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
2283 is defined, then whether
2284 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
2285 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
2288 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
2289 necessary credential information of an account:
2295 has been given in the URL the variables
2299 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
2300 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
2301 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
2308 specific entry which provides a
2310 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
2313 It is possible to load encrypted
2318 If there is still no
2320 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
2321 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
2322 known to be a valid user on the current host.
2325 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
2326 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
2327 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
2333 has been given in the URL, then if the
2335 has been found through the \*(OPal
2337 that may have already provided the password, too.
2338 Otherwise the variable chain
2339 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
2340 is looked up and used if existent.
2342 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
2343 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
2347 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
2348 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
2349 but with a password).
2351 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
2352 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
2353 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
2358 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
2362 header field(s), which means that the values of
2363 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
2365 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
2366 will not be looked up using the
2370 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
2371 message that is being worked on.
2372 In unusual cases multiple and different
2376 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
2377 unusual cases become possible.
2378 The usual case is as short as:
2381 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
2382 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
2387 contains complete example configurations.
2390 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2391 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2393 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2395 libraries, either the
2397 or, alternatively, the
2399 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2401 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2402 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2403 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2404 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys, and which will
2405 automatically enter the so-called
2407 alternative screen shall the terminal support it.
2408 The internal variable
2410 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2411 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2412 setting the internal variable
2413 .Va termcap-disable ;
2415 will be queried regardless, even if the \*(OPal support for the
2416 libraries has not been enabled at configuration time.
2419 \*(OP The builtin \*(UA Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2420 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2422 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2423 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2425 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2427 .Va line-editor-disable .
2428 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2429 entries in the internal variable
2431 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2432 The MLE can support a little bit of
2438 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2439 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2440 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2442 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2443 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2447 .Va history-gabby-persist
2452 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2453 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2454 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2455 be generated by holding the
2457 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2461 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2462 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2463 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2465 to establish its builtin key bindings
2466 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2467 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2468 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2469 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2470 notation is used in the following;
2471 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2472 generate a (unique) keycode:
2476 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql Ba"
2478 Go to the start of the line
2480 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2483 Move the cursor backward one character
2485 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2488 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2489 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2493 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2496 Go to the end of the line
2498 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2501 Move the cursor forward one character
2503 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2506 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2507 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2508 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2509 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2511 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2514 Backspace: backward delete one character
2516 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2520 Horizontal tabulator:
2521 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2522 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2524 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2526 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2530 commit the current line
2532 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2535 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2537 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2542 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2545 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2547 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2550 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2554 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2556 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2559 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2562 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2563 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2564 is committed; also see
2568 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2570 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2573 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2575 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2578 Paste the snarf buffer
2580 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2588 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2591 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2593 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2594 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2595 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2596 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2597 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2598 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2600 function immediately.
2603 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2606 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2609 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2611 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2614 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2616 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2619 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2620 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2622 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2623 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2624 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2625 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2627 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2628 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2629 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2632 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2636 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2640 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2644 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2647 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2658 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2663 ring the audible bell.
2667 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2668 .Ss "Coloured display"
2670 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2671 attributes by emitting ANSI / ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic rendition)
2673 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2674 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2675 environment variable
2677 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2681 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2683 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2684 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2685 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2690 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2691 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2692 support those sequences.
2693 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2694 environment it is often enough to simply set
2696 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2701 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2702 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2707 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2708 command family exists:
2710 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2713 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2714 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2715 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2718 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2719 if terminal && $features =@ +colour
2720 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2721 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red "from,subject"
2722 colour iso view-header fg=red
2724 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2725 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2726 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 subject,from
2727 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2728 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2732 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
2735 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
2738 Each command is typed on a line by itself,
2739 and may take arguments following the command word.
2740 An unquoted reverse solidus
2742 at the end of a command line
2744 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
2745 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
2746 once the entire command line is completed, the processing that is
2747 documented in the following begins.
2750 Command names may be abbreviated, in which case the first command that
2751 matches the given prefix will be used.
2754 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
2755 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
2756 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
2757 \*(OPally the command
2761 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
2762 command matching the expanded argument, as in
2764 which should be a shorthand of
2766 with these documentation strings both commands support a more
2768 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command and other
2769 information which applies; a handy suggestion might thus be:
2771 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2773 # Be careful to choose sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
2774 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
2776 ? commandalias xv '\ecall __xv'
2780 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
2781 .Ss "Command modifiers"
2783 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
2787 The modifier reverse solidus
2790 to be placed first, prevents
2792 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
2794 will always evaluate the command
2796 even if an (command)alias of the same name exists.
2798 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
2799 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
2805 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
2806 ignored by the state machine and not cause a program exit with enabled
2808 or for the standardized exit cases in
2813 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2814 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
2817 Some commands support the
2820 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
2821 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
2822 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
2823 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
2824 The given name will be tested for being a valid
2826 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
2827 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
2828 a non-portable extension; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
2829 may not be used as last characters.
2830 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
2831 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2832 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
2833 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
2834 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
2835 Any error during these operations causes the command as such to fail,
2836 and the error number
2839 .Va ^ERR Ns -NOTSUP .
2842 Last, but not least, the modifier
2845 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
2846 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2847 rules over the traditional
2848 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
2852 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
2853 .Ss "Message list arguments"
2855 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
2856 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
2857 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2859 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
2860 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
2861 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
2862 the search proceeds backwards;
2863 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
2864 shown and the command is aborted.
2867 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
2868 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
2870 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
2871 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
2872 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
2873 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2874 may be available even for those via
2877 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
2878 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
2879 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
2880 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
2883 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2885 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
2890 any white space, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
2891 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
2892 part of the argument.
2893 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
2895 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
2896 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
2902 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
2903 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
2907 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
2908 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
2912 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
2913 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
2915 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
2917 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
2919 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
2920 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
2922 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
2925 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
2926 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
2927 Metacharacters are vertical bar
2934 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
2935 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
2937 and less-than and greater-than signs
2941 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
2942 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it also seems
2943 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
2946 Any unquoted number sign
2948 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
2949 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
2950 An unquoted dollar sign
2952 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
2954 ell-style variable name (see
2956 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2959 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
2960 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
2963 Whereas the metacharacters
2964 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
2965 only complete an input token, vertical bar
2971 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
2972 For now supported is semicolon
2974 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
2975 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
2976 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
2977 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
2978 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
2981 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2982 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2985 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
2986 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
2987 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
2988 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
2991 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2993 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
2994 with the escape character reverse solidus
2998 Arguments which are enclosed in
2999 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3000 retain their literal value.
3001 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3004 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3005 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3006 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3008 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3010 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3012 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3014 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3018 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3020 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3021 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3024 Arguments enclosed in
3025 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3026 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3027 expanded as follows:
3029 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3035 an escape character.
3037 an escape character.
3049 emits a reverse solidus character.
3053 double quote (escaping is optional).
3055 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3057 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3059 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3061 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3063 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3064 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3066 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3068 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3069 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3074 This escape is only supported in locales which support Unicode (see
3075 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3076 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3077 point is ASCII compatible or can be represented in the current locale.
3078 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3082 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3084 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3085 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3086 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3087 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3088 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3089 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3090 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3092 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3093 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3095 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3096 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3098 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3100 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO 10646, ISO C) aliases,
3101 as shown above (e.g.,
3105 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3106 The control code NUL
3108 a non-standard extension) will suppress further output for the remains
3109 of the token (which may extend beyond the current quote), or, depending
3110 on the context, the remains of all arguments for the current command.
3112 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3113 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3115 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3122 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3123 echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3124 echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3125 echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3129 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3130 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3132 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3134 in their name, e.g.,
3138 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3139 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3140 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3141 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3142 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3143 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3147 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3148 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3150 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3152 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3153 ? eval shcodec d $res
3154 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3158 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3159 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3161 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3162 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3165 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3167 If the given name is a registered
3169 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3172 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3174 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3176 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3178 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3179 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3180 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3182 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3184 if that is set, or a builtin compile-time default otherwise.
3186 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3188 (and never the value of
3190 regardless of its actual setting).
3192 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3193 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3194 secondary mailbox, the
3201 directory (if that variable is set).
3203 Expands to the same value as
3205 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3207 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3211 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3212 session will be moved to the
3214 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3218 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3219 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3220 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3221 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3222 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3224 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3226 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3228 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3229 directory of the given user is used instead.
3235 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3236 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3239 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, and the usual
3240 escape mechanism has to be applied to prevent interpretation.
3242 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3244 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3245 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3247 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3251 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3254 The following commands are available:
3256 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3261 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3262 previously executed command if the internal variable
3268 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3270 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3273 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3274 on a line are not possible.
3278 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3284 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3285 a numeric argument n.
3289 Show the current message number (the
3294 Show a brief summary of commands.
3295 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3296 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3297 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3298 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3303 and see how the output changes.
3304 This mode also supports a more
3306 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3317 \*(NQ Interprets the remainder of the word as a macro name and passes
3322 is a shorter synonym for
3323 .Ql call Ar mymacro .
3327 .It Ic account , unaccount
3328 (ac, una) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3329 Accounts are special incarnations of
3331 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3332 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3333 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3335 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3340 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted by the
3341 latter command, and in one operation with the special name
3344 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3345 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3347 of that account will be activated (as via
3349 a possibly installed
3351 will be run, and the internal variable
3354 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3356 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3358 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3359 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3360 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3367 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3368 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3372 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
3373 and manages the error number
3375 The first argument must be either
3376 .Ar [+[+[+]]]e[ncode] ,
3380 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3383 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3384 argument, which should be an email address.
3385 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3386 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3388 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3389 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3392 Skinning is identical to decoding but only outputs the plain address,
3393 without any string, comment etc. components.
3394 Another difference is that it may fail with the error number
3398 if decoding fails to find a(n) (valid) email address, in which case the
3399 unmodified input will be output again.
3402 Encoding supports four different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3403 chosen by prefixing one, two or three plus signs: the standard imposes
3404 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3405 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3407 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3408 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3409 Specify one plus sign to remark that parenthesis shall be left alone,
3410 two for not turning double quotation marks into quoted-pairs, and three
3411 for also leaving any user-specified reverse solidus alone.
3412 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported.
3413 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3416 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3417 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3419 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3420 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3421 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3422 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3423 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
3424 ? addrc s "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3431 .It Ic alias , unalias
3432 (a, una) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists
3433 that map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3434 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed.
3435 The latter command removes the given list of aliases, the special name
3437 will discard all existing aliases.
3438 The former command shows all currently defined aliases when used without
3439 arguments, and with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
3440 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3441 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3442 Alias names are restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3443 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon, commercial at and
3444 period, the last character can also be the dollar sign:
3445 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@.-]+$? .
3449 (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3450 members of which will be removed from recipient lists when replying to
3453 variable is not set).
3454 Without arguments the current set of alternates is displayed, otherwise
3455 the set of alternate names is replaced by the given arguments, and the
3458 is updated accordingly.
3462 .It Ic answered , unanswered
3463 Take a message lists and mark each message as having been answered,
3464 having not been answered, respectively.
3465 Messages will be marked answered when being
3467 to automatically if the
3471 .Sx "Message states" .
3476 .It Ic bind , unbind
3477 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3478 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3479 with freely configurable key bindings.
3480 The latter command removes from the given context the given key binding,
3481 both of which may be specified as a wildcard
3485 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
3486 With one argument the former command shows all key bindings for the
3487 given context, specifying an asterisk
3489 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3490 produced if either of
3495 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3496 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3497 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3499 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3500 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3501 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3503 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3504 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3505 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3508 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3509 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3510 This is not true for the shared binding
3512 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3513 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3514 The available contexts are the shared
3518 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3520 which applies to compose mode only.
3524 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3525 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3526 \*(OPally a list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3528 also refer to the name of a terminal capability;
3529 several dozen names will be compiled into \*(UA and may be specified
3532 or, if existing, by their
3534 name, regardless of the actually used terminal control library.
3535 It is however possible to use any capability, as long as the name is
3536 resolvable by the control library or defined in the internal variable
3538 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3539 required to update or remove a binding.
3542 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3543 bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3544 bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3545 bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3546 bind default a,b,c rm -rf / @ # Another editable binding
3547 bind default :kf1 File %
3548 bind compose :kf1 ~e
3552 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3553 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3554 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3555 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
3556 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
3557 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3558 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3559 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3560 and using terminal capabilities does so if no terminal control support
3561 is (currently) available.
3564 The following terminal capability names are builtin and can be used in
3566 or (if available) the two-letter
3568 notation regardless of the actually used library.
3569 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3572 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3574 or the given terminal type;
3577 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3580 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3581 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3583 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3585 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3586 \(em shifted variant.
3587 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3588 Clear to end of line.
3589 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3591 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3593 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3594 \(em shifted variant.
3595 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3597 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3598 \(em shifted variant.
3599 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3601 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3603 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3605 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3606 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3607 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3608 \(em shifted variant.
3609 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3610 Right cursor (ditto).
3611 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3612 \(em shifted variant.
3613 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3614 Down cursor (ditto).
3616 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3617 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3620 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3621 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3623 Add one for each function key up to
3628 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3630 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3632 Add one for each function key up to
3640 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3642 For example, the delete key,
3644 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
3646 then a number is appended for the states
3658 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
3660 The same for the left cursor key,
3662 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
3665 Key bindings can be removed with the command
3667 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
3669 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
3670 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
3671 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
3674 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
3679 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
3681 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
3682 may be accessed via the special parameter syntax that is known from the
3689 Positional parameters may be removed by
3691 ing them off the stack.
3692 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
3695 Calling macros recursively will at some time excess the stack size
3696 limit, causing a hard program abortion; if recursively calling a macro
3697 is the last command of the current macro, consider to use the command
3699 which will first release all resources of the current macro before
3700 replacing the current macro with the called one.
3701 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
3705 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
3706 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3708 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
3711 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
3718 if the given macro has been created via
3720 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
3724 (ch) Change the working directory to
3726 or the given argument.
3732 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
3733 Takes a message list and a file name and saves the certificates
3734 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
3735 human-readable and PEM format.
3736 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
3737 respective message senders by setting
3738 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
3743 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
3744 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
3745 as documented in the section
3746 .Sx "Character sets" .
3747 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
3748 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
3750 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
3751 is not available (i.e., no
3755 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown.
3756 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
3757 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
3758 existing aliases, as necessary.
3760 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
3762 will remove all aliases.
3766 (ch) Change the working directory to
3768 or the given argument.
3774 .It Ic collapse , uncollapse
3775 Only applicable to threaded mode.
3776 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
3777 in header summaries, except for
3781 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
3782 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
3783 The latter command undoes collapsing.
3788 .It Ic colour , uncolour
3789 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
3790 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3791 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
3792 which must be one of
3794 for 256-colour terminals,
3799 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
3803 for monochrome terminals.
3804 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
3808 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
3809 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
3813 will show the mappings of all types).
3814 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
3815 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
3816 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
3817 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
3818 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
3819 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
3821 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
3822 .Sx "Coloured display"
3823 for some examples), the following of which exist:
3826 Mappings prefixed with
3828 are used for the \*(OPal builtin Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
3829 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3830 and do not support preconditions.
3832 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3834 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
3835 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
3842 Mappings prefixed with
3844 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
3846 (the current message) and
3848 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
3849 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
3851 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3853 This mapping is used for the
3855 that can be created with the
3859 formats of the variable
3862 For the complete header summary line except the
3864 and the thread structure.
3866 For the thread structure which can be created with the
3868 format of the variable
3873 Mappings prefixed with
3875 are used when displaying messages.
3877 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3879 This mapping is used for so-called
3881 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
3884 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
3885 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
3886 available then if any of the
3888 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
3889 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
3891 For the introductional message info line.
3892 .It Ar view-partinfo
3893 For MIME part info lines.
3897 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
3898 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
3908 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
3909 attributes for a single mapping.
3912 foreground colour attribute:
3922 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
3923 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
3925 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
3927 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
3929 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
3931 216 colors in tuples of 6.
3933 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
3935 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3937 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3938 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3940 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3941 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3943 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3944 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3948 background colour attribute (see
3950 for possible values).
3956 will remove for the given colour type (the special type
3958 selects all) the given mapping; if the optional precondition argument is
3959 given only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
3962 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed), thus
3964 will remove all established mappings.
3969 .It Ic commandalias , uncommandalias
3970 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, command aliases.
3971 An (command)alias can be used everywhere a normal command can be used,
3972 but always takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command
3973 alias are joined onto the alias content, and the resulting string forms
3974 the command line that is, in effect, executed.
3975 The latter command removes all given aliases, the special name
3977 will remove all existing aliases.
3978 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
3979 known aliases, with one argument only the expansion of the given one.
3981 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
3982 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
3983 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
3984 An alias may itself expand to another alias, but to avoid expansion loops
3985 further expansion will be prevented if an alias refers to itself or if
3986 an expansion depth limit is reached.
3987 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
3990 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
3991 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3993 \*(uA: `commandalias': no such alias: xx
3994 ? commandalias xx echo hello,
3996 commandalias xx 'echo hello,'
4005 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
4006 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
4007 otherwise identical to
4012 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
4013 otherwise identical to
4018 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
4023 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4024 The return status is tracked via
4029 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4031 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4035 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4037 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4041 .It Ic define , undefine
4042 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
4043 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined, replacing an existing macro of
4045 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
4046 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4055 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
4059 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
4061 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
4063 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
4066 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
4068 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
4070 switch) the macro is invoked.
4071 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
4075 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
4079 The latter command deletes the given macro, the special name
4081 will discard all existing macros.
4082 Creation and deletion of (a) macro(s) can be performed from within
4087 .It Ic delete , undelete
4088 (d, u) Marks the given message list as being or not being
4090 respectively; if no argument has been specified then the usual search
4091 for a visible message is performed, as documented for
4092 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
4093 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
4094 Deleted messages will neither be saved in the
4096 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4098 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4101 variable is set, the new
4103 or the last message restored, respectively, is automatically
4113 Superseded by the multiplexer
4119 Delete the given messages and automatically
4123 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4130 up or down by one message when given
4134 argument, respectively.
4138 .It Ic draft , undraft
4139 Take message lists and mark each given message as being draft, or not
4140 being draft, respectively, as documented in the section
4141 .Sx "Message states" .
4145 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4146 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4149 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4151 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4152 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4158 except that is echoes to standard error.
4166 but does not write a trailing newline.
4172 but does not write a trailing newline.
4176 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4178 at each message from the given list in turn.
4179 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4186 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4187 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4189 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4190 if it evaluates true.
4195 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4196 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4200 commands was true, the
4206 (en) Marks the end of an
4207 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4208 conditional execution block.
4213 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4214 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4215 and which are managed in the program
4217 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4218 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4219 internal variables via
4223 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4224 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4225 process environment where they normally are not, a
4227 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4230 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB from TZ
4233 Afterwards changing such variables with
4235 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4236 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4237 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4238 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4240 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4241 the knowledge they ever have been
4244 Note this implies that
4246 may cause loss of links.
4251 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4252 Additionally the subcommands
4256 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4260 but (additionally) link the variable(s) with the program environment and
4261 thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4262 respectively, the program environment.
4267 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4268 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4269 Optionally an error message ring queue is available which stores
4270 duplicates of any error message and notifies the user in interactive
4271 sessions whenever a new error has occurred.
4272 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4273 replaces the eldest.
4276 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4278 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4280 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4284 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4285 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4286 This command passes through the exit status
4290 of the evaluated command; also see
4292 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4294 # Like this, sh(1)ell-stylish from begin to end: works!
4295 # Result status ends up in $!, then
4296 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
4298 commandalias xv '\ecall xverbose'
4311 call yyy '~xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4319 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4320 any saving of messages in the
4322 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4324 as well as a possibly tracked line editor history file.
4330 but open the mailbox read-only.
4335 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4336 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4337 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4338 the user has made, open a new mailbox and update the internal variables
4339 .Va mailbox-resolved
4341 .Va mailbox-display .
4342 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4343 will be applied to the
4348 If the name ends with
4353 it is treated as being compressed with
4358 respectively, and transparently handled through an intermediate
4359 (un)compression step (using a temporary file) with the according
4360 facility, sufficient support provided.
4361 Likewise, if the named file does not exist, but a file with one of the
4362 mentioned compression extensions does, then the name is automatically
4363 expanded and the compressed file is used.
4366 Otherwise, if the name ends with an extension for which
4367 .Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION
4369 .Va file-hook-save-EXTENSION
4370 variables are set, then the given hooks will be used to load and save
4372 and \*(UA will work with an intermediate temporary file.
4373 E.g., the following will add support for the
4376 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4377 set file-hook-load-bz2='bzip2 -dc' \e
4378 file-hook-save-bz2='bzip2 -zc'
4382 MBOX files (flat file-based mailboxes) are generally locked during file
4383 operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent
4385 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4390 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4391 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4392 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4396 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4397 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4398 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4399 the dotlock file in the same directory
4400 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4403 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4404 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4405 complain (even more with
4407 if any is seen: in this case
4409 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4414 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4419 then it is treated as a folder in
4421 format; \*(ID the variable
4423 can be used to control the format of yet non-existent folders.
4427 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4428 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4431 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification.
4432 The \*(OPally supported protocols are
4436 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport).
4439 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4441 Also see the section
4442 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4447 contains special characters, in particular
4451 they must be escaped in URL notation \(en the command
4453 can be used to show the necessary conversion.
4458 .It Ic flag , unflag
4459 Take message lists and mark the messages as being flagged, or not being
4460 flagged, respectively, for urgent/special attention.
4462 .Sx "Message states" .
4471 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
4472 With an existing folder as an argument,
4473 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
4479 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4480 recipient's address (instead of in
4487 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4488 recipient's address (instead of in
4495 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
4500 .It Ic followupsender
4503 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
4519 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
4520 their message headers, exactly as via
4522 An alias of this command is
4525 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4531 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
4532 recipient's address (instead of in
4537 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
4538 and forwards the message to him.
4539 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
4540 with the value of the
4542 variable preceding it.
4543 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
4545 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
4547 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
4548 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
4549 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4550 unless the internal variable
4556 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4561 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4566 .It Ic ghost , unghost
4569 .Ic uncommandalias .
4573 .It Ic headerpick , unheaderpick
4574 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to manage white- and blacklisting
4575 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
4576 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
4577 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
4578 command applies, one of (case-insensitively)
4580 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
4583 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
4589 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
4590 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
4592 for stripping down messages when
4594 ing message (has no effect if
4595 .Va forward-as-attachment
4598 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
4602 The current settings of the given context are displayed if only the
4603 first argument is given.
4604 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
4605 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
4609 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
4610 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
4612 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
4613 will be displayed, otherwise the remaining arguments specify header
4614 fields, which \*(OPally may be given as regular expressions, to be be
4615 added to the given type.
4616 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
4618 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields.
4620 The latter command always takes three or more arguments and can be used
4621 to remove fields from the given type of list of the given context, the
4624 will remove all fields.
4629 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
4632 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
4634 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
4635 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
4650 the list of history entries;
4653 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
4654 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
4655 offset to the current command, e.g.,
4657 will select the last command, the history top.
4658 The default mode if no arguments are given is
4665 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
4670 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4672 Does not override the
4675 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
4677 command issued after
4679 will display the following message, not the current one.
4684 (i) Part of the nestable
4685 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4686 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
4687 the encapsulated block is executed.
4688 POSIX only supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
4693 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions; note that
4694 falsely specified conditions cause the execution of the entire
4695 conditional construct until the (matching) closing
4697 command to be suppressed.
4698 The syntax of the nestable
4700 conditional execution construct requires that each condition and syntax
4701 element is surrounded by whitespace.
4703 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4712 The (case-insensitive) condition
4714 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
4715 in interactive sessions.
4716 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
4717 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4718 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
4721 .Dq always execute .
4722 It is possible to check
4723 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4726 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
4727 value or another variable by using the
4729 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
4730 conditional trigger character;
4731 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
4733 The variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
4736 Integer operators treat the left and right hand side as integral numbers
4737 and compare them arithmetically.
4738 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
4739 operand is treated as if it were 0.
4740 Available operators are
4744 (less than or equal to),
4750 (greater than or equal to), and
4755 String operators compare the left and right hand side 8-bit byte-wise,
4756 ignoring case according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding
4757 (therefore, dependent on the active locale, possibly producing false
4758 results for strings in the locale encoding).
4759 An unset variable is treated as the empty string.
4760 Available operators are
4764 (less than or equal to),
4770 (greater than or equal to),
4774 (is substring of) and
4776 (is not substring of).
4779 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
4785 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
4786 matched case-insensitively and according to the active
4788 locale, meaning that strings in the locale encoding should be matched
4792 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
4794 and the OR operator is
4796 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
4797 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
4799 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
4800 them in pairs of brackets
4801 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
4802 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
4806 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
4807 via unary operators: the unary operator
4809 will reverse the result.
4811 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4815 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" == UTF8 ]
4816 echo *ttycharset* is set to UTF-8, case-insensitively
4819 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
4820 echo These two variables are equal
4822 # This is a string test, -ge was added for v14.9.0
4823 if [ "$version-major" >= 15 ]
4824 echo Running a new version..
4825 if [ "$features" =@ +regex ]
4826 if [ "$TERM" =~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
4827 echo ..in an X terminal
4830 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
4831 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
4834 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
4835 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
4837 if ! ! true && ! [ ! "$debug" && ! "$verbose" ]
4838 echo Unary operator support
4848 Superseded by the multiplexer
4853 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
4854 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
4855 in which command prefixes are searched.
4856 \*(OP In conjunction with a set variable
4858 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
4859 type will be indicated, the documentation string will be shown,
4860 and the set of command flags will show up:
4862 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
4863 .It Ql "vput modifier"
4864 command supports the command modifier
4866 .It Ql "errno in *!*"
4867 the error number is tracked in
4870 commands needs an active mailbox, a
4872 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
4873 command may only be used in interactive or
4876 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
4877 command can be used in send mode.
4878 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
4879 command is not available when in compose mode.
4880 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
4881 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
4882 .Sx "Resource files" .
4883 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
4884 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
4885 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
4886 .Va on-compose-splice .
4891 This command can be used to localize changes to variables, meaning that
4892 their state will be reverted to the former one once the covered scope
4894 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
4898 and is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
4899 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ) ;
4902 of an account is left once it is switched off again.
4903 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4904 define temporary_settings {
4905 set possibly_global_option1
4910 set possibly_global_option2
4919 enables change localization and calls
4921 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
4923 will still be reverted by
4925 \*(ID Once the outermost level, the one which enabled localization
4926 first, is left, but no earlier, all adjustments will be unrolled.
4927 \*(ID Likewise worth knowing, if in this example
4929 changes to a different
4931 which sets some variables that are yet covered by localizations, their
4932 scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
4934 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
4935 were defined in a local, private context.
4939 Reply to messages that come in via known
4942 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
4943 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
4944 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
4947 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
4948 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
4950 For example it will also implicitly generate a
4951 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
4952 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
4959 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4960 recipient's address (instead of in
4965 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
4966 or asks on standard input if none were given;
4967 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
4971 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to the
4973 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4975 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
4978 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
4980 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
4984 .It Ic mimetype , unmimetype
4985 Without any arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed.
4986 Otherwise each argument defines a complete MIME type specification of
4987 a type that shall be added (prepended) to the cache.
4988 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
4989 .Va mimetypes-load-control
4990 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
4991 Refer to the section on
4992 .Sx "The mime.types files"
4993 for more on MIME type specifications and this topic in general.
4995 The latter command deleted all specifications of the given MIME type, so
4996 .Ql unmimetype text/plain
4997 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5001 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5003 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5004 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5008 .It Ic mlist , unmlist
5009 The latter command removes all given mailing-lists, the special name
5011 can be used to remove all registered lists.
5012 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists (and their
5013 attributes, if any) when used without arguments; a more verbose listing
5014 will be produced if either of
5019 Otherwise all given arguments will be added and henceforth be recognized
5021 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
5022 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
5028 .It Ic mlsubscribe , unmlsubscribe
5029 The latter command removes the subscription attribute from all given
5030 mailing-lists, the special name
5032 can be used to do so for any registered list.
5033 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists which have
5034 a subscription attribute when used without arguments; a more verbose
5035 listing will be produced if either of
5040 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
5041 newly creating them as necessary (as via
5050 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
5051 sender address of the first message (instead of in
5058 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
5065 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5067 selection, and all MIME parts.
5075 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5076 standard output is a terminal.
5082 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
5084 has been given the content of the
5086 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
5089 then the cache will only be initialized and
5091 will remove its contents.
5092 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
5093 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
5094 to unlock further attempts.
5099 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5101 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5102 documents the file format in detail.
5106 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5108 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5112 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5113 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5121 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5122 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5136 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5138 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5144 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5146 selection, and all MIME parts.
5154 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5155 standard output is a terminal.
5163 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5165 selection, and all parts of MIME
5166 .Ql multipart/alternative
5171 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5172 and pipes the messages through the command.
5173 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5180 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5201 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5204 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5206 preserving all messages marked with
5210 or never referenced in the system
5212 and removing all other messages from the
5214 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5215 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5217 .Dq You have new mail
5219 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5221 then the edit file is rewritten.
5222 A return to the shell is effected,
5223 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5224 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5228 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, and assign the splitted and
5229 trimmed line data to the given variables.
5230 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
5232 and the same error codes will be seen in
5234 If there are more fields than variables, assign successive fields to the
5235 last given variable.
5236 If there are less fields than variables, assign the empty string to the
5238 \*(ID This command will likely be extended towards more
5240 compatibility: for now splitting always occurs at whitespace, reverse
5241 solidus newline escaping is always supported, and the \*(OPal line
5242 editing features are always available when on an interactive terminal.
5243 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5246 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5262 Removes the named files or directories.
5263 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5264 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5265 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5269 Takes the name of an existing folder
5270 and the name for the new folder
5271 and renames the first to the second one.
5272 Both folders must be of the same type.
5276 (R) Reply to originator.
5277 Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
5279 will exchange this command with
5281 Unless the internal variable
5283 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5287 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
5290 .Va followup-to-honour ,
5293 .Va recipients-in-cc
5294 influence response behaviour.
5297 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
5298 Unless the internal variable
5300 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5313 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
5320 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
5327 but does not add any header lines.
5328 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
5329 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
5333 Takes a list of messages and a user name
5334 and sends each message to the named user.
5336 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
5354 .It Ic respondsender
5360 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
5365 Only available inside the scope of a
5369 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
5370 execution control to the caller.
5371 The two optional parameters must be specified as positive decimal
5372 numbers and default to the value 0:
5373 the first argument specifies the signed 32-bit return value (stored in
5375 and later extended to signed 64-bit),
5376 the second the signed 32-bit error number (stored in
5380 a non-0 exit status may cause the program to exit.
5386 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
5387 sender of the first message instead of (in
5389 and) taking a filename argument.
5393 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
5394 to the end of the file.
5395 If no filename is given, the
5397 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5400 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
5401 is echoed on the user's terminal.
5404 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
5405 the messages are marked for deletion.
5406 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5411 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5416 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5421 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5426 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
5427 all matching messages, as via
5429 This command is an alias of
5432 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5436 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
5442 (se, \*(NQ uns) The latter commands will delete all given variables,
5443 the former, when used without arguments, will show all variables which
5444 are currently known to \*(UA; a more verbose listing will be produced if
5451 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
5452 Arguments are of the form
5454 (no space before or after
5458 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
5459 Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
5460 statement to quote blanks or tabs, e.g.,
5462 .Dl set indentprefix='->'
5464 If an argument begins with
5468 the effect is the same as invoking the
5470 command with the remaining part of the variable
5471 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
5475 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
5476 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
5477 environment requires corresponding system support) \(em use the command
5479 for further environmental control.
5484 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5491 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
5495 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
5496 The first argument specifies the operation:
5500 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
5501 expanded away thereof, respectively.
5502 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
5503 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
5504 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
5505 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
5506 If the coding operation fails the error number
5509 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
5510 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
5511 change again due to output or result storage errors.
5515 (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
5519 .It Ic shortcut , unshortcut
5520 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
5522 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
5523 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
5525 The latter command will remove all given shortcuts, the special name
5527 will remove all registered shortcuts.
5531 Only available inside the scope of a
5533 ed macro, this will shift the positional parameters (starting at
5535 by the given number (which must be an unsigned, positive, decimal),
5536 or 1 if no argument has been given.
5537 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
5538 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
5544 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
5545 message text is shown.
5549 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
5554 \*(NQ Sleep for the specified number of seconds (and optionally
5555 milliseconds), by default interruptably.
5556 If a third argument is given the sleep will be uninterruptible,
5557 otherwise the error number
5561 if the sleep has been interrupted.
5562 The command will fail and the error number will be
5563 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
5564 if the given duration(s) overflow the time datatype, and
5566 if the given durations are no valid integers.
5571 .It Ic sort , unsort
5572 The latter command disables sorted or threaded mode, returns to normal
5573 message order and, if the
5576 displays a header summary.
5577 The former command shows the current sorting criterion when used without
5578 an argument, but creates a sorted representation of the current folder
5579 otherwise, and changes the
5581 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
5583 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
5587 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
5588 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
5590 variable, as in, e.g.,
5591 .Ql set autosort=thread .
5592 Possible sorting criterions are:
5595 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
5597 Sort the messages by their
5599 field, that is by the time they were sent.
5601 Sort messages by the value of their
5603 field, that is by the address of the sender.
5606 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
5608 Sort the messages by their size.
5610 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
5613 Sort the messages by their message status.
5615 Sort the messages by their subject.
5617 Create a threaded display.
5619 Sort messages by the value of their
5621 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
5624 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
5630 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
5631 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5633 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
5635 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
5636 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
5637 Interpretation of commands read is stopped when an error is encountered.
5640 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
5641 .Va folder-hook Ns s
5644 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
5649 \*(NQ The difference to
5651 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
5652 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
5653 argument cannot be opened successfully.
5657 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
5663 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
5665 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
5666 Unless otherwise noted the
5668 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
5676 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5680 This also clears the
5682 flag of the messages in question.
5686 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
5687 .Va spam-interface ,
5688 without modifying the messages, but setting their
5690 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
5691 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
5692 Refer to the manual section
5694 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
5698 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
5704 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5710 flag of the messages in question.
5727 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
5731 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
5733 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
5734 Unless a special selection has been established for the
5738 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
5749 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
5751 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5756 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
5758 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5760 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
5763 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
5769 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5771 selection, and all parts of MIME
5772 .Ql multipart/alternative
5777 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users'
5781 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
5785 are shown, the other are hidden except for their headers.
5786 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5831 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5836 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5841 Superseded by the multiplexer
5852 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
5863 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
5867 Superseded by the multiplexer
5872 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5877 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5900 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
5901 according to RFC 3986.
5905 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
5906 and manages the error number
5908 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
5909 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current
5911 \*(ID This command does not about URLs beside that.
5913 The first argument specifies the operation:
5917 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
5921 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
5922 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
5924 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
5928 as an initial character.
5929 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
5930 If the coding operation fails the error number
5933 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
5934 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
5935 change again due to output or result storage errors.
5939 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
5941 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
5947 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
5951 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
5955 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
5956 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
5957 verification will fail for it.
5958 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
5960 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
5961 within the certificate,
5962 and if the message content has been altered.
5975 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
5976 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
5977 numeric calculations as well as string operations.
5978 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
5979 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
5980 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
5984 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5987 The result that is shown in case of errors is always
5989 for usage errors and numeric operations, and the empty string for string
5991 String operations which fail to provide result data for
5993 errors, e.g., when a search operation failed, also set the
5996 .Va ^ERR Ns -NODATA .
5997 Except when noted than numeric arguments are parsed as signed 64-bit
5998 numbers, and errors will be reported in the error number
6000 as the numeric error
6001 .Va ^ERR Ns -RANGE .
6004 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
6005 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
6007 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
6008 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
6010 which creates the bitwise complement.
6011 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
6013 subtraction (hyphen-minus
6015 multiplication (asterisk
6019 and modulo (percent sign
6021 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
6024 bitwise and (ampersand
6027 bitwise xor (circumflex
6029 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
6032 as well as for the unsigned right shift
6036 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
6040 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
6041 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are no longer reported
6042 via the exit status, but the result will linger at the minimum or
6043 maximum possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
6044 This is true also for the argument parse step.
6045 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
6046 Any catched overflow will be reported via the error number
6049 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6052 String operations that take one argument are
6054 which queries the length of the given argument,
6056 which calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given string, and
6058 which performs the usual
6059 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6060 on its argument, as well as
6062 which generates a random string of the given length, or of
6064 bytes (a constant from
6066 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
6067 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a file name.
6070 String operations with two or more arguments are
6072 which searches in the first for the second argument, and shows the
6073 resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found,
6075 which is identical to
6077 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
6080 will show a substring of its first argument:
6081 the second argument is the 0-based starting offset, the optional third
6082 argument can be used to specify the length of the desired substring,
6083 by default the entire string is used;
6084 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments (set
6086 for error logs), but reports them via the error number
6089 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6094 will try to match the first argument with the regular expression given
6095 in the second argument, as does
6097 but which is case-insensitive.
6098 These operators match according to the active
6100 locale and thus should match correctly strings in the locale encoding.
6101 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
6102 the match offset a replacement operation is performed:
6103 the third argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote
6105 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
6106 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
6108 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression.
6110 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6111 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
6112 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama (.*)nana(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
6119 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
6120 Modified contents are discarded unless the
6126 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
6127 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
6129 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
6130 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
6131 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
6132 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
6133 depends on the execution mode.
6134 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
6136 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
6137 the processed parts.
6138 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
6139 value, the same result as writing it to
6141 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
6143 character for the filename is supported.
6144 Other user input undergoes the usual
6145 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6146 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
6149 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
6150 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
6151 URL percent encoded (as via
6153 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
6154 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
6155 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
6156 a dot are appended after a number sign
6158 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
6163 \*(NQ This command works only inside of a
6165 ed macro: the sole difference to
6167 is that the new macro is executed in place of the current one, which
6168 will not regain control; all resources of the current macro will be
6169 released before control is given to the replacer.
6178 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
6180 fuls as described under the
6183 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
6184 likewise if the argument is
6188 scrolls to the last,
6190 scrolls to the first, and
6195 A number argument prefixed by
6199 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
6200 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
6206 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
6216 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
6217 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6219 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
6220 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
6221 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines.
6222 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
6224 it defaults to the tilde
6228 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
6231 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
6233 (If the escape character has been changed,
6234 that character must be doubled
6235 in order to send it at the beginning of a line.)
6238 .It Ic ~! Ar command
6239 Execute the indicated shell
6241 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
6242 executed command if the internal variable
6244 is set, then return to the message.
6248 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
6251 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
6252 Execute the given \*(UA command.
6253 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
6257 Write a summary of command escapes.
6260 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
6265 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
6267 is executed using the shell.
6268 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
6271 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
6272 Append or edit the list of attachments.
6275 arguments is expected (see
6276 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
6277 any token-separating commas are ignored), to be
6278 interpreted as documented for the command line option
6280 with the message number exception as below.
6283 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
6284 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
6285 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
6286 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
6289 For each mode, if a given file name solely consists of the number sign
6291 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
6292 the given message is attached as a MIME
6294 part (note the number sign is the comment character and must be quoted).
6298 Inserts the string contained in the
6301 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
6306 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6314 Inserts the string contained in the
6317 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
6322 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6329 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
6330 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
6333 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
6334 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
6338 Read the file specified by the
6340 variable into the message.
6344 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
6345 After the editing session is finished,
6346 the user may continue appending text to the message.
6349 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
6350 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
6351 message headers and MIME parts.
6352 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6355 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
6356 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
6357 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6358 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6360 white- and blacklist selection of
6362 For MIME multipart messages,
6363 only the first displayable part is included.
6367 Edit the message header fields
6372 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6373 The default values for these fields originate from the
6381 Edit the message header fields
6387 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6390 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
6391 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message,
6392 adding a newline character at the end.
6393 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
6398 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6405 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
6406 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6409 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6412 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
6413 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6416 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6417 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6419 white- and blacklist selection of
6421 For MIME multipart messages,
6422 only the first displayable part is included.
6426 Display the message collected so far,
6427 prefaced by the message header fields
6428 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
6432 Abort the message being sent,
6433 copying it to the file specified by the
6440 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
6443 but indent each line that has been read by
6447 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
6448 Read the named file into the message.
6450 can also be a hyphen-minus
6452 in which case standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
6453 Only in this latter mode
6455 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
6457 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
6459 is a required argument in non-interactive mode;
6460 note that variables expansion is performed on the delimiter.
6464 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
6465 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
6466 normalized to space (SP) characters.
6469 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
6470 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
6473 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
6474 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
6478 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
6479 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
6483 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
6485 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
6486 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
6487 After the editor is quit,
6488 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
6491 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
6492 Write the message onto the named file.
6494 the message is appended to it.
6500 except that the message is not saved at all.
6503 .It Ic ~| Ar command
6504 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
6505 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
6506 retain the original text of the message.
6509 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
6513 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
6514 Low-level command ment for scripted message access, i.e., for
6515 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
6517 .Va on-compose-splice .
6518 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
6519 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
6520 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
6521 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
6522 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
6523 The status codes are:
6526 .Bl -tag -compact -width _210_
6528 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
6530 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6531 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
6532 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
6533 plain address, e.g.,
6535 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
6536 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
6537 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
6539 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6540 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
6541 terminated by an empty line.
6542 (All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before
6543 further commands can be issued.)
6545 Syntax error; invalid command.
6547 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
6549 Error: an argument fails verification.
6550 For example an invalid address has been specified.
6552 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
6553 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
6554 a single address only.
6558 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
6560 Most commands can fail with
6562 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
6563 The following commands are supported, and, as usual, case-insensitive:
6566 .Bl -hang -width header
6568 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
6569 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6572 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6574 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
6576 this command is the default command of
6578 if no second argument has been given.
6579 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
6582 if no such field is defined.
6585 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
6586 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
6590 any failure results in
6594 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
6599 if no such header can be found.
6602 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
6603 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
6604 (the remains of the line).
6607 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
6608 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
6610 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks, and
6612 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
6614 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
6616 is returned upon success.
6621 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
6622 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6625 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6627 List all attachments via
6631 if no attachments exist.
6632 This command is the default command of
6634 if no second argument has been given.
6637 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
6641 if no such attachment can be found.
6642 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
6643 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
6644 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
6645 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
6646 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
6649 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
6651 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
6652 will be searched for
6654 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
6655 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
6660 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
6661 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
6665 if the argument is not a number or
6667 if no such attachment exists.
6670 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
6671 documented for the command line option
6673 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
6677 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
6679 if the given file cannot be opened,
6681 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
6683 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
6684 requested but not available.
6687 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6689 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
6693 if no such attachment can be found.
6694 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
6695 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
6699 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6701 and is otherwise identical to
6704 .It Ar attribute-set
6705 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6707 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
6708 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
6709 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
6710 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
6711 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
6714 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
6716 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
6718 if no such attachment can be found.
6719 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
6721 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ql filename"
6723 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
6724 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
6725 .It Ql content-description
6726 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
6727 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
6729 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
6730 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
6733 upon address content verification failure.
6735 Specifies the media type and subtype of the part; managed automatically.
6736 .It Ql content-disposition
6737 Automatically set to the string
6741 .It Ar attribute-set-at
6742 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6744 and is otherwise identical to
6754 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
6755 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6757 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
6761 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
6765 has the same effect as using
6771 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
6776 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
6778 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
6779 Both commands support a more
6782 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
6785 implicitly, others can be explicitly imported with the command
6787 and henceforth share said properties.
6790 Two different kind of internal variables exist.
6791 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
6795 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
6796 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
6797 introduction of the section
6799 documents the supported quoting rules.
6801 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6802 wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
6803 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
6804 varshow one two three four; \e
6805 unset one two three four
6809 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
6810 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
6811 a special kind of string value, the
6812 .Dq boolean string ,
6813 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
6817 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
6823 for a false boolean and
6829 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
6831 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
6832 (case-insensitive) term
6836 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
6837 boolean as the default value.
6839 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
6840 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
6841 .Ss "Initial settings"
6843 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
6849 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
6863 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
6865 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
6867 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
6875 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
6884 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
6886 variable \(en use command line options or
6888 to pass options through to a
6890 And the default global
6892 file, which is loaded unless the
6894 (with according argument) or
6896 command line options have been used, or the
6897 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
6898 environment variable is set (see
6899 .Sx "Resource files" )
6900 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
6905 to name a few, establishes a default
6907 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
6910 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
6913 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
6917 \*(RO The exit status of the last command, or the
6922 This status has a meaning in the state machine: in conjunction with
6924 any non-0 exit status will cause a program exit, and in
6926 mode any error while loading (any of the) resource files will have the
6930 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
6931 can be used to instruct the state machine to ignore errors.
6935 \*(RO The current error number
6936 .Pf ( Xr errno 3 ) ,
6937 which is set after an error occurred; it is also available via
6939 and the error name and documentation string can be queried via
6943 \*(ID This machinery is new and the error number is only really usable
6944 if a command explicitly states that it manages the variable
6946 for others errno will be used in case of errors, or
6948 if that is 0: it thus may or may not reflect the real error.
6949 The error number may be set with the command
6955 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
6956 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
6959 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
6963 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
6964 The number, documentation, and name of the current
6966 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
6967 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
6968 explicitly states that it manages the variable
6970 which is effectively identical to
6972 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
6973 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
6974 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
6975 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6977 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1: \e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
6978 vput vexpr i + "$1" 1
6990 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6992 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6994 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6996 are not yet supported.
7000 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
7002 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
7004 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
7006 are not yet supported.
7010 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
7012 ed macro, this will expand to the number of positional parameters in
7017 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
7021 ed macro, this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
7022 string if the macro is running from top-level.
7023 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
7025 this expands to the entire matching expression.
7029 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
7033 ed macro, this will access the first positional parameter passed.
7034 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
7037 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
7039 Positional parameters are also accessible in the \*(OPal regular
7040 expression search and replace expression of
7045 \*(RO Is set to the active
7049 .It Va add-file-recipients
7050 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
7051 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
7052 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
7053 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
7057 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
7058 when comparing addresses.
7062 \*(RO Is set to the list of
7067 \*(BO Causes messages saved in the
7069 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
7071 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
7072 This should always be set.
7076 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
7077 If the user responds with simply a newline,
7078 no subject field will be sent.
7082 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
7086 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
7090 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
7091 shall the list be found empty at that time.
7092 An empty line finalizes the list.
7096 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
7097 (at the end of each message if
7101 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7102 An empty line finalizes the list.
7106 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
7107 recipients (at the end of each message if
7111 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7112 An empty line finalizes the list.
7116 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
7117 signed at the end of each message.
7120 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
7124 \*(BO Alternative name for
7129 A sequence of characters to display in the
7133 as shown in the display of
7135 each for one type of messages (see
7136 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
7137 with the default being
7140 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
7143 variable is set, in the following order:
7145 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
7167 start of a collapsed thread.
7169 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
7173 classified as possible spam.
7179 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
7180 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
7184 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
7185 message will be sent automatically.
7189 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
7196 \*(BO Enable automatic
7198 ing of a(n existing)
7204 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
7206 is shown automatically, as via
7213 \*(BO\*(OB Causes threaded mode (see the
7215 command) to be entered automatically when a folder is opened.
7217 .Ql autosort=thread .
7221 Causes sorted mode (see the
7223 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
7224 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
7225 .Ql set autosort=thread .
7229 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
7232 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
7234 shell escape command and
7236 one of the compose mode
7237 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7238 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
7241 .It Va batch-exit-on-error
7242 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
7247 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
7248 input, for example for function and other special keys.
7249 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
7250 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
7251 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
7252 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
7253 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
7259 \*(BO Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
7261 command, and thus complements the standard variable
7263 which controls header summary display on program startup.
7264 It is only meaningful if
7270 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
7271 has the same affect as setting
7273 and all other variables prefixed with
7275 it also changes the behaviour of
7277 (which does not exist in BSD).
7281 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
7282 summary to traditional BSD style.
7286 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
7291 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
7297 field to appear immediately after the
7299 field in message headers and with the
7301 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7305 The value that should appear in the
7309 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
7311 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
7312 US-ASCII compatible.
7316 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
7317 member of the variable
7319 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
7320 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
7323 and this variable is effectively ignored.
7324 Refer to the section
7325 .Sx "Character sets"
7326 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
7329 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
7330 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
7332 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
7334 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
7335 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
7336 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
7338 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
7339 otherwise the (final) value of
7341 is used for this purpose.
7343 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
7344 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
7345 of a MIME message part that uses the
7347 character set is forcefully treated as text.
7351 The default value for the
7356 .It Va colour-disable
7357 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
7358 Also see the section
7359 .Sx "Coloured display" .
7363 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
7365 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
7373 in order to support colours.
7374 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
7375 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
7377 (see there for more).
7381 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
7382 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
7383 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
7387 can be forced by setting this to the value
7389 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
7390 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
7395 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
7396 format, which, dependent on the
7398 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
7399 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
7403 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
7404 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
7407 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
7408 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
7410 .Va on-compose-splice .
7411 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
7412 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
7414 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
7417 .Dl set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
7421 Controls the appearance of the
7423 date and time format specification of the
7425 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
7427 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
7428 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
7430 It is possible to assign a
7432 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
7434 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
7436 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
7438 .Va datefield-markout-older .
7441 .It Va datefield-markout-older
7442 Only used in conjunction with
7444 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
7445 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
7447 option of the POSIX utility
7449 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
7451 will be displayed, but a
7453 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
7459 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
7460 actual delivery of messages and also implies
7466 .It Va disposition-notification-send
7468 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
7469 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
7473 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
7475 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7476 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
7477 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
7479 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7480 .\"for a specific account.
7484 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
7486 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive) compose mode
7487 will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the normal end-of-file
7496 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
7497 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
7499 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
7500 es (see, e.g., the notes on
7501 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7502 as well as the documentation of
7504 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
7505 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
7506 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
7507 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
7508 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
7509 fatal unless this variable is set.
7513 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
7514 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
7516 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7520 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
7524 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
7525 its header is included in the editable text.
7535 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
7539 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
7540 .Dq \&No mail for user
7541 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
7542 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or nonexistent
7543 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
7550 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
7551 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
7552 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
7555 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7558 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
7559 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
7560 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
7561 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
7562 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
7563 .It Ql quoted-printable
7565 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
7566 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
7567 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
7568 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
7569 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
7570 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
7571 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
7573 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
7574 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
7576 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
7577 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
7578 to four bytes of output.
7579 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
7585 \*(BO Let each command with a non-0 exit status, including every
7589 s a non-0 status, cause a program exit unless prefixed by
7592 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ;
7593 please refer to the variable
7595 for more on this topic.
7599 If defined, the first character of the value of this variable
7600 gives the character to use in place of tilde
7603 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7604 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
7608 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
7609 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
7610 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
7611 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
7612 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
7614 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
7615 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7619 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
7621 (it actually acts like
7622 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
7623 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7625 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
7628 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
7629 send error instead of only filtering them out.
7630 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
7631 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
7633 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
7637 addresses all possible address specifications,
7641 command pipeline targets,
7643 plain user names and (MTA) aliases (\*(OB
7645 may be used as an alternative syntax to
7650 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
7651 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
7652 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
7653 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
7657 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
7659 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
7660 To change this and ensure that any encountered invalid email address
7661 instead causes a hard error, ensure the string
7663 is an entry in the above list.
7664 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
7665 (it actually acts like
7666 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
7667 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7671 Unless this variable is set additional
7673 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
7674 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
7676 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
7677 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
7679 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
7680 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
7681 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
7683 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
7684 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7691 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
7693 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
7696 The output of the command
7698 will include this information.
7702 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
7703 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
7704 included in the header of a message
7705 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
7706 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
7707 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
7710 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
7712 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
7713 are not affected by the current setting of
7718 .It Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION , file-hook-save-EXTENSION
7719 It is possible to install file hooks which will be used by the
7721 command in order to be able to transparently handle (through an
7722 intermediate temporary file) files with specific
7724 s: the variable values can include shell snippets and are expected to
7725 write data to standard output / read data from standard input,
7727 \*(ID The variables may not be changed while there is a mailbox
7729 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7730 set file-hook-load-gpg='echo >&2 XY-LOADS; gpg -d' \e
7731 file-hook-save-gpg='echo >&2 XY-SAVE; gpg -e' \e
7732 record=+null-sent.gpg
7737 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
7738 file names that begin with the plus sign
7740 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
7741 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
7742 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
7745 for more on this topic.
7746 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
7747 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
7751 will be prefixed automatically.
7752 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
7754 will be updated for caching purposes.
7758 This variable can be set to the name of a
7760 macro which will be called whenever a
7763 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
7764 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
7765 only include newly arrived messages then.
7767 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
7768 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
7771 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
7772 One should be aware of that and possibly embed version checks in the
7773 used resource file(s).
7776 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
7781 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
7782 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
7783 However, if the mailbox resides under
7787 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
7791 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
7792 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
7794 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
7795 first, but then followed by
7796 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
7799 .It Va folder-resolved
7800 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
7802 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
7806 \*(BO Controls whether a
7807 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7808 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
7810 .Va followup-to-honour
7812 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
7817 .It Va followup-to-honour
7819 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7820 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
7824 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
7834 .It Va forward-as-attachment
7835 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
7838 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
7839 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
7841 attachments with all of their parts included.
7845 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
7847 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
7848 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
7849 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
7852 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
7856 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
7857 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
7859 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
7862 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
7866 contains more than one address,
7869 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
7871 If a file-based MTA is used, then
7873 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
7875 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
7876 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
7878 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
7879 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
7880 .Va r-option-implicit .
7884 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
7885 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
7886 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
7887 and comments, names etc. are retained.
7891 The string to put before the text of a message with the
7895 .Va forward-as-attachment
7898 .Dq -------- Original Message --------
7899 if unset; No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
7903 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
7904 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
7905 the current folder; enabled by default.
7906 The command line option
7912 complements this and controls header summary display on folder changes.
7917 A format string to use for the summary of
7919 similar to the ones used for
7922 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
7924 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
7925 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
7926 Valid format specifiers are:
7929 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7931 A plain percent sign.
7934 a space character but for the current message
7936 for which it expands to
7940 a space character but for the current message
7942 for which it expands to
7945 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
7948 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
7950 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
7954 The date found in the
7956 header of the message when
7958 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
7959 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
7964 The indenting level in threaded mode.
7966 The address of the message sender.
7968 The message thread tree structure.
7969 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
7971 The number of lines of the message, if available.
7975 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
7977 Message subject (if any).
7979 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
7981 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
7982 subscribed mailing list \(en see
7987 The position in threaded/sorted order.
7991 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
7993 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
8004 .It Va headline-bidi
8005 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
8006 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
8007 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
8008 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
8009 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
8010 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
8012 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
8013 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
8014 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
8016 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
8017 fields that may occur when displaying
8019 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
8021 with special Unicode control sequences;
8022 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
8024 no value (or any value other than
8029 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
8030 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
8031 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
8033 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
8035 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
8037 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
8038 sequences onto the line).
8043 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
8044 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
8048 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
8049 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
8054 .It Va history-gabby
8055 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
8058 .It Va history-gabby-persist
8059 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
8061 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
8062 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
8063 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
8069 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
8071 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
8072 loading and incorporation of the
8074 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
8075 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
8076 entries saved to permanent storage.
8080 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
8082 and it is set by default.
8086 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
8087 the value obtained from
8091 It is used, e.g., in
8095 fields, as well as when generating
8097 MIME part related unique ID fields.
8098 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
8099 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
8100 \*(IN in conjunction with the builtin SMTP
8103 also influences the results:
8104 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
8113 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
8114 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
8116 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
8118 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
8119 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
8123 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
8124 messages; instead echo them as
8126 characters and discard the current line.
8130 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
8131 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
8132 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
8133 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
8134 explicitly using one of the commands
8138 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
8141 on a line by itself or by using the
8143 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
8145 overrides a setting of
8150 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
8152 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
8155 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
8158 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8161 for more on this topic.
8162 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
8170 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8173 option for indenting messages,
8174 in place of the normal tabulator character
8176 which is the default.
8177 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
8181 \*(BO If set, an empty
8183 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
8184 file is not removed.
8185 Note that, in conjunction with
8188 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
8189 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
8190 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
8191 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
8192 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
8193 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
8194 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
8197 .It Va keep-content-length
8198 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing MBOX mailbox files \*(UA can
8203 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
8204 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
8205 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
8206 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
8207 work with with same mailbox files.
8208 Note that, if this is not set but
8209 .Va writebackedited ,
8210 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
8211 fields already marks the message as being modified.
8215 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
8216 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
8217 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
8220 .It Va line-editor-disable
8221 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
8222 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
8226 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
8227 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
8231 Error log message prefix string
8232 .Pf ( Ql "\*(uA: " ) .
8235 .It Va mailbox-display
8236 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
8238 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
8241 .It Va mailbox-resolved
8242 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
8245 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
8246 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
8247 .Sx "Resource files" .
8248 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
8250 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
8251 .Sx "Initial settings" .
8255 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
8256 it is marked as having been
8259 .Sx "Message states" .
8263 \*(BO When opening MBOX mailbox databases \*(UA by default uses tolerant
8264 POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
8266 lines) due to compatibility reasons, instead of the stricter rules that
8267 have been standardized in RFC 4155.
8268 This behaviour can be switched to the stricter RFC 4155 rules by
8269 setting this variable.
8270 (This is never necessary for any message newly generated by \*(UA,
8271 it only applies to messages generated by buggy or malicious MUAs, or may
8272 occur in old MBOX databases: \*(UA itself will choose a proper
8276 lines cannot be misinterpreted as message boundaries.)
8278 This may temporarily be handy when \*(UA complains about invalid
8280 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case setting this variable and
8281 re-opening the mailbox in question may correct the result.
8282 If so, copying the entire mailbox to some other file, as in
8283 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE ,
8284 will perform proper, all-compatible
8286 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
8287 Finally the variable can be unset again:
8288 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8290 localopts yes; wysh set mbox-rfc4155;\e
8291 wysh File "${1}"; eval copy * "${2}"
8293 call mboxfix /tmp/bad.mbox /tmp/good.mbox
8298 \*(BO Internal development variable.
8301 .It Va message-id-disable
8302 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
8304 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
8306 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
8307 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
8308 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
8310 This variable also affects automatic generation of
8315 .It Va message-inject-head
8316 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
8317 The escape sequences tabulator
8324 .It Va message-inject-tail
8325 A string to put at the end of each new message.
8326 The escape sequences tabulator
8334 \*(BO Usually, when an
8336 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
8337 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
8342 option to be passed through to the
8344 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
8345 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
8349 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
8350 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
8351 in order to classify the
8354 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
8357 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
8358 a computation rather similar to what the
8360 command produces when used with the
8364 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
8365 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
8366 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
8371 .Ql application/octet-stream :
8372 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
8374 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
8375 interpret the contents of the part.
8377 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
8378 text data at first glance (by a
8382 file extension), then the original
8384 will not be overwritten.
8387 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
8388 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
8389 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
8390 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
8391 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
8392 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
8393 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
8394 contains topic subjects.)
8397 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
8400 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
8401 Some MUAs however do not use
8403 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but simply specify
8404 .Ql application/octet-stream ,
8405 even for plain text attachments like
8407 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to classify such MIME
8408 message parts on its own, if possible, for example via a possibly
8409 existing attachment filename.
8410 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
8411 actually a carrier of bits.
8412 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
8413 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8414 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
8415 Value should be set to 14
8418 .Bl -bullet -compact
8420 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
8422 content-type will be carried along with the message and be used for
8424 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8425 is responsible for the MIME part, shall that question arise;
8426 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
8427 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
8430 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
8431 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
8432 overriding the parts given MIME type.
8434 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
8435 .Ql application/octet-stream
8436 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
8441 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
8442 Can be used to control which of the
8444 databases are loaded by \*(UA, as furtherly described in the section
8445 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8448 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
8450 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
8452 controls loading of the system wide
8453 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
8454 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
8456 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
8457 Incorporation of the \*(UA-builtin MIME types cannot be suppressed,
8458 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
8461 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
8462 value string contains an equals sign
8464 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
8467 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
8468 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
8469 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8470 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
8471 the MIME type cache).
8476 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
8477 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
8479 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
8481 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8484 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
8485 The default has been chosen at compie time.
8486 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
8487 run asynchronously, and without supervision, unless either the
8492 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
8499 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
8501 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
8504 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
8507 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
8510 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
8515 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
8516 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
8517 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
8518 (which will also disable passing
8522 (for not treating a line with only a dot
8524 character as the end of input),
8532 variable is set); in conjunction with the
8534 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
8540 \*(OP \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
8541 defined SMTP smarthost, the access URL of which has to be assigned to
8543 To use this mode it is helpful to read
8544 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
8545 It may be necessary to set the
8547 variable in order to use a specific combination of
8552 with some mail providers.
8555 .Bl -bullet -compact
8557 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
8558 server port 25 and requires setting the
8559 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8560 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
8561 Assign a value like \*(IN
8562 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8564 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
8565 to choose this protocol.
8567 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
8568 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
8569 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
8570 be supported by your hosts network service database
8571 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
8574 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
8575 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
8576 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8578 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
8579 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
8584 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
8585 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
8586 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
8587 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8588 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
8589 Assign a value like \*(IN
8590 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8592 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
8597 .It Va mta-arguments
8598 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
8600 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
8601 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
8602 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
8603 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
8605 .Dl wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"'
8608 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
8609 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
8610 standard command line options to a file-based
8612 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
8616 Many systems use a so-called
8618 environment to ensure compatibility with
8620 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
8622 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
8623 actually executed when calling the file-based
8625 will treat its contents as that name.
8630 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
8631 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
8633 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
8634 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
8638 .Sx "The .netrc file"
8639 documents the file format.
8651 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
8653 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
8654 This can be used to, e.g., store
8658 .Dl set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
8662 If this variable has the value
8664 newly created local folders will be in Maildir format.
8668 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
8669 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
8670 If this variable is set to the special value
8672 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
8673 timestamp changes are detected.
8677 .It Va on-compose-splice-shell , on-compose-splice
8678 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
8679 .Va on-compose-leave
8680 macro hook is called, the
8683 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
8684 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
8686 The difference in between them is that the former is a
8688 command, whereas the latter is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
8689 restricted to a small set of commands (the
8693 will indicate said capability), just enough for the purpose of
8694 controlling the real \*(UA instance sufficiently.
8696 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
8697 to be forgotten after the message has been sent.
8699 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
8700 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
8701 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8702 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproduceabilities sake
8704 will be set to its default.
8705 The compose mode command
8707 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
8708 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
8709 version of said command escape, currently
8711 backward incompatible protocol changes are to be expected in the
8712 future, and it is advisable to make use of the protocol version.
8713 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks because of unexpected control
8714 flow: if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
8715 same time, or one doesn't expect more input but the other is stuck
8716 waiting for consumption of its output.
8717 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8718 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
8720 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
8721 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
8722 read status result;\e
8723 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
8726 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
8729 echo Splice protocol version is $ver
8730 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substr "${hl}" 0 1
8732 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'
8734 if [ "$hl" !@ ' cc' ]
8735 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
8736 vput vexpr es substr "${es}" 0 1
8738 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
8746 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
8747 Macro hooks which will be executed before compose mode is entered, and
8748 after composing has been finished (but before the
8750 is injected, etc.), respectively.
8752 are enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be forgotten after
8753 the message has been sent.
8754 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
8755 execution of the macros:
8757 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va compose_subject"
8760 .It Va compose-sender
8762 .It Va compose-to , compose-cc , compose-bcc
8763 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
8764 .It Va compose-subject
8770 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
8773 and the sender-based filenames for the
8777 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
8779 variable rather than to the current directory,
8780 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
8784 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
8786 is followed by a formfeed character
8790 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
8791 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
8792 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
8793 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
8794 the authentication method requires a password.
8795 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8796 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8798 .It Va password-USER@HOST
8799 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
8800 Set the password for
8804 If no such variable is defined for a host,
8805 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
8806 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8807 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8811 \*(BO Send messages to the
8813 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
8817 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8818 When a MIME message part of type
8820 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
8821 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
8825 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
8826 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
8827 will henceforth display XML
8829 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
8832 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
8833 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
8834 \(em corresponding flag strings are shown in parenthesis below.)
8839 can in fact be used to adjust usage and behaviour of a following shell
8840 command specification by appending trigger characters to it, e.g., the
8841 following hypothetical command specification could be used:
8842 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8843 set pipe-X/Y='@*!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
8847 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
8849 Simply by using the special
8851 prefix the MIME type (shell command) handler will only be invoked to
8852 display or convert the MIME part if the message is addressed directly
8853 and alone by itself.
8854 Use this trigger to disable this and always invoke the handler
8855 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-always ) .
8858 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
8859 but only when it will be displayed
8860 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-noquote ) .
8863 The command will be run asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA,
8864 which may be a handy way to display a, e.g., PDF file while also
8865 continuing to read the mail message
8866 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-async ) .
8867 Asynchronous execution implies
8871 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
8872 temporarily release the terminal to it
8873 .Pf ( Cd needsterminal ) .
8874 This flag is mutual exclusive with
8876 will only be used in interactive mode and implies
8880 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
8881 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
8882 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8883 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ) .
8884 If this trigger is given twice then the file will be unlinked
8885 automatically by \*(UA when the command loop is entered again at latest
8886 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink ) .
8887 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
8890 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
8891 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
8892 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8893 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
8894 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
8895 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
8900 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
8901 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
8902 remaining characters.
8903 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
8907 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
8908 the environment of the shell command:
8911 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
8913 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
8914 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
8917 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
8919 .Va mime-counter-evidence
8920 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
8921 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
8922 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
8926 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
8927 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
8930 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
8934 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8935 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
8936 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
8942 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
8943 This is identical to
8944 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8947 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
8948 names a file extension, e.g.,
8950 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
8953 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
8954 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
8955 The only possible value as of now is
8957 which is thus the default.
8960 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
8961 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
8962 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
8963 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
8964 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
8966 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
8967 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
8969 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
8970 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
8971 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
8972 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
8973 but practical experience may vary.
8974 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
8978 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
8981 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
8982 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
8984 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
8988 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
8989 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
8991 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
8994 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
8995 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
8996 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
8998 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
8999 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
9000 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
9002 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
9008 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
9009 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
9010 It will be set implicitly before the
9011 .Sx "Resource files"
9012 are loaded if the environment variable
9014 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
9016 The following behaviour is covered and enforced by this mechanism:
9019 .Bl -bullet -compact
9021 In non-interactive mode, any error encountered while loading resource
9022 files during program startup will cause a program exit, whereas in
9023 interactive mode such errors will stop loading of the currently loaded
9024 (stack of) file(s, i.e., recursively).
9025 These exits can be circumvented on a per-command base by using
9028 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
9029 for each command which shall be allowed to fail.
9034 is extended to cover any empty mailbox, not only empty
9036 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
9037 es: they will be removed when they are left in empty state otherwise.
9042 .It Va print-alternatives
9043 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
9044 .Ql multipart/alternative
9045 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
9047 other parts are normally discarded.
9048 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
9049 just as if the surrounding part was of type
9050 .Ql multipart/mixed .
9054 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
9055 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
9056 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
9057 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
9058 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
9059 status information, for example
9064 .Va mailbox-display .
9066 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
9067 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
9068 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
9070 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
9072 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
9074 .Ql set noprompt ) .
9078 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
9085 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
9089 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
9090 prefixed by the value of the variable
9092 Normally, a heading consisting of
9093 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
9094 is put before the quotation.
9099 variable, this heading is omitted.
9102 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
9105 selection are put above the message body,
9108 acts like an automatic
9110 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9114 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
9115 parts are included, making
9117 act like an automatic
9120 .Va quote-as-attachment .
9123 .It Va quote-as-attachment
9124 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
9126 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
9127 Note this works regardless of the setting of
9132 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
9134 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
9135 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
9137 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
9138 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
9139 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
9141 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
9142 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
9143 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
9145 plus some additional pad.
9146 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
9149 .It Va r-option-implicit
9150 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
9152 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9154 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
9156 option (empty argument case).
9159 .It Va recipients-in-cc
9160 \*(BO On group replies, specify only the sender of the original mail in
9162 and mention the other recipients in the secondary
9164 By default all recipients of the original mail will be addressed via
9169 If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all outgoing
9171 If not defined, then outgoing mail is not saved.
9172 When saving to this folder fails the message is not sent,
9173 but instead saved to
9177 .It Va record-resent
9178 \*(BO If both this variable and the
9185 commands save messages to the
9187 folder as it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
9190 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
9191 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
9192 character set of the original message for replies.
9193 If this fails, the mechanism described in
9194 .Sx "Character sets"
9195 is evaluated as usual.
9198 .It Va reply-strings
9199 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
9200 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
9203 reply message indicators \(en builtin are
9205 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
9210 which often has been seen in the wild;
9211 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
9215 A list of addresses to put into the
9217 field of the message header.
9218 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
9223 .It Va reply-to-honour
9226 header is honoured when replying to a message via
9230 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
9234 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
9235 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
9237 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
9239 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
9243 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
9245 upon interrupt or delivery error.
9249 The number of lines that represents a
9258 line display and scrolling via
9260 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
9261 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
9262 terminal, the more will be shown.
9263 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
9264 environment variables
9272 .It Va searchheaders
9273 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
9275 to all messages containing the substring
9279 The string search is case insensitive.
9283 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
9284 outgoing internet mail.
9285 The value of the variable
9287 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
9288 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
9289 the only supported charset is
9292 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9293 and refer to the section
9294 .Sx "Character sets"
9295 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
9298 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9299 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
9301 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
9303 had been set to the value of the variable
9305 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
9306 character set of the current locale (given that
9308 has not been set manually), i.e., without converting it to the
9310 fallback character set.
9311 Thus, mail message text will be in ISO-8859-1 encoding when send from
9312 within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8 encoding when send from within
9314 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
9315 the only supported character set is
9320 An address that is put into the
9322 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
9323 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
9324 This field should normally not be used unless the
9326 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
9329 address is handled as if it were in the
9333 .Va r-option-implicit .
9337 \*(OB Predecessor of
9341 .It Va sendmail-arguments
9342 \*(OB Predecessor of
9346 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
9347 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
9348 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
9351 .It Va sendmail-progname
9352 \*(OB Predecessor of
9357 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
9359 (including the builtin SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
9361 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
9362 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
9363 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
9367 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
9368 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
9372 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
9373 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
9377 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
9378 summary if the message was sent by the user.
9382 The string to expand
9385 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9389 The string to expand
9392 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9396 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
9397 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
9398 and to the first part of each multipart message.
9399 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
9403 .It Va skipemptybody
9404 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
9405 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
9411 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
9412 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9413 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9414 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
9415 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9416 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9417 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9418 be explicitly turned off by setting
9419 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
9420 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9421 .Va smime-ca-flags .
9424 .It Va smime-ca-flags
9425 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9426 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
9427 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
9431 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
9432 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9433 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
9436 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
9437 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
9438 messages (for the specified account).
9439 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9442 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9450 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
9452 is not available) and
9456 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
9457 library that \*(UA uses.
9458 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
9459 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9460 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
9461 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9464 .It Va smime-crl-dir
9465 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
9466 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
9469 .It Va smime-crl-file
9470 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
9471 verifying S/MIME messages.
9474 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
9475 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
9476 encrypted before sending.
9477 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
9478 contains a certificate in PEM format.
9480 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
9481 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
9482 individually encrypted message;
9483 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
9485 .Va smime-force-encryption
9487 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
9492 .It Va smime-force-encryption
9493 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
9497 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
9498 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
9499 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
9500 a valid certificate,
9501 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
9502 header and that the message content has not been altered.
9503 It does not change the message text,
9504 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
9506 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
9508 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
9510 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
9511 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
9512 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
9513 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
9514 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
9518 is always derived from the value of
9520 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9522 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
9523 (certificate) is expected; the command
9525 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
9526 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
9527 gives some details).
9528 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
9530 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
9535 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
9537 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
9538 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
9539 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
9541 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
9542 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
9543 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
9546 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
9547 for the certificate stored in the same file)
9548 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
9549 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
9550 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9551 For example, the hypothetical address
9553 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
9554 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
9555 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
9556 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
9558 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
9559 To include intermediate certificates, use
9560 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
9562 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
9563 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
9564 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
9565 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
9566 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
9569 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
9570 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
9571 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
9572 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
9573 .Va smime-sign-cert .
9574 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
9575 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
9577 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
9579 refers to the content of the internal variable
9581 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9584 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
9585 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
9586 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
9587 via the mechanisms described in
9588 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9590 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
9591 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
9592 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
9593 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9595 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9603 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
9604 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
9605 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
9606 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9607 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
9608 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9609 Remember that for this
9611 refers to the variable
9613 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9618 \*(OB\*(OP To use the builtin SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
9620 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
9622 is used in preference of
9626 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
9627 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
9629 authentication method, possible values are
9635 as well as the \*(OPal methods
9641 method does not need any user credentials,
9643 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
9651 .Va smtp-auth-password
9653 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
9658 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
9659 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
9662 .It Va smtp-auth-password
9663 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
9664 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
9665 .Va smtp-auth-password
9667 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9669 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
9671 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9673 .Va smtp-auth-password
9674 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9677 .It Va smtp-auth-user
9678 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
9679 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
9682 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9684 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
9686 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9689 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9693 .It Va smtp-hostname
9694 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
9696 to derive the necessary
9698 information in order to issue a
9705 can be used to use the
9707 from the SMTP account
9714 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
9716 or the local hostname as a last resort).
9717 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
9718 a provider other than which (in
9720 is about to send the message.
9721 Setting this variable also influences generated
9727 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
9728 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
9729 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
9731 command to make an SMTP
9733 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
9737 .It Va spam-interface
9738 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
9740 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
9741 Please refer to the manual section
9743 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
9744 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
9746 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
9752 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
9754 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
9755 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
9756 knowledge to parse the program's output.
9759 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
9764 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
9765 using a configuration file for that), the variable
9767 can be used as in, e.g.,
9768 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9769 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
9771 Note that this interface does not inspect the
9773 flag of a message for the command
9777 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
9778 This interface is meant for programs like
9780 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
9781 status for at least the command
9784 meaning a message is spam,
9788 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
9789 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
9790 can be intercepted as necessary.
9792 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
9795 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
9798 contains examples for some programs.
9799 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
9800 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
9802 Note that spam score support for
9804 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
9806 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9813 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
9815 .Va spam-interface .
9816 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
9819 .It Va spamc-command
9820 \*(OP The path to the
9824 .Va spam-interface .
9825 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
9827 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
9828 executable had been found during compilation.
9831 .It Va spamc-arguments
9832 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
9835 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
9836 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
9837 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9841 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
9843 .Va spam-interface .
9844 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
9853 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
9854 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
9855 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
9857 .Va spam-interface .
9860 contains examples for some programs.
9863 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9864 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
9867 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
9868 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
9869 be used to overcome this restriction.
9870 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
9871 must be followed by a semicolon
9873 and an extended regular expression.
9874 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
9876 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
9877 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
9881 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
9882 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9883 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9884 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
9885 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9886 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9887 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9888 be explicitly turned off by setting
9889 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
9890 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9893 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9894 for more information.
9899 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9900 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
9902 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
9903 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
9904 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
9905 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
9906 which are usually defined in a file
9907 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
9908 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
9909 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
9911 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
9914 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
9915 .It Cd no-alt-chains
9916 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
9918 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
9919 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
9920 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
9922 .It Cd no-check-time
9923 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
9924 .It Cd partial-chain
9925 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
9926 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
9927 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
9928 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
9930 The OpenSSL manual page
9931 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9932 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
9934 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
9935 .It Cd trusted-first
9936 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
9937 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
9938 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
9939 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
9945 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
9946 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9947 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
9950 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
9951 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client
9952 certificate required by some servers.
9953 This is a direct interface to the
9957 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9959 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
9960 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
9961 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
9962 This is a direct interface to the
9966 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
9968 for more information.
9969 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
9971 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
9972 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
9973 supports \(en the manual section
9974 .Sx "An example configuration"
9975 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
9978 .It Va ssl-config-file
9979 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
9980 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
9981 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
9983 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
9984 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
9985 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
9986 The application name will always be passed as
9991 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
9992 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
9993 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
9996 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
9997 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for the private key of
9998 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
9999 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
10000 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
10001 This is a direct interface to the
10005 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
10008 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
10009 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
10011 instead: if both values are set,
10013 will take precedence!
10014 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
10016 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
10018 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
10020 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
10022 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
10025 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
10030 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
10031 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
10033 .Mx Va ssl-protocol
10034 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
10035 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
10036 This is a direct interface to the
10040 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
10041 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
10042 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
10048 as well as the special value
10050 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
10051 ignores any whitespace.
10054 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
10056 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
10058 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
10060 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
10061 supported and which protocols are used if
10063 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
10065 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
10066 .Va ssl-cipher-list
10067 may be worthwile, see
10068 .Sx "An example configuration" .
10071 .It Va ssl-rand-egd
10072 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
10074 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
10077 .It Va ssl-rand-file
10078 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
10079 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
10080 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
10081 .Sx "Filename transformations"
10083 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
10084 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
10086 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
10087 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
10088 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
10089 This variable is only used if
10091 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
10094 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
10095 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
10096 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
10097 specified or default trust stores
10100 or the SSL/TLS library builtin defaults (unless usage disallowed via
10101 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
10102 and as fine-tuned via
10104 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
10106 (fail and close connection immediately),
10108 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
10110 (show a warning and continue),
10112 (do not perform validation).
10118 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
10124 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
10125 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
10126 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
10127 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
10128 to track down the originating mail user agent.
10129 If set to the value
10135 suppression does not occur.
10140 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
10145 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
10146 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
10148 Note that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and
10149 can thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10152 String capabilities form
10154 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
10155 Numerics have to be notated as
10157 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
10158 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
10159 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
10160 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
10161 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
10162 for one notations like
10165 .Ql control-LETTER ,
10166 and for clarification purposes
10168 can be used to specify
10170 (the control notation
10172 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
10173 the standard CSI sequence);
10174 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
10177 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
10178 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
10180 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10181 set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
10185 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
10186 operation of the builtin line editor or \*(UA in general:
10189 .Bl -tag -compact -width yay
10191 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
10193 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
10194 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
10195 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
10198 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
10201 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
10202 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen
10204 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
10205 To disable that, set (at least) one to the empty string.
10207 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
10211 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
10212 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
10213 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
10214 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
10216 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
10220 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
10222 clear the screen and home cursor.
10223 (Will be simulated via
10228 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
10233 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
10235 clear to the end of line.
10236 (Will be simulated via
10238 plus repetitions of space characters.)
10240 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
10241 .Cd column_address :
10242 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
10243 (Will be simulated via
10249 .Cd carriage_return :
10250 move to the first column in the current row.
10251 The default builtin fallback is
10254 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
10256 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
10257 The default builtin fallback is
10260 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
10262 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
10263 The default builtin fallback is
10265 which is used by most terminals.
10273 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
10277 .It Va termcap-disable
10278 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
10279 If set only some generic fallback builtins and possibly the content of
10281 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
10283 that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
10284 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10288 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
10291 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
10294 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
10295 unsigned right shifting (see
10303 \*(BO If set then the
10305 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
10309 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
10310 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
10311 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
10312 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
10315 locale environment.
10316 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
10317 Refer to the section
10318 .Sx "Character sets"
10319 for the complete picture about character sets.
10322 .It Va typescript-mode
10323 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
10324 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
10327 .Va colour-disable ,
10328 .Va line-editor-disable
10329 and (before startup completed only)
10330 .Va termcap-disable .
10331 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
10335 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
10339 but this variable can be used to override that:
10340 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting,
10341 otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to the new value.
10342 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
10345 .It Va user-HOST , user
10346 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
10347 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
10349 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
10353 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
10354 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
10355 how they are handled.
10356 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
10357 doing things, respectively.
10361 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
10363 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
10364 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
10365 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
10366 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
10367 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
10370 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
10376 .It Va version , version-major , version-minor , version-update
10377 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
10378 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
10379 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
10380 The output of the command
10382 will include this information.
10385 .It Va writebackedited
10386 If this variable is set messages modified using the
10390 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
10391 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
10392 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
10393 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
10394 performed, and proper RFC 4155
10396 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
10399 .\" }}} (Variables)
10400 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
10403 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
10407 .Dq environment variable
10408 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
10409 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
10410 commonly found in there.
10411 The process environment is inherited from the
10413 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
10414 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
10415 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
10416 from \*(UA's point of view.
10417 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
10421 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
10422 newly created child processes).
10425 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
10426 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
10428 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
10429 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
10430 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
10432 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
10434 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
10436 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10437 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
10439 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
10442 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
10445 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
10447 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10448 processes and the MLE (see
10449 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
10450 in interactive mode thereafter.
10451 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 80 columns.
10455 The name of the (mailbox)
10457 to use for saving aborted messages if
10459 is set; this defaults to
10466 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
10471 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10475 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10476 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
10480 The user's home directory.
10481 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10488 .It Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_COLLATE , LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES
10492 .Sx "Character sets" .
10496 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
10497 or window size in lines.
10498 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10499 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
10500 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 24 lines.
10504 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
10506 command when operating on local mailboxes.
10509 (path search through
10514 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
10515 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
10516 name to any newly created child process.
10520 Is used as the users
10522 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10526 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
10530 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
10531 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10532 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
10533 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
10534 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
10535 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
10536 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
10540 Is used as a startup file instead of
10543 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
10544 either this variable should be set to
10548 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
10549 reading their configuration files.
10550 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10553 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
10554 If this variable is set then reading of
10556 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
10557 had been started up with the option
10559 (and according argument) or
10561 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10565 The name of the users
10567 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
10569 A logical subset of the special
10570 .Sx "Filename transformations"
10574 The fallback default is
10579 Traditionally this MBOX is used as the file to save messages from the
10581 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10582 that have been read.
10584 .Sx "Message states" .
10588 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
10594 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
10598 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
10599 The default paginator is
10601 (path search through
10604 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
10606 then a non-existing environment variable
10613 dependent on whether terminal control support is available and whether
10614 that supports full (alternative) screen mode or not (also see
10615 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ) .
10619 will optionally be set to
10626 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
10627 looking for commands, e.g.,
10628 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
10631 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10632 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
10638 The shell to use for the commands
10643 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10644 and when starting subprocesses.
10645 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
10648 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
10649 If set, this specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch
10650 (1970-01-01) to be used in place of the current time.
10651 This is for the sake of reproduceability of tests, to be used during
10652 development or by software packagers.
10656 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
10657 For extended colour and font control please refer to
10658 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
10659 and for terminal management in general to
10660 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
10664 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
10667 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
10668 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
10669 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
10675 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
10676 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
10680 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10684 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10692 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
10694 File giving initial commands.
10697 System wide initialization file.
10701 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
10702 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10703 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10706 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
10707 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
10708 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10709 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10712 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
10713 Personal MIME types, see
10714 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10717 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
10718 System wide MIME types, see
10719 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10723 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
10725 file \(en the section
10726 .Sx "The .netrc file"
10727 documents the file format.
10730 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
10731 .Ss "The mime.types files"
10733 When sending messages \*(UA tries to determine the content type of all
10735 When displaying message content or attachments \*(UA uses the content
10736 type to decide whether it can directly display data or whether it needs
10737 to deal with content handlers.
10738 It learns about M(ultipurpose) I(nternet) M(ail) E(xtensions) types and
10739 how to treat them by reading
10741 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
10742 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10745 can also be used to deal with MIME types.)
10747 files have the following syntax:
10750 .Dl type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10755 are strings describing the file contents, and one or multiple
10757 s, separated by whitespace, name the part of a filename starting after
10758 the last dot (of interest).
10759 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
10761 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
10763 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in specially
10764 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
10765 .Va mimetypes-load-control
10766 and prepends an optional
10770 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10773 The following type markers are supported:
10776 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
10778 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
10783 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
10784 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
10785 the content as plain text instead.
10789 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
10790 handler to be defined.
10795 for sending messages:
10797 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
10798 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10799 For reading etc. messages:
10800 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
10801 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10803 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
10804 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
10805 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
10806 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
10809 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
10810 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
10812 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
10813 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
10815 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
10816 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports.
10817 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
10818 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
10819 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
10820 etc. MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that includes
10821 multiple possible locations of
10825 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
10826 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
10827 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
10828 the list of MIME type handler directives.
10832 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
10833 Comment lines start with a number sign
10835 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
10836 Empty lines are also ignored.
10837 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
10839 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
10840 follow lines if newline characters are
10842 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
10844 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
10845 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
10849 entries consist of a number of semicolon
10851 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
10853 character can be used to escape any following character including
10854 semicolon and itself.
10855 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
10856 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
10857 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
10860 The first field defines the MIME
10862 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
10863 escaping is possible in this field).
10864 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
10866 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
10868 would match any audio type.
10869 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
10871 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
10878 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
10879 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
10882 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
10883 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
10886 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
10887 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
10889 In any case any given
10891 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
10892 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
10894 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
10895 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
10896 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10898 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10899 flags had been set; see below for more.
10902 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
10903 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
10904 naming the field followed by an equals sign
10906 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
10908 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
10909 Optional fields include the following:
10912 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
10914 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
10916 (Currently unused.)
10918 .It Cd composetyped
10921 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
10923 header field to be applied to the composed data.
10924 (Currently unused.)
10927 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
10929 (Currently unused.)
10932 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
10934 (Currently unused.)
10937 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
10938 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
10939 this mailcap entry applies.
10940 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
10941 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
10943 .It Cd needsterminal
10944 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
10945 an interactive terminal.
10946 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
10947 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
10948 ignored; this flag implies
10949 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
10951 .It Cd copiousoutput
10952 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
10954 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
10955 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
10956 It is mutually exclusive with
10959 .Cd x-mailx-always .
10961 .It Cd textualnewlines
10962 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
10963 that, if encoded in
10965 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
10966 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
10967 (Currently unused.)
10969 .It Cd nametemplate
10970 This field gives a file name format, in which
10972 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
10973 will be used as the filename denoted by
10974 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10975 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
10976 have a name ending in
10979 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
10980 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
10981 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
10982 characters, the underscore and dot only.
10985 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
10986 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
10987 This field is not used by \*(UA.
10990 A textual description that describes this type of data.
10992 .It Cd x-mailx-always
10993 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10995 command shall be executed even if multiple messages will be displayed
10997 Normally messages which require external viewers that produce output
10998 which does not integrate into \*(UA's visual display (i.e., do not have
11000 set) have to be addressed directly and individually.
11001 (To avoid cases where, e.g., a thousand PDF viewer instances are spawned
11004 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
11005 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
11007 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
11008 then their use will be considered.
11009 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
11010 .Cd needsterminal .
11012 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
11013 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
11016 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
11017 (as it would be by default).
11019 .It Cd x-mailx-async
11020 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
11022 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
11023 Cannot be used in conjunction with
11024 .Cd needsterminal .
11026 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
11027 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
11029 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
11030 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
11031 .Dq running under the X Window System .
11033 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
11034 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
11035 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
11036 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
11037 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
11041 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
11042 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
11043 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
11045 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
11046 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
11047 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
11049 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
11053 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
11054 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
11055 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
11056 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
11057 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
11059 format, or without also setting
11060 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
11062 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
11064 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
11067 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
11069 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
11071 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
11076 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
11077 entry fields, prefixed by
11079 Flag fields apply to the entire
11081 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
11082 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
11083 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
11084 one does not provide enough information.
11087 command needs to specify the
11091 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
11095 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
11097 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11098 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
11099 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
11103 In fields any occurrence of the format string
11105 will be replaced by the
11108 Named parameters from the
11110 field may be placed in the command execution line using
11112 followed by the parameter name and a closing
11115 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
11116 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
11118 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11120 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
11123 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
11124 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
11126 # Executed shell command
11127 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
11131 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
11132 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
11133 shown in this example (as of today).
11134 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
11138 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
11140 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
11141 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
11142 in additional user-provided quotes:
11144 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11146 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
11148 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
11150 application/pdf; \e
11152 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
11153 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
11155 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
11157 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
11158 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
11159 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
11164 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
11165 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
11168 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
11169 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
11170 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
11173 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
11174 .Ss "The .netrc file"
11178 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
11179 The default location in the user's
11181 directory may be overridden by the
11183 environment variable.
11184 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
11185 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
11186 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
11187 of that file format, shall their
11189 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
11192 .Bl -bullet -compact
11194 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
11195 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
11197 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
11198 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
11200 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
11202 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
11204 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
11205 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
11206 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
11208 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
11209 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
11210 whitespace, with a number sign
11212 then the rest of the line is ignored.
11214 Whereas other programs may require that the
11216 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
11218 token for any other
11222 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
11226 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
11231 At runtime the command
11233 can be used to control \*(UA's
11237 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11238 .It Cd machine Ar name
11239 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
11241 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
11246 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
11249 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
11250 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
11252 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11253 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
11254 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
11255 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
11261 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
11265 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
11266 Note that in the example neither
11267 .Ql pop3.example.com
11269 .Ql smtp.example.com
11270 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
11271 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
11274 This is the same as
11276 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
11277 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
11278 and it must be the last first-class token.
11280 .It Cd login Ar name
11281 The user name on the remote machine.
11283 .It Cd password Ar string
11284 The user's password on the remote machine.
11286 .It Cd account Ar string
11287 Supply an additional account password.
11288 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11290 .It Cd macdef Ar name
11292 A macro is defined with the specified
11294 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
11295 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
11298 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
11299 defined following the
11301 they are intended to be used with.)
11304 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
11305 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11312 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
11315 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
11316 .Ss "An example configuration"
11318 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11319 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
11322 # Request strict transport security checks!
11323 set ssl-verify=strict
11325 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
11326 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
11327 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
11328 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
11329 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
11330 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
11331 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
11332 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
11333 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
11335 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
11336 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
11337 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
11338 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
11339 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
11340 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
11342 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
11343 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
11344 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
11345 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
11346 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
11347 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
11348 # TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
11349 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
11350 # ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
11352 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
11353 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
11355 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
11356 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
11357 set reply-in-same-charset
11359 # When replying to or forwarding a message the comment and name
11360 # parts of email addresses are removed unless this variable is set
11363 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
11364 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
11365 # exit status of the MTA (including the builtin SMTP one)!
11368 # Only use builtin MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
11369 set mimetypes-load-control
11371 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
11373 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
11374 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
11375 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox record=+sent.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt
11377 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
11378 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
11380 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
11381 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11383 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
11384 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
11385 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
11386 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
11387 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
11390 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
11392 colour-pager crt= \e
11393 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11394 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
11395 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
11396 prompt='?\e?!\e![\e${account}#\e${mailbox-display}]? ' \e
11397 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11400 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
11401 headerpick type retain from_ date from to cc subject \e
11402 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
11403 # ...when forwarding messages
11404 headerpick forward retain subject date from to cc
11405 # ...when saving message, etc.
11406 #headerpick save ignore ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
11408 # Some mailing lists
11409 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
11410 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
11412 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
11413 # Instead of directly placing content inside `account',
11414 # we `define' a macro: like that we can switch "accounts"
11415 # from within *on-compose-splice*, for example!
11417 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11418 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
11419 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
11425 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
11426 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
11427 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
11428 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
11429 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
11430 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
11432 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11433 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11434 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
11435 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
11441 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
11442 commandalias lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
11443 commandalias llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
11444 commandalias ls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFrS'
11445 commandalias lS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFS'
11446 commandalias lla '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlr'
11447 commandalias llA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFl'
11448 commandalias la '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFr'
11449 commandalias lA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aF'
11450 commandalias ll '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFltr'
11451 commandalias lL '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlt'
11452 commandalias l '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFtr'
11453 commandalias L '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFt'
11455 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
11456 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
11459 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
11460 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
11461 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
11463 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
11466 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11467 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
11468 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11472 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
11473 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
11480 commandalias V '\e'call V
11483 !printf 'Key IDs to gpg --recv-keys: ';\e
11485 gpg --recv-keys ${keyids};
11487 commandalias RK call RK
11491 When storing passwords in
11493 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
11494 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
11497 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
11499 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
11500 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
11502 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11504 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11505 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11507 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
11508 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
11510 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
11511 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
11512 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
11513 commandalias xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
11525 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11526 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
11530 This configuration should now work just fine:
11533 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -dvv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
11536 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
11537 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
11539 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
11540 message signing and message encryption.
11541 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
11542 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
11543 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
11544 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
11545 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
11546 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
11550 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
11551 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
11552 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
11553 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
11555 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
11556 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
11558 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
11559 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
11563 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
11564 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
11565 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
11566 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
11568 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
11570 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
11571 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
11573 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
11574 to avoid using the default certificate and point
11578 to a trusted pool of certificates.
11579 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
11580 certificate has been retrieved with.
11583 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message exchange is
11584 your personal certificate, including a private key.
11585 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
11586 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
11587 encrypt messages for you,
11588 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
11589 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
11590 The private key must be kept secret.
11591 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
11592 public key, and to sign messages.
11595 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
11596 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
11597 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
11599 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
11600 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
11601 community for free; their root certificate
11602 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
11603 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
11604 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
11605 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
11608 or as a vivid member of the
11609 .Va smime-ca-file .
11610 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
11611 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
11614 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
11615 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
11616 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
11617 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
11618 entries of the web interface.
11619 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
11620 .Dq client certificate ,
11621 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
11622 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
11626 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
11627 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
11628 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
11631 .Dl openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
11634 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
11636 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
11637 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
11638 .Dq advanced options
11639 to see the corresponding text field).
11640 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
11641 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
11642 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
11643 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
11644 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
11649 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
11650 (certificate) file has to be created:
11653 .Dl cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
11656 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
11657 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
11658 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
11659 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
11661 is of interest for verification only):
11663 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11664 set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
11665 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
11666 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
11671 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
11672 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
11673 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do the same,
11676 command to check the validity of the certificate.
11679 Variables of interest for S/MIME signing:
11681 .Va smime-ca-file ,
11682 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
11683 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
11684 .Va smime-crl-dir ,
11685 .Va smime-crl-file ,
11687 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
11688 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
11690 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
11693 After it has been verified save the certificate via
11695 and tell \*(UA that it should use it for encryption for further
11696 communication with that somebody:
11698 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11700 set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
11701 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
11705 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
11708 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
11711 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted messages
11713 If you do, anybody who has access to your mail folders can read them,
11714 but if you do not, you might be unable to read them yourself later if
11715 you happen to lose your private key.
11718 command saves messages in decrypted form, while the
11722 commands leave them encrypted.
11725 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to message
11726 subjects or other header fields yet.
11727 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
11728 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
11729 When sending signed messages,
11730 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
11734 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
11735 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
11737 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
11738 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
11739 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
11740 declared invalid after they have been issued.
11741 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
11743 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
11744 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
11745 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
11746 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
11747 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
11748 invalidated certificates.
11749 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
11750 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
11753 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
11754 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
11757 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
11760 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
11761 (and no other files) must be created.
11766 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
11767 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
11768 to verify a certificate.
11771 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
11772 .Ss "Handling spam"
11774 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
11775 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
11776 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
11778 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
11779 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
11781 state can be prompted: the
11785 message specifications will address respective messages and their
11787 entries will be used when displaying the
11789 in the header display.
11794 rates the given messages and sets their
11797 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
11798 the header display by including the
11808 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
11809 the given messages as
11813 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
11815 of messages; it adheres to their current
11817 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
11822 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
11824 message flag, without any interface interaction.
11833 requires a running instance of the
11835 server in order to function, started with the option
11837 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
11839 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11840 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
11841 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
11842 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
11846 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
11848 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11849 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11850 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11851 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
11853 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11854 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11855 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
11859 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
11861 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
11864 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11865 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11866 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
11867 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
11868 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
11869 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
11870 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
11871 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
11875 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
11876 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
11877 perform the local spam check last:
11879 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11880 define spamdelhook {
11882 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
11883 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
11884 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
11885 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
11886 move :S +maybe-spam
11889 move :S +maybe-spam
11891 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
11895 See also the documentation for the variables
11896 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
11897 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
11898 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11901 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
11909 In general it is a good idea to turn on
11915 twice) if something does not work well.
11916 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
11917 problems' solution.
11919 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
11920 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
11922 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
11923 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
11925 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
11926 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
11928 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
11932 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
11935 return the expected value?
11936 Does this local hostname has a domain suffix?
11937 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
11939 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
11942 .\" .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away" {{{
11943 .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away"
11945 When this happens even with
11947 set, then this most likely indicates a problem with the creation of
11948 so-called dotlock files: setting
11949 .Va dotlock-ignore-error
11950 should overcome this situation.
11951 This only avoids symptoms, it does not address the problem, though.
11952 Since the output is cleared away \*(UA has support for
11953 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11954 and switches to the
11956 which causes the output clearance: by doing
11957 .Ql set termcap='smcup='
11958 this mode can be suppressed, and by setting
11960 (twice) the actual problem should be reported.
11963 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
11964 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
11966 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
11968 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
11969 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
11970 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
11973 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
11974 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
11975 her- and himself with the locally installed
11977 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
11978 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
11979 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
11980 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
11983 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
11984 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
11985 .Dq less secure app
11986 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
11987 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
11992 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
11995 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
11997 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
11999 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
12000 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
12001 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
12005 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
12006 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
12008 It can happen that the terminal library (see
12009 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
12012 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
12013 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
12014 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
12019 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
12022 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
12024 in conjunction with the command line option
12026 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
12027 by keypresses, and use the variable
12029 to make \*(UA aware of them.
12030 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
12031 an example showing the shifted home key:
12033 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12036 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
12041 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
12050 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
12060 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
12069 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
12074 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
12077 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
12078 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
12079 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
12082 command already appeared in First Edition
12086 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
12087 Electronic mail was there from the start.
12088 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
12089 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
12090 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
12091 freeloaders, or whatever.
12092 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
12093 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
12094 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
12100 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
12103 distribution until 1995.
12104 Mail has then seen further development in open source
12106 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
12108 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
12109 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
12110 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
12111 This man page is derived from
12112 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
12113 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
12119 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
12120 .An "Edward Wang" ,
12121 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
12122 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
12123 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
12124 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq Mt s-nail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
12126 .Mt s-mailx@sdaoden.eu ) .
12129 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
12132 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
12136 from anywhere else but a command prompt is very problematic and likely
12137 to leave the program in an undefined state: many library functions
12138 cannot deal with the
12140 that this software (still) performs; even though efforts have been taken
12141 to address this, no sooner but in v15 it will have been worked out:
12142 interruptions have not been disabled in order to allow forceful breakage
12143 of hanging network connections, for example (all this is unrelated to
12147 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
12148 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
12149 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
12154 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
12155 that is capable of message queuing.
12161 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
12162 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
12163 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
12165 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
12166 occasionally (this is may and very).
12170 in the source repository lists future directions.