1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2018 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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34 .\"@ S-nail v14.9.10 / 2018-03-25
44 .ds VD \\%~/dead.letter
48 .ds vS /etc/mime.types
56 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
57 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
58 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
62 .if !d str-Lb-libterminfo \
63 .ds str-Lb-libterminfo Terminal Information Library (libterminfo, \-lterminfo)
72 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
78 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
84 .Op : Ns Fl a Ar attachment Ns \&:
85 .Op : Ns Fl b Ar bcc-addr Ns \&:
86 .Op : Ns Fl C Ar """custom:\0header""" Ns \&:
87 .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&:
88 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
91 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
94 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
96 .Pf : Ar to-addr Ns \&:
97 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
105 .Op : Ns Fl C Ar """custom:\0header""" Ns \&:
107 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
109 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
112 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
113 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
120 .Op : Ns Fl C Ar """custom:\0header""" Ns \&:
123 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
125 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
127 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
129 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
135 .Fl V | Fl Fl version
140 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
143 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
146 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
147 .Sy Compatibility note:
148 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2020).
149 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
152 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
153 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
154 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
157 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
158 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
159 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
163 enables obsoletion warnings.
167 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
169 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
171 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
172 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
173 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
174 the user to deal with them in any order.
178 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
179 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
180 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
181 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
182 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
184 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
187 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
190 Explicitly control which of the
194 d (loaded): if the letter
196 is (case-insensitively) part of the
200 is sourced, likewise the letter
202 controls sourcing of the user's personal
204 file, whereas the letters
208 explicitly forbid sourcing of any resource files.
209 Scripts should use this option: to avoid environmental noise they should
211 from any configuration and create a script-specific environment, setting
213 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
216 and running configurating commands via
218 This option overrides
225 command for the given user email
227 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
229 setting is being established; only
231 commands have not been evaluated yet).
232 Being a special incarnation of
234 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived
236 tings, activating such an email account also switches to the accounts
238 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
241 If the operation fails the program will exit if it is used
242 non-interactively, or if any of
249 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
252 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
256 .Sx "Filename transformations"
259 will be performed, except that shell variables are not expanded.
262 not be accessible but contain a
264 character, then anything before the last
266 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
269 If an input character set is specified,
270 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
271 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
272 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
273 giving the empty string or the special string hyphen-minus
275 will be treated as if
277 has been specified (the default).
279 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
280 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
281 file type and content.
282 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as the empty
283 string or hyphen-minus
285 then the default conversion algorithm (see
286 .Sx "Character sets" )
287 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
289 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first) \(em
290 without support for character set conversions
292 does not include the term
294 only this argument is supported.
297 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
298 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
303 Send a blind carbon copy to
310 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
312 The option may be used multiple times.
314 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
317 .It Fl C Ar """field: body"""
318 Create a custom header which persists for an entire session.
319 A custom header consists of the field name followed by a colon
321 and the field content body, e.g.,
322 .Ql -C """Blah: Neminem laede; imo omnes, quantum potes, juva""" .
323 Standard header field names cannot be overwritten by custom headers.
324 Runtime adjustable custom headers are available via the variable
329 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
330 is the most flexible and powerful option to manage message headers.
331 This option may be used multiple times.
335 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
337 May be used multiple times.
347 Almost enable a sandbox mode with the internal variable
349 the same can be achieved via
350 .Ql Fl S Va \&\&debug
352 .Ql Ic set Va \&\&debug .
358 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
362 Just check if mail is present (in the system
364 or the one specified via
366 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
367 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
368 specification can be added with the option
373 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
374 first recipient's address (instead of in
379 Read in the contents of the user's
381 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
383 (or the specified file) for processing;
384 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
390 argument will undergo some special
391 .Sx "Filename transformations"
396 is not an argument to the flag
398 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
402 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
403 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
409 and exit; a configurable summary view is available via the
415 Show a short usage summary.
421 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
427 of all messages that match the given
431 .Sx "Specifying messages"
436 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
437 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
443 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
444 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
449 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
453 and use it as the main message body.
454 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
455 .Va message-inject-head
457 .Va message-inject-tail .
463 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
465 and use it as the main message body.
466 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
467 .Va message-inject-head
469 .Va message-inject-tail .
475 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
480 for the internal variable
485 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
490 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
491 .Sx "Resource files" .
495 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
496 contents of the specified
498 which may be standard input
500 only in non-interactive context.
510 opened will be in read-only mode.
514 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
515 Whereas the source address that appears in the
517 header of a message (or in the
519 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is honoured by the
520 builtin SMTP transport, it is not used by a file-based
522 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) for the RFC 5321 reverse-path used for relaying
523 and delegating a message to its destination(s), for delivery errors
524 etc., but it instead uses the local identity of the initiating user.
527 When this command line option is used the given
529 will be assigned to the internal variable
531 but in addition the command line option
532 .Fl \&\&f Ar from-addr
533 will be passed to a file-based
535 whenever a message is sent.
538 include a user name the address components will be separated and
539 the name part will be passed to a file-based
545 If an empty string is passed as
547 then the content of the variable
549 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
551 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
560 command line options are used when contacting a file-based MTA, unless
561 this automatic deduction is enforced by
563 ing the internal variable
564 .Va r-option-implicit .
567 Remarks: many default installations and sites disallow overriding the
568 local user identity like this unless either the MTA has been configured
569 accordingly or the user is member of a group with special privileges.
570 Passing an invalid address will cause an error.
574 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
576 (or, with a prefix string
579 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
582 iable and optionally assign
584 if supported; \*(ID the entire expression is evaluated as if specified
585 within dollar-single-quotes (see
586 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
587 if the internal variable
590 If the operation fails the program will exit if any of
595 Settings established via
597 cannot be changed from within
599 or an account switch initiated by
601 They will become mutable again before commands registered via
607 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
608 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
609 normalized to space (SP) characters.
613 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
614 from the message body by an empty line, one or multiple message headers.
615 Headers can span multiple consecutive lines if follow lines start with
616 any amount of whitespace.
617 A line starting with the number sign
619 in the first column is ignored.
625 fields give the message recipients, which will be added to any
626 recipients specified on the command line.
627 If a message subject is specified via
629 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
631 More optional headers are
645 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
646 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
647 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
649 Any other custom header field (also see
654 is passed through entirely
655 unchanged, and in conjunction with the options
659 it is possible to embed
660 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
668 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
671 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
672 .Ql Fl \&\&f Ns \0%user .
681 will also show the list of
683 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
688 ting the internal variable
690 enables display of some informational context messages.
691 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
695 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
697 to the list of commands to be executed,
698 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
699 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
700 when reading startup files has been disabled.
701 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
711 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
712 in compose mode even in non-interactive use cases.
713 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
714 text before sending the message:
715 .Bd -literal -offset indent
716 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.';\e
717 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
718 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d~:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 bob@exam.ple
723 Enables batch mode: standard input is made line buffered, the complete
724 set of (interactive) commands is available, processing of
725 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
726 is enabled in compose mode, and diverse
727 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
728 are adjusted for batch necessities, exactly as if done via
744 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
745 .Bd -literal -offset indent
746 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' |\e
747 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d#:/ -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
752 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
755 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
756 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
762 arguments and all receivers established via
766 are subject to the checks established by
769 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
772 allows their recognition all
774 arguments given at the end of the command line after a
776 separator will be passed through to a file-based
778 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for the entire session.
780 constraints do not apply to the content of
784 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
787 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
789 Mail, itself a successor of the Research
792 .Dq was there from the start
795 It thus represents the user side of the
797 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
798 traditionally taken by
800 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
805 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
809 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
811 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
812 using it is a smooth experience.
813 (Rather complete configuration examples can be found in the section
818 .Sx "Resource files" )
819 template bends those standard imposed settings of the
820 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
821 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety, however.
829 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to the
831 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
833 that would otherwise occur (see
834 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
837 to not remove empty system MBOX mailbox files (or all empty such files if
839 .Pf a.k.a.\0 Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
840 mode has been enabled) to avoid mangling of file permissions when files
841 eventually get recreated.
845 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
852 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
854 to allow editing of headers as well as
856 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
858 to include the message that is being responded to when
860 ing, which is indented by an
862 that also deviates from standard imposed settings.
863 .Va mime-counter-evidence
864 is fully enabled, too.
868 The file mode creation mask can be managed explicitly via the variable
870 Sufficient system support provided symbolic links will not be followed
871 when files are opened for writing.
872 Files and shell pipe output can be
874 d for evaluation, also during startup from within the
875 .Sx "Resource files" .
878 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
879 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
881 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or built-in
883 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
884 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
885 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
889 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
891 .Bd -literal -offset indent
893 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
895 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
896 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
897 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
899 '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
902 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
903 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=none \e
904 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
910 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
911 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
912 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
914 special \(en these are so-called
915 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
916 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
917 attachments and more; e.g.,
925 respectively, to revise the message in its current state,
927 allows editing of the most important message headers, with the potent
929 custom headers can be created, for example (more specifically than with
934 \*(OPally gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
937 will leave compose mode and send the message once it is completed.
938 Aborting letter composition is possible with either of
942 the latter of which will save the message in the file denoted by
951 can also be achieved by typing end-of-transmission (EOT) via
954 at the beginning of an empty line, and
956 is always reachable by typing end-of-text (ETX) twice via
964 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
965 can be used to alter default behavior.
966 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
969 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
974 will automatically startup an editor when compose mode is entered,
976 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content,
980 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
981 recipients, respectively, and (the default)
983 will request confirmation whether the message shall be sent.
986 The envelope sender address is defined by
988 explicitly defining an originating
990 may be desirable, especially with the builtin SMTP Mail-Transfer-Agent
993 for outgoing message and MIME part content are configurable via
995 whereas input data is assumed to be in
997 Message data will be passed over the wire in a
999 MIME parts a.k.a. attachments need to be assigned a
1001 usually taken out of
1002 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
1003 Saving a copy of sent messages in a
1005 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
1007 targets the value will undergo
1008 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
1013 sandbox dry-run tests will prove correctness.
1016 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
1021 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
1022 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
1025 is not set then only network addresses (see
1027 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
1028 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
1030 A network address that contains no domain-, but only a valid local user
1032 in angle brackets will be automatically expanded to a valid address when
1034 is set to a non-empty value; setting it to the empty value instructs
1037 will perform the necessary expansion.
1040 may help to generate standard compliant network addresses.
1042 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
1043 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
1047 is set then an extended set of recipient addresses will be accepted:
1048 Any name that starts with a vertical bar
1050 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
1052 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
1053 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
1055 or the character sequence dot solidus
1057 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
1058 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
1060 Any other name which contains a commercial at
1062 character is treated as a network address;
1063 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
1065 character specifies a mailbox name;
1066 Any other name which contains a solidus
1068 character but no exclamation mark
1072 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
1073 What remains is treated as a network address.
1075 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1076 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
1077 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
1078 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1079 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
1080 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1085 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1087 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1089 and have it go to a group of people.
1090 Different to the alias mechanism of a local
1092 which is often tracked in a file
1096 and the names of which are subject to the
1100 personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent.
1101 They are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1102 itself, correlate with the active set of
1108 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1109 ? alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/cohorts.mbox
1110 ? alias mark mark@exam.ple
1114 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
1116 .Va on-compose-cleanup
1117 hook variables may be set to
1119 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
1120 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
1121 .Va on-compose-splice
1123 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
1124 variables, the former also to be set to a
1126 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
1127 adjustments, including signature creation, are available.
1128 (\*(ID These hooks work for commands which newly create messages, namely
1129 .Ic forward , mail , reply
1134 for now provide only the hooks
1137 .Va on-resend-cleanup . )
1140 For the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
1141 be switched to with a single command or command line option there are
1143 Alternatively it is also possible to use a flat configuration, making use
1144 of so-called variable chains which automatically pick
1148 context-dependent variable variants: for example addressing
1149 .Ql Ic File Ns \& pop3://yaa@exam.ple
1151 .Va \&\&pop3-no-apop-yaa@exam.ple ,
1152 .Va \&\&pop3-no-apop-exam.ple
1157 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1159 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1162 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1164 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1165 environment, ideally with the command line options
1167 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1169 to specify variables:
1171 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1172 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1173 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1174 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1175 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1176 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
1177 -s 'Subject to go' -a attachment_file \e
1179 'Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>' rec2@exam.ple \e
1184 As shown, scripts can
1186 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1189 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1191 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1192 can be sent by calling the
1194 command with a list of recipient addresses:
1196 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1197 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1198 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1199 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1201 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1202 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1206 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1207 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1209 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1211 When used like that the user's system
1213 (for more on mailbox types please see the command
1215 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed if
1219 The visual style of this summary of
1221 can be adjusted through the variable
1223 and the possible sorting criterion via
1229 can be performed with the command
1231 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1232 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1241 will give a listing of all available commands and
1243 will \*(OPally give a summary of some common ones.
1244 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available (see
1249 and see the actual expansion of
1251 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1252 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1253 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1254 however possible to define overwrites with
1255 .Ic commandalias ) .
1256 These commands can also produce a more
1261 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1262 messages; the current message \(en the
1264 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1265 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1267 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1272 ful of header summaries containing the
1276 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1280 Message content can be displayed with the command
1287 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1289 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1291 the sole difference to the command
1293 which will always use the
1297 will instead only show the first
1299 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1302 Message display experience may improve by setting and adjusting
1303 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
1305 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" .
1308 By default the current message
1310 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1311 a fancy message specification (see
1312 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1315 will display all unread messages,
1320 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1322 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1326 will display the previous and the next message, respectively.
1329 (a more substantial alias for
1331 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1332 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1335 .Dl ? from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1338 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1340 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1341 applications by using the command
1343 e.g., to restrict their display to a very restricted set for
1345 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain Ar \:from to cc subject .
1346 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1347 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1352 will show the raw message content.
1353 Note that historically the global
1355 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1359 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1360 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1361 aims at making the user experience with the many
1364 When reading the system
1370 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1372 modifier (to propagate it to a
1374 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1375 then messages which have been read
1376 .Pf (see\0 Sx "Message states" )
1377 will be automatically moved to a
1379 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1382 file, when the mailbox is left, either by changing the active mailbox or
1383 by quitting \*(UA \(en this automatic moving from a system- or primary-
1384 to the secondary mailbox is not performed when the variable
1387 Messages can also be explicitly
1389 d to other mailboxes, whereas
1391 keeps the original message.
1393 can be used to write out data content of specific parts of messages.
1396 After examining a message the user can
1398 to the sender and all recipients (which will also be placed in
1401 .Va recipients-in-cc
1404 exclusively to the sender(s).
1407 knows how to apply a special addressee massage, see
1408 .Sx "Mailing lists" .
1410 ing a message will allow editing the new message: the original message
1411 will be contained in the message body, adjusted according to
1417 messages: the former will add a series of
1419 headers, whereas the latter will not; different to newly created
1420 messages editing is not possible and no copy will be saved even with
1422 unless the additional variable
1425 When sending, replying or forwarding messages comments and full names
1426 will be stripped from recipient addresses unless the internal variable
1431 Of course messages can be
1433 and they can spring into existence again via
1435 or when the \*(UA session is ended via the
1439 commands to perform a quick program termation.
1440 To end a mail processing session regulary and perform a full program
1441 exit one may issue the command
1443 It will, among others, move read messages to the
1445 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1447 as necessary, discard deleted messages in the current mailbox,
1448 and update the \*(OPal (see
1454 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1455 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1457 Messages which are HTML-only become more and more common, and of course
1458 many messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME (Multipurpose Internet
1459 Mail Extensions) parts.
1460 To get a notion of MIME types \*(UA has a default set of types built-in,
1461 onto which the content of
1462 .Sx "The mime.types files"
1463 will be added (as configured and allowed by
1464 .Va mimetypes-load-control ) .
1465 Types can also become registered with the command
1467 To improve interaction with faulty MIME part declarations which are
1468 often seen in real-life messages, setting
1469 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1470 will allow verification of the given assertion, and possible provision
1471 of an alternative, better MIME type.
1474 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text filter for
1475 displaying HTML messages, it cannot handle MIME types other than plain
1477 Instead programs need to become registered to deal with specific MIME
1478 types or file extensions.
1479 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input in
1480 order to enable \*(UA to integrate their output neatlessly in its own
1481 message visualization (a mode which is called
1482 .Cd copiousoutput ) ,
1483 or display the content themselves, for example in an external graphical
1484 window: such handlers will only be considered by and for the command
1488 To install a handler program for a specific MIME type an according
1489 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1490 variable needs to be set; to instead define a handler for a specific
1491 file extension the respective
1493 variable can be used \(en these handlers take precedence.
1494 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1495 RFC 1524; this mechanism (see
1496 .Sx "The Mailcap files" )
1497 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1498 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1499 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1500 A last source for handlers is the MIME type definition itself, if
1501 a type-marker has been registered with the command
1503 which many of the built-in MIME types do.
1506 For example, to display a HTML message inline (converted to a more fancy
1507 plain text representation than the built-in filter is capable to produce)
1508 with either of the text-mode browsers
1512 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1513 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1514 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1516 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1517 ? if [ "$features" !% +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1518 ? #set pipe-text/html='@* elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1519 ? set pipe-text/html='@* lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1520 ? # Display HTML as plain text instead
1521 ? #set pipe-text/html=@
1523 ? mimetype @ application/mathml+xml mathml
1524 ? wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1525 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1526 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1527 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1531 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1534 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1537 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1539 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1544 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1545 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1546 currently defined mailing lists.
1551 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1556 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available a mailing list
1557 specification that contains any of the
1559 regular expression characters
1563 will be interpreted as one, which allows matching of many addresses with
1564 a single expression.
1565 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1566 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1567 (are) matched sequentially.
1569 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1570 ? set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
1571 reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1572 ? wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1573 ? mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1578 .Va followup-to-honour
1580 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1581 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1587 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1588 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1590 .Dq mailing list specific
1595 is used to respond to a message with its
1596 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1600 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1601 that the address of the user is usually not part of a generated
1602 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1603 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1604 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1605 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1607 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1608 address that is presented in the
1610 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1612 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1614 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1617 for this purpose (if it provides a single address which resides on the
1618 same domain as what is stated in
1620 in order to accept a list administrator's wish that is supposed to have
1621 been manifested like that.
1624 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
1625 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
1627 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
1628 message signing and message encryption.
1629 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
1630 The data can be used to verify that the message has been sent using
1631 a valid certificate, that the sender address matches that in the
1632 certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
1633 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
1634 it can be read regardless of whether the recipients software is able to
1636 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
1639 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
1640 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
1641 To encrypt a message, the specific recipients public encryption key
1643 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
1644 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
1646 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
1649 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
1650 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
1651 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
1652 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
1654 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered and installed together
1655 with the cryptographical library that is used on the local system.
1656 Therefore reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet is provided if
1657 the source that provides that library installation is trusted.
1658 It is also possible to use a specific pool of trusted certificates.
1660 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
1661 should be set to avoid using the default certificate pool, and
1665 should be pointed to a trusted pool of certificates.
1666 A certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA certificate
1667 has been retrieved with.
1670 This trusted pool of certificates is used by the command
1672 to ensure that the given S/MIME messages can be trusted.
1673 If so, verified sender certificates that were embedded in signed
1674 messages can be saved locally with the command
1676 and used by \*(UA to encrypt further communication with these senders:
1678 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1680 ? set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
1681 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
1685 To sign outgoing messages, in order to allow receivers to verify the
1686 origin of these messages, a personal S/MIME certificate is required.
1687 \*(UA supports password-protected personal certificates (and keys),
1688 for more on this, and its automatization, please see the section
1689 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
1691 .Sx "S/MIME step by step"
1692 shows examplarily how such a private certificate can be obtained.
1693 In general, if such a private key plus certificate
1695 is available, all that needs to be done is to set some variables:
1697 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1698 ? set smime-sign-cert=ME@exam.ple.paired \e
1699 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA512 \e
1704 Variables of interest for S/MIME in general are
1707 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
1708 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
1710 .Va smime-crl-file .
1711 For S/MIME signing of interest are
1713 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
1714 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
1716 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
1717 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
1720 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
1723 \*(ID Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to
1724 message subjects or other header fields yet.
1725 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
1726 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
1727 When sending signed messages,
1728 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
1732 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
1733 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1735 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
1736 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
1737 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
1740 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
1741 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
1742 part is protocol-specific, e.g.,
1744 is used by the \*(OPal Maildir directory and the IMAP protocol, but not
1749 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
1755 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
1758 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
1759 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
1760 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
1761 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
1762 a well-known notation.
1765 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
1766 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
1771 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
1778 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
1784 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
1787 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
1788 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
1789 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1790 must not be URL percent encoded.
1793 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
1794 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
1795 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
1796 .Ql smtp://our.house
1797 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
1798 .Va smtp-use-starttls
1799 \*(UA first looks for whether
1800 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
1801 is defined, then whether
1802 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
1803 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
1806 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
1807 necessary credential information of an account:
1813 has been given in the URL the variables
1818 If no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
1819 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
1820 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
1824 .Sx "The .netrc file"
1827 specific entry which provides a
1829 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
1833 If there is still no
1835 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
1836 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
1837 known to be a valid user on the current host.
1840 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
1841 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
1842 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
1848 has been given in the URL, then if the
1850 has been found through the \*(OPal
1852 that may have already provided the password, too.
1853 Otherwise the variable chain
1854 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
1855 is looked up and used if existent.
1857 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
1858 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
1862 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
1863 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
1864 but with a password).
1866 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
1867 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
1868 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
1873 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
1877 header field(s), which means that the values of
1878 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
1880 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
1881 will not be looked up using the
1885 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
1886 message that is being worked on.
1887 In unusual cases multiple and different
1891 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
1892 unusual cases become possible.
1893 The usual case is as short as:
1895 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1896 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
1897 smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
1903 contains complete example configurations.
1906 .\" .Ss "Encrypted network communication" {{{
1907 .Ss "Encrypted network communication"
1909 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a.k.a. its successor TLS (Transport Layer
1910 Security) are protocols which aid in securing communication by providing
1911 a safely initiated and encrypted network connection.
1912 A central concept of SSL/TLS is that of certificates: as part of each
1913 network connection setup a (set of) certificates will be exchanged, and
1914 by using those the identity of the network peer can be cryptographically
1915 verified; if possible the TLS/SNI (ServerNameIndication) extension will
1916 be enabled in order to allow servers fine-grained control over the
1917 certificates being used.
1918 SSL/TLS works by using a locally installed pool of trusted certificates,
1919 and verifying the connection peer succeeds if that provides
1920 a certificate which has been issued or is trusted by any certificate in
1921 the trusted local pool.
1924 The local pool of trusted so-called CA (Certification Authority)
1925 certificates is usually delivered with the used SSL/TLS library, and
1926 will be selected automatically.
1927 It is also possible to use a specific pool of trusted certificates.
1929 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
1930 should be set to avoid using the default certificate pool, and
1932 and/or (with special preparation)
1934 should be pointed to a trusted pool of certificates.
1935 A certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA certificate
1936 has been retrieved with.
1937 For inspection or other purposes, the certificate of a server (as seen
1938 when connecting to it) can be fetched like this:
1940 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1941 $ </dev/null openssl s_client -showcerts -connect \e
1942 the-server.example:pop3s 2>&1 | tee log.txt
1946 It depends on the used protocol whether encrypted communication is
1947 possible, and which configuration steps have to be taken to enable it.
1948 Some protocols, e.g., POP3S, are implicitly encrypted, others, like
1949 POP3, can upgrade a plain text connection if so requested.
1950 For example, to use the
1952 that POP3 offers (a member of) the variable (chain)
1953 .Va pop3-use-starttls
1956 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1957 shortcut encpop1 pop3s://pop1.exam.ple
1959 shortcut encpop2 pop3://pop2.exam.ple
1960 set pop3-use-starttls-pop2.exam.ple
1962 set mta=smtps://smtp.exam.ple:465
1963 set mta=smtp://smtp.exam.ple smtp-use-starttls
1967 Normally that is all there is to do, given that SSL/TLS libraries try to
1968 provide safe defaults, plenty of knobs however exist to adjust settings.
1969 For example certificate verification settings can be fine-tuned via
1971 and the SSL/TLS configuration basics are accessible via
1972 .Va ssl-config-pairs ,
1973 for example to specify the allowed protocols or cipher lists that
1974 a communication channel may use.
1975 In the past hints on how to restrict the set of protocols to highly
1976 secure ones were indicated, but as of the time of this writing the list
1977 of protocols or ciphers may need to become relaxed in order to be able
1978 to connect to some servers; the following example allows connecting to a
1980 that uses OpenSSL 0.9.8za from June 2014 (refer to
1981 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1982 for more on variable chains):
1984 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1985 wysh set ssl-config-pairs-lion@exam.ple='MinProtocol=TLSv1.1,\e
1986 CipherString=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
1987 ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
1988 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH'
1994 can be used and should be referred to when creating a custom cipher list.
1995 Variables of interest for SSL/TLS in general are
1999 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
2000 .Va ssl-config-file ,
2001 .Va ssl-config-module ,
2002 .Va ssl-config-pairs ,
2010 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
2011 .Ss "Character sets"
2013 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
2014 mechanisms that are controlled by the
2016 environment variable
2021 in that order, see there).
2022 The internal variable
2024 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly,
2025 and will thus show up in the output of commands like, e.g.,
2031 However, the user may give
2033 a value during startup, making it possible to send mail in a completely
2035 locale environment, an option which can be used to generate and send,
2036 e.g., 8-bit UTF-8 input data in a pure 7-bit US-ASCII
2038 environment (an example of this can be found in the section
2039 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ) .
2040 Changing the value does not mean much beside that, because several
2041 aspects of the real character set are implied by the locale environment
2042 of the system, which stays unaffected by
2046 Messages and attachments which consist of 7-bit clean data will be
2047 classified as consisting of
2050 This is a problem if the
2052 character set is a multibyte character set that is also 7-bit clean.
2053 For example, the Japanese character set ISO-2022-JP is 7-bit clean but
2054 capable to encode the rich set of Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana
2055 characters: in order to notify receivers of this character set the mail
2056 message must be MIME encoded so that the character set ISO-2022-JP can
2058 To achieve this, the variable
2060 must be set to ISO-2022-JP.
2061 (Today a better approach regarding email is the usage of UTF-8, which
2062 uses 8-bit bytes for non-US-ASCII data.)
2065 If the \*(OPal character set conversion capabilities are not available
2067 does not include the term
2071 will be the only supported character set,
2072 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
2073 (over the wire an intermediate, configurable
2076 and the rest of this section does not apply;
2077 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
2078 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to
2079 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./config.h:CHARSET_*!)
2080 LATIN1 a.k.a. ISO-8859-1 unless the operating system environment is
2081 known to always and exclusively support UTF-8 locales.
2084 \*(OP When reading messages, their text is converted into
2086 as necessary in order to display them on the user's terminal.
2087 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
2088 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
2089 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
2092 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
2093 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
2094 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
2096 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
2097 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
2100 When sending messages their parts and attachments are classified.
2101 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
2102 appear to be binary data,
2103 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
2104 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
2105 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
2106 Permissible values for character sets used in outgoing messages can be
2111 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
2112 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
2116 When replying to a message and the variable
2117 .Va reply-in-same-charset
2118 is set, then the character set of the message being replied to
2119 is tried first (still being a subject of
2120 .Ic charsetalias ) .
2121 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
2122 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
2123 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
2124 please see there for more information.
2127 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
2128 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
2129 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
2130 content of the part or attachment,
2131 then the message will not be send and its text will optionally be
2135 In general, if a message saying
2136 .Dq cannot convert from a to b
2137 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
2138 selected (terminal) character set,
2139 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
2140 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
2142 locale and/or the variable
2146 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
2147 locale on an UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
2148 spectrum of characters is available.
2149 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
2150 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
2151 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
2154 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
2155 .Dq portable character set
2156 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
2157 restricted subset named
2158 .Dq portable filename character set
2159 consists of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
2167 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
2168 .Ss "Message states"
2170 \*(UA differentiates in between several message states; the current
2171 state will be reflected in the summary of
2178 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2179 dependent on their state is possible.
2180 When operating on the system
2184 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
2185 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
2187 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2189 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly by program
2190 termination, unless the command
2192 was used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
2195 mail-user-agents, the provided global
2197 template sets the internal
2201 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
2203 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
2205 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
2206 Such messages are retained even in the
2208 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2211 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
2212 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
2213 Such messages are retained even in the
2215 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2218 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2237 will always try to automatically
2243 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
2245 command will do so if the internal variable
2251 command is used, messages that are in a
2253 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2256 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in the
2258 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2260 unless the internal variable
2265 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2271 can be used to access such messages.
2274 The message has been processed by a
2276 command and it will be retained in its current location.
2279 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2285 command is used, messages that are in a
2287 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2290 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in the
2292 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2294 when the internal variable
2300 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
2301 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
2302 addressing them when
2303 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2304 can be set on messages.
2305 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
2306 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
2308 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
2310 Mark messages as having been answered.
2312 Mark messages as being a draft.
2314 Mark messages which need special attention.
2318 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
2319 .Ss "Specifying messages"
2322 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
2330 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
2331 of messages at once.
2334 deletes messages 1 and 2,
2337 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
2338 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
2342 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
2343 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
2346 The following special message names exist:
2349 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
2351 The current message, the so-called
2355 The message that was previously the current message.
2358 The parent message of the current message,
2359 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
2361 field or the last entry of the
2363 field of the current message.
2366 The previous undeleted message, or the previous deleted message for the
2372 ed mode, the previous such message in the according order.
2375 The next undeleted message, or the next deleted message for the
2381 ed mode, the next such message in the according order.
2384 The first undeleted message,
2385 or the first deleted message for the
2391 ed mode, the first such message in the according order.
2394 The last message; In
2398 ed mode, the last such message in the according order.
2405 mode, selects the message addressed with
2409 is any other message specification,
2410 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
2411 Otherwise it is identical to
2416 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
2421 All messages that were included in the
2422 .Sx "Message list arguments"
2423 of the previous command.
2426 An inclusive range of message numbers.
2427 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
2432 .Dq any substring matches
2435 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
2437 is set (and POSIX says
2438 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
2441 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
2442 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
2444 is completely ignored.
2445 For finer control and match boundaries use the
2449 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
2450 All messages that contain
2452 in the subject field (case ignored according to locale).
2459 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
2462 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
2465 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
2467 ession; If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available
2469 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
2471 regular expression characters
2476 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
2477 part is missing the search is restricted to the subject field body,
2480 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, e.g.,
2483 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
2486 In order to search for a string that includes a
2488 (commercial at) character the
2490 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
2491 Also, specifying an empty search
2493 ession will effectively test for existence of the given header fields.
2494 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
2508 respectively and case-insensitively.
2509 \*(OPally, and just like
2512 will be interpreted as (an extended) regular expression if any of the
2514 regular expression characters is seen.
2521 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2530 will perform full text searches \(en whereas the former searches only
2531 the body, the latter also searches the message header (\*(ID this mode
2532 yet brute force searches over the entire decoded content of messages,
2533 including administrativa strings).
2536 This specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2537 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2538 expression that safely matches only a specific address domain.
2539 To request that the body content of the header is treated as a list of
2540 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2541 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the effective
2547 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2551 All messages of state or with matching condition
2555 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2557 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2560 messages (cf. the variable
2561 .Va markanswered ) .
2573 Messages with receivers that match
2577 Messages with receivers that match
2584 Old messages (any not in state
2592 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification (see
2593 .Sx "Handling spam" ) .
2595 \*(OP Messages classified as spam.
2607 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2608 This addressing mode is available with all types of mailbox
2610 s; \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2611 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2613 in their entirety if they contain whitespace or parentheses;
2614 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2616 is recognized as an escape character.
2617 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2618 When the description indicates that the
2620 representation of an address field is used,
2621 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2624 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2625 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2630 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2631 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2635 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2636 .It Ar ( criterion )
2637 All messages that satisfy the given
2639 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2640 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2642 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2643 All messages that satisfy either
2648 To connect more than two criteria using
2650 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2652 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2656 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2659 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2660 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2664 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2665 All messages that do not satisfy
2667 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2668 All messages that contain
2670 in the envelope representation of the
2673 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2674 All messages that contain
2676 in the envelope representation of the
2679 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2680 All messages that contain
2682 in the envelope representation of the
2685 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2686 All messages that contain
2691 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2692 All messages that contain
2694 in the envelope representation of the
2697 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2698 All messages that contain
2703 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2704 All messages that contain
2707 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2708 All messages that contain
2710 in their header or body.
2711 .It Ar ( larger size )
2712 All messages that are larger than
2715 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2716 All messages that are smaller than
2720 .It Ar ( before date )
2721 All messages that were received before
2723 which must be in the form
2727 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2729 is the name of the month \(en one of
2730 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2733 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2737 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2738 .It Ar ( since date )
2739 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2740 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2741 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2742 .It Ar ( senton date )
2743 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2744 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2745 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2747 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2748 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2749 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2750 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2754 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2755 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2757 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2759 libraries, either the
2761 or, alternatively, the
2763 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2765 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2766 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2767 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2768 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor- and function-keys.
2771 The internal variable
2773 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2774 Actual library interaction can be disabled completely by setting
2775 .Va termcap-disable ;
2777 will be queried regardless, which is true even if the \*(OPal library
2778 support has not been enabled at configuration time as long as some other
2779 \*(OP which (may) query terminal control sequences has been enabled.
2780 \*(UA can be told to enter an alternative exclusive screen, the
2781 so-called ca-mode, by setting
2782 .Va termcap-ca-mode ;
2783 this requires sufficient terminal support, and the used
2785 may also need special configuration, dependent on the value of
2789 \*(OP The built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2790 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2792 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2793 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2795 Usage of a line editor in interactive mode can be prevented by setting
2796 .Va line-editor-disable .
2797 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2798 entries in the internal variable
2800 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2801 The MLE can support a little bit of
2807 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2808 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2809 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2811 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2812 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2816 .Va history-gabby-persist
2821 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2822 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2823 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2824 be generated by holding the
2826 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2830 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2831 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2832 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2834 to establish its built-in key bindings
2835 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2836 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2837 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2838 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2839 notation is used in the following;
2840 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2841 generate a (unique) keycode:
2845 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql \eBa"
2847 Go to the start of the line
2849 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2852 Move the cursor backward one character
2854 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2857 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2858 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2862 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2865 Go to the end of the line
2867 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2870 Move the cursor forward one character
2872 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2875 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2876 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2877 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2878 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2880 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2883 Backspace: backward delete one character
2885 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2889 Horizontal tabulator:
2890 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2891 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2893 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ;
2895 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2899 commit the current line
2901 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2904 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2906 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2911 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2914 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2916 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2919 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2923 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2925 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2928 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2931 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2932 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2933 is committed; also see
2937 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2939 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2942 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2944 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2947 Paste the snarf buffer
2949 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2957 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2960 Prompts for a Unicode character (hexadecimal number without prefix, see
2964 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2965 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2966 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2967 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2968 that shortcut purpose); this control code is then special-treated and
2969 thus cannot be part of any other sequence (because it will trigger the
2971 function immediately).
2974 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2977 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2980 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2982 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2985 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2987 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2990 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2991 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2993 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2994 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2995 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2996 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2998 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2999 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
3000 expected input, then the active sequence takes precedence and will
3001 consume the control code.
3004 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
3008 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
3012 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
3016 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
3019 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
3030 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
3035 ring the audible bell.
3039 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
3040 .Ss "Coloured display"
3042 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
3043 attributes by emitting ANSI a.k.a. ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic
3044 rendition) escape sequences.
3045 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
3046 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
3047 environment variable
3049 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
3053 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
3055 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
3056 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
3057 through the external program defined by the environment variable
3062 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
3063 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
3064 support those sequences.
3065 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
3066 environment it is often enough to simply set
3068 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
3071 Colours and font attributes can be managed with the multiplexer command
3075 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
3078 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
3079 is suppressed without affecting possibly established
3082 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
3083 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
3086 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3087 if terminal && [ "$features" =% +colour ]
3088 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
3089 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject
3090 colour iso view-header fg=red
3092 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
3093 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
3094 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 "subject,from"
3095 colour mono view-header ft=bold
3096 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
3101 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
3104 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
3105 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
3106 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
3108 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
3109 .Sx "Specifying messages"
3110 that have been identified as spam is possible via their (volatile)
3116 specifications, and their
3118 entries will be used when displaying the
3126 rates the given messages and sets their
3129 If the spam interface offers spam scores these can be shown in
3138 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
3139 the given messages as
3143 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
3145 of messages; it adheres to their current
3147 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
3152 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
3154 message flag, without any interface interaction.
3163 requires a running instance of the
3165 server in order to function, started with the option
3167 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
3169 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3170 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
3171 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
3172 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
3176 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
3178 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3179 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3180 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3181 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
3183 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3184 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3185 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
3189 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
3191 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
3194 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3195 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3196 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
3197 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
3198 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
3199 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
3200 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
3201 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
3205 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
3206 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
3207 perform the local spam check last.
3208 Spam can be checked automatically when opening specific folders by
3209 setting a specialized form of the internal variable
3212 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3213 define spamdelhook {
3215 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
3216 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
3217 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
3218 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
3224 set folder-hook-SOMEFOLDER=spamdelhook
3228 See also the documentation for the variables
3229 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
3230 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
3231 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
3234 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
3237 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
3240 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
3243 \*(UA reads input in lines.
3244 An unquoted reverse solidus
3246 at the end of a command line
3248 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
3249 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
3250 once an entire line is completed, the whitespace characters
3251 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3252 as well as those defined by the variable
3254 are removed from the beginning and end.
3255 Placing any whitespace characters at the beginning of a line will
3256 prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
3260 The beginning of such input lines is then scanned for the name of
3261 a known command: command names may be abbreviated, in which case the
3262 first command that matches the given prefix will be used.
3263 .Sx "Command modifiers"
3264 may prefix a command in order to modify its behaviour.
3265 A name may also be a
3267 which will become expanded until no more expansion is possible.
3268 Once the command that shall be executed is known, the remains of the
3269 input line will be interpreted according to command-specific rules,
3270 documented in the following.
3273 This behaviour is different to the
3275 ell, which is a programming language with syntactic elements of clearly
3276 defined semantics, and therefore capable to sequentially expand and
3277 evaluate individual elements of a line.
3278 \*(UA will never be able to handle
3279 .Ql ? set one=value two=$one
3280 in a single statement, because the variable assignment is performed by
3288 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
3289 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
3290 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
3291 \*(OPally the command
3295 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
3296 command matching the expanded argument, as in
3298 which should be a shorthand of
3300 with these documentation strings both commands support a more
3302 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command and other
3303 information which applies; a handy suggestion might thus be:
3305 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3307 # Before v15: need to enable sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
3308 localopts yes;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
3310 ? commandalias xv '\ecall __xv'
3314 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
3315 .Ss "Command modifiers"
3317 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
3318 Some command modifiers can be used with a restricted set of commands
3323 will (\*(OPally) show which modifiers apply.
3327 The modifier reverse solidus
3330 to be placed first, prevents
3332 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
3334 will always evaluate the command
3336 even if an (command)alias of the same name exists.
3338 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
3339 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
3345 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
3346 ignored by the state machine and not cause a program exit with enabled
3348 or for the standardized exit cases in
3353 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3354 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
3359 will alter the called command to apply changes only temporarily,
3360 local to block-scope, and can thus only be used inside of a
3365 Specifying it implies the modifier
3367 Block-scope settings will not be inherited by macros deeper in the
3369 chain, and will be garbage collected once the current block is left.
3370 To record and unroll changes in the global scope use the command
3376 does yet not implement any functionality.
3381 does yet not implement any functionality.
3384 Some commands support the
3387 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
3388 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
3389 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
3390 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
3392 The given name will be tested for being a valid
3394 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
3395 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
3396 a non-portable extension; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
3397 may not be used as last characters.
3398 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
3399 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3400 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
3401 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
3402 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
3403 Any error during these operations causes the command as such to fail,
3404 and the error number
3407 .Va ^ERR Ns -NOTSUP ,
3412 but some commands deviate from the latter, which is documented.
3415 Last, but not least, the modifier
3418 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
3419 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3420 rules over the traditional
3421 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
3425 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
3426 .Ss "Message list arguments"
3428 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
3429 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
3430 .Sx "Specifying messages"
3432 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
3433 forward that satisfies the commands requirements will be used,
3434 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
3435 the search proceeds backwards;
3436 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
3437 shown and the command is aborted.
3440 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
3441 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
3443 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
3444 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
3445 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
3446 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3447 may be available even for those via
3450 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
3451 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
3452 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
3453 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
3456 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3458 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
3463 any whitespace, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
3464 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
3465 part of the argument.
3466 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
3468 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
3469 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
3475 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
3476 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
3480 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
3481 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
3485 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
3486 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
3488 Commands which do not expect message-list arguments use
3490 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
3492 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
3493 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
3495 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
3498 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
3499 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
3500 Metacharacters are vertical bar
3506 as well as all characters from the variable
3509 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
3510 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
3512 and less-than and greater-than signs
3516 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
3517 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it seems
3518 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
3520 .Bd -filled -offset indent
3521 .Sy Compatibility note:
3522 \*(ID Please note that even many new-style commands do not yet honour
3524 to parse their arguments: whereas the
3526 ell is a language with syntactic elements of clearly defined semantics,
3527 \*(UA parses entire input lines and decides on a per-command base what
3528 to do with the rest of the line.
3529 This also means that whenever an unknown command is seen all that \*(UA
3530 can do is cancellation of the processing of the remains of the line.
3532 It also often depends on an actual subcommand of a multiplexer command
3533 how the rest of the line should be treated, and until v15 we are not
3534 capable to perform this deep inspection of arguments.
3535 Nonetheless, at least the following commands which work with positional
3536 parameters fully support
3538 for an almost shell-compatible field splitting:
3539 .Ic call , call_if , read , vpospar , xcall .
3543 Any unquoted number sign
3545 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
3546 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
3547 An unquoted dollar sign
3549 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
3551 ell-style variable name (see
3553 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3556 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
3557 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
3560 Whereas the metacharacters
3561 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3562 only complete an input token, vertical bar
3568 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
3569 For now supported is semicolon
3571 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
3572 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
3573 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
3574 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
3575 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
3578 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3579 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3582 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
3583 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
3584 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
3585 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
3588 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3590 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
3591 with the escape character reverse solidus
3595 Arguments which are enclosed in
3596 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3597 retain their literal value.
3598 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3601 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3602 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3603 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3605 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3607 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3609 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3611 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3615 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3617 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3618 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3621 Arguments enclosed in
3622 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3623 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3624 expanded as follows:
3626 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".Ql \eNNN"
3628 bell control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BEL).
3630 backspace control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BS).
3632 escape control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 ESC).
3636 form feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 FF).
3638 line feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 LF).
3640 carriage return control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 CR).
3642 horizontal tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 HT).
3644 vertical tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 VT).
3646 emits a reverse solidus character.
3650 double quote (escaping is optional).
3652 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3654 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3656 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3658 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3660 (one or two hexadecimal characters, no prefix, see
3662 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3664 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3666 (one to eight hexadecimal characters) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3667 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3672 This escape is only supported in locales that support Unicode (see
3673 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3674 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3675 point is ASCII compatible or (if the \*(OPal character set conversion is
3676 available) can be represented in the current locale.
3677 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3681 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal characters.
3683 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3684 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3685 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3686 mapping them to a different, visible part of the ASCII character set.
3687 Adding the number 64 achieves this for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL):
3688 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3689 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3691 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3692 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3694 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3695 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3697 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3699 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO-10646, ISO C) aliases,
3700 as shown above (e.g.,
3704 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3705 The control code NUL
3707 a non-standard extension) will suppress further output for the remains
3708 of the token (which may extend beyond the current quote), or, depending
3709 on the context, the remains of all arguments for the current command.
3711 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3712 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3714 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3721 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3722 ? echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3723 ? echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3724 ? echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3728 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3729 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3731 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3733 in their name, e.g.,
3737 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3738 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3739 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3740 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3741 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3742 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3746 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3747 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3749 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3751 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3752 ? eval shcodec d $res
3753 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3757 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3758 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3760 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3761 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3764 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3766 If the given name is a registered
3768 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3771 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3773 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3775 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3777 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3778 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3779 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3781 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3783 if that is set, or a built-in compile-time default otherwise.
3785 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3787 (and never the value of
3789 regardless of its actual setting).
3791 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking user's
3792 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3793 secondary mailbox, the
3800 directory (if that variable is set).
3802 Expands to the same value as
3804 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3806 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3810 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3811 session will be moved to the
3813 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3817 Meta expansions may be applied to the resulting filename, as allowed by
3818 the operation and applicable to the resulting access protocol (also see
3819 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3820 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3822 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3824 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3825 directory of the given user is used instead.
3827 A shell expansion as if specified in double-quotes (see
3828 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
3829 may be applied, so that any occurrence of
3833 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3834 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3837 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism.
3839 Shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
3841 may be applied as documented.
3842 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3843 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3845 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3847 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3848 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3850 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3854 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3857 The following commands are available:
3859 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3866 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3867 previously executed command if the internal variable
3870 This command supports
3873 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
3874 and manages the error number
3876 A 0 or positive exit status
3878 reflects the exit status of the command, negative ones that
3879 an error happened before the command was executed, or that the program
3880 did not exit cleanly, but, e.g., due to a signal: the error number is
3881 .Va ^ERR Ns -CHILD ,
3885 In conjunction with the
3887 modifier the following special cases exist:
3888 a negative exit status occurs if the collected data could not be stored
3889 in the given variable, which is a
3891 error that should otherwise not occur.
3892 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED
3893 indicates that no temporary file could be created to collect the command
3894 output at first glance.
3895 In case of catchable out-of-memory situations
3897 will occur and \*(UA will try to store the empty string, just like with
3898 all other detected error conditions.
3903 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3905 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3908 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3909 on a line are not possible (except for commands which use
3910 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
3914 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3920 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3921 a numeric argument n.
3925 Show the current message number (the
3930 \*(OP Show a brief summary of commands.
3931 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3932 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3933 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3934 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3939 and see how the output changes.
3940 This mode also supports a more
3942 output, which will provide the information documented for
3953 .It Ic account , unaccount
3954 (ac, una) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3955 Accounts are special incarnations of
3957 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3958 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3959 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3961 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3966 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted by the
3967 latter command, and in one operation with the special name
3969 Also for all but it a possibly set
3970 .Va on-account-cleanup
3971 hook is called once they are left.
3973 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3974 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3976 of that account will be activated (as via
3978 a possibly installed
3980 will be run, and the internal variable
3983 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3985 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3987 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3988 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3989 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3996 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3997 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
4001 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
4002 and manages the error number
4004 The first argument must be either
4005 .Ar [+[+[+]]]e[ncode] ,
4010 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
4013 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
4014 argument, which should be an email address.
4015 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
4016 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
4018 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
4019 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
4022 Skinning is identical to decoding but only outputs the plain address,
4023 without any string, comment etc. components.
4024 Another difference is that it may fail with the error number
4028 if decoding fails to find a(n) (valid) email address, in which case the
4029 unmodified input will be output again.
4033 first performs a skin operation, and thereafter checks a valid
4034 address for whether it is a registered mailing list (see
4038 eventually reporting that state in the error number
4041 .Va ^ERR Ns -EXIST .
4042 (This state could later become overwritten by an I/O error, though.)
4045 Encoding supports four different modes, lesser automated versions can be
4046 chosen by prefixing one, two or three plus signs: the standard imposes
4047 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
4048 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
4050 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
4051 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
4052 Specify one plus sign to remark that parenthesis shall be left alone,
4053 two for not turning double quotation marks into quoted-pairs, and three
4054 for also leaving any user-specified reverse solidus alone.
4055 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported
4056 (\*(ID the current parser fails this assertion for some constructs).
4057 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
4060 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
4061 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
4063 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4064 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
4065 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
4066 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
4067 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
4068 ? addrc s "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
4075 .It Ic alias , unalias
4076 (a, una) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists
4077 that map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
4078 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed.
4079 The latter command removes the given list of aliases, the special name
4081 will discard all existing aliases.
4083 The former command shows all currently defined aliases when used without
4084 arguments, and with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4085 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
4086 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
4087 Alias names adhere to the Postfix MTA
4089 rules and are thus restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
4090 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon and commercial at,
4091 the last character can also be the dollar sign; the regular expression:
4092 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@-]+$? .
4093 .\" ALIASCOLON next sentence
4094 \*(ID Unfortunately the colon is currently not supported, as it
4095 interferes with normal address parsing rules.
4096 As extensions the exclamation mark
4101 .Dq any character that has the high bit set
4103 .\" ALIASCOLON next sentence
4104 \*(ID Such high bit characters will likely cause warnings at the moment
4105 for the same reasons why colon is unsupported.
4109 .It Ic alternates , unalternates
4110 \*(NQ (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active
4111 user, members of which will be removed from recipient lists (except one).
4112 The latter command removes the given list of alternates, the special name
4114 will discard all existing alternate names.
4116 The former command manages the error number
4118 It shows the current set of alternates when used without arguments; in
4119 this mode only it also supports
4122 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4123 Otherwise the given arguments (after being checked for validity) are
4124 appended to the list of alternate names; in
4126 mode they replace that list instead.
4127 There is a set of implicit alternates which is formed of the values of
4136 .It Ic answered , unanswered
4137 Take a message lists and mark each message as (not) having been answered.
4138 Messages will be marked answered when being
4140 to automatically if the
4144 .Sx "Message states" .
4149 .It Ic bind , unbind
4150 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
4151 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4152 with freely configurable key bindings.
4153 The latter command removes from the given context the given key binding,
4154 both of which may be specified as a wildcard
4158 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
4159 Due to initialization order unbinding will not work for built-in key
4160 bindings upon program startup, however: please use
4161 .Va line-editor-no-defaults
4162 for this purpose instead.
4165 With one argument the former command shows all key bindings for the
4166 given context, specifying an asterisk
4168 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
4169 produced if either of
4174 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
4175 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
4176 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
4178 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
4179 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
4180 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
4182 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
4183 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
4184 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
4187 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
4188 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
4189 This is not true for the shared binding
4191 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
4192 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
4193 The available contexts are the shared
4197 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
4199 which applies to compose mode only.
4203 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
4204 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
4205 A list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
4207 also refer to the name of a terminal capability; several dozen names
4208 will be compiled in and may be specified either by their
4210 or, if existing, by their
4212 name, regardless of the actually used \*(OPal terminal control library.
4213 It is possible to use any capability, as long as the name is resolvable
4214 by the \*(OPal control library or was defined via the internal variable
4216 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
4217 required to update or remove a binding.
4220 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4221 ? bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
4222 ? bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc,Delete
4223 ? bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo Editable binding@'
4224 ? bind default a,b,c rm -irf / @ # Also editable
4225 ? bind default :kf1 File %
4226 ? bind compose :kf1 ~v
4230 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
4231 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
4232 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
4233 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
4234 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
4235 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
4236 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
4237 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
4238 and using terminal capabilities does so if no (corresponding) terminal
4239 control support is (currently) available.
4242 The following terminal capability names are built-in and can be used in
4244 or (if available) the two-letter
4247 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
4250 can be used to show all the capabilities of
4252 or the given terminal type;
4255 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
4258 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
4259 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
4261 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
4263 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
4264 \(em shifted variant.
4265 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
4266 Clear to end of line.
4267 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
4269 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
4271 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
4272 \(em shifted variant.
4273 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
4275 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
4276 \(em shifted variant.
4277 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
4279 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
4281 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
4283 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
4284 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
4285 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
4286 \(em shifted variant.
4287 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
4288 Right cursor (ditto).
4289 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
4290 \(em shifted variant.
4291 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
4292 Down cursor (ditto).
4294 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4295 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
4298 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4299 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
4301 Add one for each function key up to
4306 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
4308 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
4310 Add one for each function key up to
4318 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
4320 For example, the delete key,
4322 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
4324 then a number is appended for the states
4336 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
4338 The same for the left cursor key,
4340 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
4343 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
4345 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
4346 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
4347 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
4350 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
4355 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
4360 Calling macros recursively will at some time excess the stack size
4361 limit, causing a hard program abortion; if recursively calling a macro
4362 is the last command of the current macro, consider to use the command
4364 which will first release all resources of the current macro before
4365 replacing the current macro with the called one.
4366 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
4370 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
4377 if the given macro has been created via
4379 but does not fail nor warn if the macro does not exist.
4383 (ch) Change the working directory to
4385 or the given argument.
4391 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
4392 Takes a message list and a filename and saves the certificates
4393 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
4394 human-readable and PEM format.
4395 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
4396 respective message senders by setting
4397 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
4402 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
4403 \*(NQ Manage alias mappings for (conversion of)
4404 .Sx "Character sets" .
4405 Mappings are ineffective if character set conversion is not available
4409 Expansion happens recursively, but expansion is not performed for
4410 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
4414 The latter command deletes all aliases given as arguments,
4415 all aliases can be deleted at once with the special argument
4417 The former shows the list of all currently defined aliases if used
4418 without arguments, the expansion of the given alias with one argument.
4419 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
4420 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
4421 existing aliases, as necessary.
4425 (ch) Change the working directory to
4427 or the given argument.
4433 .It Ic collapse , uncollapse
4439 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
4440 in header summaries, except for
4444 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
4445 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
4446 The latter command undoes collapsing.
4449 .\" FIXME review until this point
4452 .It Ic colour , uncolour
4453 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
4454 .Sx "Coloured display" .
4455 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
4456 which must be one of
4458 for 256-colour terminals,
4463 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 colour palette and
4467 for monochrome terminals.
4468 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
4472 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
4473 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
4477 will show the mappings of all types).
4478 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
4479 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
4480 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
4481 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
4482 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
4483 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
4485 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
4486 .Sx "Coloured display"
4487 for some examples), the following of which exist:
4490 Mappings prefixed with
4492 are used for the \*(OPal built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
4493 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4494 and do not support preconditions.
4496 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4498 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
4499 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
4506 Mappings prefixed with
4508 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
4510 (the current message) and
4512 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
4513 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
4515 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4517 This mapping is used for the
4519 that can be created with the
4523 formats of the variable
4526 For the complete header summary line except the
4528 and the thread structure.
4530 For the thread structure which can be created with the
4532 format of the variable
4537 Mappings prefixed with
4539 are used when displaying messages.
4541 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4543 This mapping is used for so-called
4545 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
4548 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
4549 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
4550 available then if any of the
4552 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
4553 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
4555 For the introductional message info line.
4556 .It Ar view-partinfo
4557 For MIME part info lines.
4561 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
4562 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
4572 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
4573 attributes for a single mapping.
4576 foreground colour attribute:
4586 To specify a 256-colour mode a decimal number colour specification in
4587 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
4589 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
4591 the standard ISO 6429 colours, as above.
4593 high intensity variants of the standard colours.
4595 216 colours in tuples of 6.
4597 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
4599 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4601 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4602 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4604 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4605 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4607 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4608 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4612 background colour attribute (see
4614 for possible values).
4620 will remove for the given colour type (the special type
4622 selects all) the given mapping; if the optional precondition argument is
4623 given only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
4626 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed), thus
4628 will remove all established mappings.
4633 .It Ic commandalias , uncommandalias
4634 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, command aliases.
4635 An (command)alias can be used everywhere a normal command can be used,
4636 but always takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command
4637 alias are joined onto the alias expansion, and the resulting string
4638 forms the command line that is, in effect, executed.
4639 The latter command removes all given aliases, the special name
4641 will remove all existing aliases.
4642 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4643 known aliases, with one argument only the expansion of the given one.
4645 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4646 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4647 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4648 An alias may itself expand to another alias, but to avoid expansion loops
4649 further expansion will be prevented if an alias refers to itself or if
4650 an expansion depth limit is reached.
4651 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4654 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4655 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4657 \*(uA: `commandalias': no such alias: xx
4658 ? commandalias xx echo hello,
4660 commandalias xx 'echo hello,'
4669 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
4670 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
4671 otherwise identical to
4676 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
4677 otherwise identical to
4682 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
4687 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4688 The return status is tracked via
4693 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4695 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4699 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4701 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4706 .It Ic define , undefine
4707 The latter command deletes the given macro, the special name
4709 will discard all existing macros.
4710 Deletion of (a) macro(s) can be performed from within running (a)
4711 macro(s), including self-deletion.
4712 Without arguments the former command prints the current list of macros,
4713 including their content, otherwise it it defines a macro, replacing an
4714 existing one of the same name as applicable.
4717 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
4722 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
4724 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
4728 Temporary macro block-scope variables can be created or deleted with the
4730 command modifier in conjunction with the commands
4735 To enforce unrolling of changes made to (global)
4736 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4739 can be used instead; its covered scope depends on how (i.e.,
4741 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
4743 switch) the macro is invoked.
4748 ed macro, the given positional parameters are implicitly local
4749 to the macro's scope, and may be accessed via the variables
4755 and any other positive unsigned decimal number less than or equal to
4757 Positional parameters can be
4759 ed, or become completely replaced, removed etc. via
4762 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4772 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
4775 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
4776 echo ${?}/${!}/${^ERRNAME}
4782 .It Ic delete , undelete
4783 (d, u) Marks the given message list as being or not being
4785 respectively; if no argument has been specified then the usual search
4786 for a visible message is performed, as documented for
4787 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
4788 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
4789 Deleted messages will neither be saved in the
4791 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4793 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4796 variable is set, the new
4798 or the last message restored, respectively, is automatically
4808 Superseded by the multiplexer
4814 Delete the given messages and automatically
4818 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4825 up or down by one message when given
4829 argument, respectively.
4833 .It Ic draft , undraft
4834 Take message lists and mark each given message as being draft, or not
4835 being draft, respectively, as documented in the section
4836 .Sx "Message states" .
4840 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4841 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4844 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4846 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4847 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4848 This command also supports
4851 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
4852 and manages the error number
4854 if data is stored in a variable then the return value reflects the
4855 length of the result string in case of success and is
4863 except that is echoes to standard error.
4866 In interactive sessions the \*(OPal message ring queue for
4868 will be used instead, if available and
4876 but does not write or store a trailing newline.
4882 but does not write or store a trailing newline.
4888 at each message from the given list in turn.
4889 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4891 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
4892 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
4894 can be used instead for a more display oriented editor.
4899 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4900 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4902 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4903 if it evaluates true.
4908 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4909 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4913 commands was true, the
4919 (en) Marks the end of an
4920 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4921 conditional execution block.
4926 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4927 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4928 and which are managed in the program
4930 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4931 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4932 internal variables via
4936 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4937 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4938 process environment where they normally are not, a
4940 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4943 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB TZ
4946 Afterwards changing such variables with
4948 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4949 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4950 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4951 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4953 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4954 the knowledge they ever have been
4957 Note that this implies that
4959 may cause loss of such links.
4964 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4965 Additionally the subcommands
4969 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4973 but (additionally un)link the variable(s) with the program environment
4974 and thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4975 respectively, the program environment.
4980 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4981 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4982 An error message ring queue is available which stores duplicates of any
4983 error message and notifies the user in interactive sessions whenever
4984 a new error has occurred.
4985 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4986 replaces the eldest.
4989 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4991 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4993 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4997 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4998 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4999 This command passes through the exit status
5003 of the evaluated command; also see
5005 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5016 call yyy '\ecall xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
5024 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
5025 any saving of messages in the
5027 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5029 as well as a possibly tracked line editor
5031 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
5033 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
5034 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
5035 otherwise success indicating status.
5041 but open the mailbox read-only.
5046 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
5047 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
5048 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
5049 the user has made, open a new mailbox, update the internal variables
5050 .Va mailbox-resolved
5052 .Va mailbox-display ,
5053 and optionally display a summary of
5060 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5061 will be applied to the
5065 prefixes are, i.e., URL syntax is understood, e.g.,
5066 .Ql mbox:///tmp/mdirbox :
5067 if a protocol prefix is used the mailbox type is fixated and neither
5068 the auto-detection (read on) nor the
5071 \*(OPally URLs can also be used to access network resources, which may
5072 be accessed securely via
5073 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
5074 if so supported, and it is possible to proxy all network traffic over
5075 a SOCKS5 server given via
5079 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
5080 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
5083 \*(OPally supported network protocols are
5087 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport),
5093 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
5095 Network URLs require a special encoding as documented in the section
5096 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
5099 If the resulting file protocol (MBOX database)
5101 is located on a local filesystem then the list of all registered
5103 s is traversed in order to see whether a transparent intermediate
5104 conversion step is necessary to handle the given mailbox, in which case
5105 \*(UA will use the found hook to load and save data into and from
5106 a temporary file, respectively.
5107 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes.
5108 For example, the following creates hooks for the
5110 compression tool and a combined compressed and encrypted format:
5112 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5114 gzip 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' \e
5115 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
5119 MBOX databases will always be protected via file-region locks
5121 during file operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to
5122 concurrent modifications.
5123 .Mx -ix "dotlock files"
5124 \*(OP In addition mailbox files treated as the system
5129 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
5130 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files,
5131 the traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
5135 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
5136 as necessary an external privileged dotlock helper will be used
5137 to create the dotlock file in the same directory and with the same user
5138 and group identities as the file of interest.
5140 can be used to turn off additional dotlock files, shall the need arise.
5143 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
5144 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
5145 complain (even more with
5147 if any is seen: in this case
5149 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
5152 \*(OP If no protocol has been fixated, and
5154 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
5159 then it is treated as a folder in
5162 The maildir format stores each message in its own file, and has been
5163 designed so that file locking is not necessary when reading or writing
5167 \*(ID If no protocol has been fixated and no existing file has
5168 been found, the variable
5170 controls the format of mailboxes yet to be created.
5175 .It Ic filetype , unfiletype
5176 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, file handler hooks,
5177 which provide (shell) commands that enable \*(UA to load and save MBOX
5178 files from and to files with the registered file extensions;
5179 it will use an intermediate temporary file to store the plain data.
5180 The latter command removes the hooks for all given extensions,
5182 will remove all existing handlers.
5184 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
5185 defined file hooks, with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
5186 Otherwise three arguments are expected, the first specifying the file
5187 extension for which the hook is meant, and the second and third defining
5188 the load- and save commands, respectively, to deal with the file type,
5189 both of which must read from standard input and write to standard
5191 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes (\*(ID except below).
5192 \*(ID For now too much work is done, and files are oftened read in twice
5193 where once would be sufficient: this can cause problems if a filetype is
5194 changed while such a file is opened; this was already so with the
5195 built-in support of .gz etc. in Heirloom, and will vanish in v15.
5196 \*(ID For now all handler strings are passed to the
5197 .Ev SHELL for evaluation purposes; in the future a
5199 prefix to load and save commands may mean to bypass this shell instance:
5200 placing a leading space will avoid any possible misinterpretations.
5201 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5202 ? filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
5203 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
5204 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
5205 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
5206 ? set record=+sent.zst.pgp
5211 .It Ic flag , unflag
5212 Take message lists and mark the messages as being flagged, or not being
5213 flagged, respectively, for urgent/special attention.
5215 .Sx "Message states" .
5224 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
5225 With an existing folder as an argument,
5226 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
5232 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5233 recipient's address (instead of in
5240 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5241 recipient's address (instead of in
5248 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
5253 .It Ic followupsender
5256 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
5264 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
5265 recipient's address (instead of in
5270 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
5271 and forwards the message to him.
5272 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
5273 with the value of the
5274 .Va forward-inject-head
5275 variable preceding, and the value of
5276 .Va forward-inject-tail
5278 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
5280 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
5282 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
5283 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
5284 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names
5285 etc. unless the internal variable
5289 This may generate the errors
5290 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5291 if no receiver has been specified,
5293 if some addressees where rejected by
5296 if no applicable messages have been given,
5298 if multiple messages have been specified,
5300 if an I/O error occurs,
5302 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5308 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
5309 their message headers, exactly as via
5311 making the first message of the result the new
5313 (the last message if
5316 An alias of this command is
5319 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5330 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5334 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5337 .It Ic ghost , unghost
5340 .Ic uncommandalias .
5344 .It Ic headerpick , unheaderpick
5345 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to manage white- and blacklisting
5346 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
5347 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
5348 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
5349 command applies, one of (case-insensitive)
5351 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
5354 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
5360 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
5361 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
5363 for stripping down messages when
5365 ing message (has no effect if
5366 .Va forward-as-attachment
5369 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
5372 The current settings of the given context are displayed if it is the
5374 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
5375 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
5379 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
5380 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
5383 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
5384 will be displayed, otherwise the remaining arguments specify header
5385 fields, which \*(OPally may be given as regular expressions, to be added
5387 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
5389 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields.
5391 The latter command always takes three or more arguments and can be used
5392 to remove selections, i.e., from the given context, the given type of
5393 list, all the given headers will be removed, the special argument
5395 will remove all headers.
5399 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
5402 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
5404 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
5405 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
5408 the last message is targeted if
5419 \*(OP Without arguments or when given
5421 all history entries are shown (this mode also supports a more
5425 will replace the list of entries with the content of
5429 will dump the current list to said file, replacing former content.
5431 will delete all history entries.
5432 The argument can also be a signed decimal
5434 which will select and evaluate the respective history entry, and move it
5435 to the top of the history; a negative number is used as an offset to the
5436 current command, e.g.,
5438 will select the last command, the history top.
5440 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
5441 for more on this topic.
5447 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
5452 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5454 Does not override the
5457 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
5459 command issued after
5461 will display the following message, not the current one.
5466 (i) Part of the nestable
5467 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
5468 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
5469 the encapsulated block is executed.
5470 The POSIX standards supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
5475 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions.
5476 \*(ID These commands do not yet use
5477 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5478 and therefore do not know about input tokens, so that syntax
5479 elements have to be surrounded by whitespace; in v15 \*(UA will inspect
5480 all conditions bracket group wise and consider the tokens, representing
5481 values and operators, therein, which also means that variables will
5482 already have been expanded at that time (just like in the shell).
5484 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5493 The (case-insensitive) condition
5495 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
5496 in interactive sessions.
5497 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
5498 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5499 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
5502 .Dq always execute .
5503 (It shall be remarked that a faulty condition skips all branches until
5508 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5509 will be used, and this command will simply interpret expanded tokens.)
5510 It is possible to check
5511 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5514 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
5515 value or another variable by using the
5517 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
5518 conditional trigger character;
5519 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
5521 Variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
5522 When this mode has been triggered, several operators are available:
5525 Integer operators treat the arguments on the left and right hand side of
5526 the operator as integral numbers and compare them arithmetically.
5527 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
5528 argument (which implies it had been quoted) is treated as if it were 0.
5529 Available operators are
5533 (less than or equal to),
5539 (greater than or equal to), and
5544 String data operators compare the left and right hand side according to
5545 their textual content.
5546 Unset variables are treated as the empty string.
5547 The behaviour of string operators can be adjusted by prefixing the
5548 operator with the modifier trigger commercial at
5550 followed by none to multiple modifiers: for now supported is
5552 which turns the comparison into a case-insensitive one: this is
5553 implied if no modifier follows the trigger.
5556 Available string operators are
5560 (less than or equal to),
5566 (greater than or equal to),
5570 (is substring of) and
5572 (is not substring of).
5573 By default these operators work on bytes and (therefore) do not take
5574 into account character set specifics.
5575 If the case-insensitivity modifier has been used, case is ignored
5576 according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding, i.e., bytes are
5580 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
5586 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
5587 matched according to the active locale (see
5588 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
5589 i.e., character sets should be honoured correctly.
5592 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
5594 and the OR operator is
5596 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
5597 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
5599 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
5600 them in pairs of brackets
5601 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
5602 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
5606 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
5607 via unary operators: the unary operator
5609 will reverse the result.
5611 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5612 # (This not in v15, there [ -n "$debug"]!)
5616 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || \e
5617 [ "$ttycharset" @i== UTF8 ]
5618 echo *ttycharset* is UTF-8, the former case-sensitive!
5621 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
5622 echo These two variables are equal
5624 if [ "$features" =% +regex ] && \e
5625 [ "$TERM" @i=~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
5626 echo ..in an X terminal
5628 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
5629 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
5632 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
5633 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
5642 Superseded by the multiplexer
5647 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
5648 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
5649 in which command prefixes are searched.
5650 \*(OP In conjunction with a set variable
5652 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
5653 type will be indicated, the documentation string will be shown,
5654 and the set of command flags will show up:
5656 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql NEEDS_BOX"
5658 command supports the command modifier
5661 command supports the command modifier
5664 the error number is tracked in
5667 commands needs an active mailbox, a
5669 .It Ql "ok: batch/interactive"
5670 command may only be used in interactive or
5673 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
5674 command can be used in send mode.
5675 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
5676 command is not available when in compose mode.
5677 .It Ql "not ok: startup"
5678 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
5679 .Sx "Resource files" .
5680 .It Ql "ok: subprocess"
5681 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
5682 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
5683 .Va on-compose-splice .
5685 The command produces
5694 This command can be used to localize changes to (linked)
5697 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
5698 meaning that their state will be reverted to the former one once the
5701 Just like the command modifier
5703 which provides block-scope localization for some commands (instead),
5704 it can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
5708 The covered scope of an
5710 is left once a different account is activated, and some macros, notably
5711 .Va folder-hook Ns s ,
5712 use their own specific notion of covered scope, here it will be extended
5713 until the folder is left again.
5716 This setting stacks up: i.e., if
5718 enables change localization and calls
5720 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
5722 will still be reverted when the scope of
5725 (Caveats: if in this example
5727 changes to a different
5729 which sets some variables that are already covered by localizations,
5730 their scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
5732 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
5733 were defined in a local, macro private context!)
5736 This command takes one or two arguments, the optional first one
5737 specifies an attribute that may be one of
5739 which refers to the current scope and is thus the default,
5741 which causes any macro that is being
5743 ed to be started with localization enabled by default, as well as
5745 which (if enabled) disallows any called macro to turn off localization:
5746 like this it can be ensured that once the current scope regains control,
5747 any changes made in deeper levels have been reverted.
5748 The latter two are mutually exclusive, and neither affects
5750 The (second) argument is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
5751 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" )
5752 and states whether the given attribute shall be turned on or off.
5754 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5755 define temporary_settings {
5756 set possibly_global_option1
5758 set localized_option1
5759 set localized_option2
5761 set possibly_global_option2
5768 Reply to messages that come in via known
5771 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
5772 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
5773 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
5776 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
5777 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
5779 For example it will also implicitly generate a
5780 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
5781 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
5783 For more documentation please refer to
5784 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5786 This may generate the errors
5787 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5788 if no receiver has been specified,
5790 if some addressees where rejected by
5793 if no applicable messages have been given,
5795 if an I/O error occurs,
5797 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5800 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5806 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5807 recipient's address (instead of in
5812 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
5813 or asks on standard input if none were given;
5814 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
5815 Unless the internal variable
5817 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5818 For more documentation please refer to
5819 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5821 This may generate the errors
5822 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5823 if no receiver has been specified,
5825 if some addressees where rejected by
5828 if no applicable messages have been given,
5830 if multiple messages have been specified,
5832 if an I/O error occurs,
5834 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5840 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to the
5842 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5844 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
5847 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
5849 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5853 .It Ic mimetype , unmimetype
5854 Without arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed;
5855 a more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5860 When given arguments they will be joined, interpreted as shown in
5861 .Sx "The mime.types files"
5863 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) ,
5864 and the resulting entry will be added (prepended) to the cache.
5865 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
5866 .Va mimetypes-load-control
5867 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
5869 The latter command deletes all specifications of the given MIME type, thus
5870 .Ql ? unmimetype text/plain
5871 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5875 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5877 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5878 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5882 .It Ic mlist , unmlist
5883 The latter command removes all given mailing lists, the special name
5885 can be used to remove all registered lists.
5886 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists (and their
5887 attributes, if any) when used without arguments; a more verbose listing
5888 will be produced if either of
5893 Otherwise all given arguments will be added and henceforth be recognized
5895 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then any argument
5896 which contains any of the
5898 regular expression characters
5902 will be interpreted as one, which allows matching of many addresses with
5903 a single expression.
5906 pair of commands manages subscription attributes of mailing lists.
5910 \*(ID Only available in interactive mode, this command allows one to
5911 display MIME parts which require external MIME handler programs to run
5912 which do not integrate in \*(UAs normal
5915 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
5916 (\*(ID No syntax to directly address parts, this restriction may vanish.)
5917 The user will be asked for each non-text part of the given message in
5918 turn whether the registered handler shall be used to display the part.
5922 .It Ic mlsubscribe , unmlsubscribe
5923 The latter command removes the subscription attribute from all given
5924 mailing lists, the special name
5926 can be used to do so for any registered list.
5927 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists which have
5928 a subscription attribute when used without arguments; a more verbose
5929 listing will be produced if either of
5934 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
5935 newly creating them as necessary (as via
5944 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
5945 sender address of the first message (instead of in
5952 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
5959 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5961 selection, and all MIME parts.
5969 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5970 standard output is a terminal.
5976 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
5978 has been given the content of the
5980 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
5983 then the cache will only be initialized and
5985 will remove its contents.
5986 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
5987 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
5988 to unlock further attempts.
5993 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5995 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5996 documents the file format in detail.
6000 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
6002 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
6006 the headers of each new message are also shown.
6007 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
6015 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
6016 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
6030 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
6032 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
6038 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
6040 selection, and all MIME parts.
6048 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
6049 standard output is a terminal.
6057 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
6059 selection, and all parts of MIME
6060 .Ql multipart/alternative
6065 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
6066 and pipes the messages through the command.
6067 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
6074 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
6095 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
6098 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6100 preserving all messages marked with
6104 or never referenced in the system
6106 and removing all other messages from the
6108 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
6109 If new mail has arrived during the session,
6111 .Dq You have new mail
6113 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
6115 then the edit file is rewritten.
6116 A return to the shell is effected,
6117 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
6118 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
6119 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
6121 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
6122 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
6123 otherwise success indicating status.
6127 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, or the channel set active via
6129 and assign the data, which will be split as indicated by
6131 to the given variables.
6132 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
6134 and the same error codes will be seen in
6138 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
6140 with the error number
6144 in case of I/O errors, or
6147 If there are more fields than variables, assigns successive fields to the
6148 last given variable.
6149 If there are less fields than variables, assigns the empty string to the
6151 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6154 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
6156 ? wysh set ifs=:; read a b c;unset ifs
6157 hey2.0,:"'you ",:world!:mars.:
6158 ? echo $?/$^ERRNAME / <$a><$b><$c>
6159 0/NONE / <hey2.0,><"'you ",><world!:mars.:><><>
6164 \*(NQ Read anything from standard input, or the channel set active via
6166 and assign the data to the given variable.
6167 The variable name is checked by the same rules as documented for
6169 and the same error codes will be seen in
6173 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
6175 with the error number
6179 in case of I/O errors, or
6182 \*(ID The input data length is restricted to 31-bits.
6186 \*(NQ Manages input channels for
6190 to be used to avoid complicated or impracticable code, like calling
6192 from within a macro in non-interactive mode.
6193 Without arguments, or when the first argument is
6195 a listing of all known channels is printed.
6196 Channels can otherwise be
6198 d, and existing channels can be
6202 d by giving the string used for creation.
6204 The channel name is expected to be a file descriptor number, or,
6205 if parsing the numeric fails, an input file name that undergoes
6206 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
6207 E.g. (this example requires a modern shell):
6208 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6209 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enyou\enecho $a' |\e
6212 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enecho $a' |\e
6213 LC_ALL=C 6<<< 'you' \*(uA -R#X'readctl create 6'
6227 Removes the named files or directories.
6228 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6229 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
6231 are performed on the arguments.
6232 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
6233 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
6234 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
6238 Takes the name of an existing folder
6239 and the name for the new folder
6240 and renames the first to the second one.
6241 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6242 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
6244 are performed on both arguments.
6245 Both folders must be of the same type.
6249 (R) Replies to only the sender of each message of the given message
6250 list, by using the first message as the template to quote, for the
6254 will exchange this command with
6256 Unless the internal variable
6258 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
6260 headers will be inspected if
6264 This may generate the errors
6265 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6266 if no receiver has been specified,
6268 if some addressees where rejected by
6271 if no applicable messages have been given,
6273 if an I/O error occurs,
6275 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6281 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
6282 and all recipients, subject to
6286 .Va followup-to-honour ,
6289 .Va recipients-in-cc
6290 influence response behaviour.
6291 Unless the internal variable
6293 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
6303 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
6304 For more documentation please refer to
6305 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
6307 This may generate the errors
6308 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6309 if no receiver has been specified,
6311 if some addressees where rejected by
6314 if no applicable messages have been given,
6316 if an I/O error occurs,
6318 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6321 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6327 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
6334 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
6341 but does not add any header lines.
6342 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
6343 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
6347 Takes a list of messages and a user name
6348 and sends each message to the named user.
6350 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
6353 is only performed if
6357 This may generate the errors
6358 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6359 if no receiver has been specified,
6361 if some addressees where rejected by
6364 if no applicable messages have been given,
6366 if an I/O error occurs,
6368 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6371 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6389 .It Ic respondsender
6395 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
6400 Only available inside the scope of a
6404 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
6405 execution control to the caller.
6406 The two optional parameters must be specified as positive decimal
6407 numbers and default to the value 0:
6408 the first argument specifies the signed 32-bit return value (stored in
6410 \*(ID and later extended to signed 64-bit),
6411 the second the signed 32-bit error number (stored in
6415 a non-0 exit status may cause the program to exit.
6421 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
6422 sender of the first message instead of (in
6424 and) taking a filename argument; the variable
6426 is inspected to decide on the actual storage location.
6430 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
6431 to the end of the file.
6432 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6433 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
6435 is performed on the filename.
6436 If no filename is given, the
6438 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6441 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
6442 is echoed on the user's terminal.
6445 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
6446 the messages are marked for deletion.
6447 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6449 To filter the saved header fields to the desired subset use the
6451 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
6455 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6459 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6463 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6468 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
6469 all matching messages, as via
6471 This command is an alias of
6474 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
6478 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
6484 (se, \*(NQ uns) The latter command will delete all given global
6485 variables, or only block-scope local ones if the
6487 command modifier has been used.
6488 The former, when used without arguments, will show all
6489 currently known variables, being more verbose if either of
6494 Remarks: this list mode will not automatically link-in known
6496 variables, but only explicit addressing will, e.g., via
6498 using a variable in an
6500 condition or a string passed to
6504 ting, as well as some program-internal use cases.
6507 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
6508 Arguments are of the form
6510 (no space before or after
6514 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
6515 If a name begins with
6519 the effect is the same as invoking the
6521 command with the remaining part of the variable
6522 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
6523 \*(ID In conjunction with the
6525 .Pf (or\0 Cm local )
6527 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
6528 can be used to quote arguments as necessary.
6529 \*(ID Otherwise quotation marks may be placed around any part of the
6530 assignment statement to quote blanks or tabs.
6533 When operating in global scope any
6535 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
6536 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
6537 environment requires corresponding system support) \(em use the command
6539 for further environmental control.
6540 If the command modifier
6542 has been used to alter the command to work in block-scope all variables
6543 have values (may they be empty), and creation of names which shadow
6544 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6545 is actively prevented (\*(ID shadowing of linked
6547 variables and free-form versions of variable chains is not yet detected).
6551 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6555 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6556 ? wysh set indentprefix=' -> '
6557 ? wysh set atab=$'\t' aspace=' ' zero=0
6563 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
6567 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6568 The first argument specifies the operation:
6572 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
6573 expanded away thereof, respectively.
6574 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
6575 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
6576 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
6577 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
6578 If the coding operation fails the error number
6581 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6582 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6583 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6587 \*(NQ (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell,
6588 and returns its exit status.
6592 .It Ic shortcut , unshortcut
6593 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
6594 shown, with one argument the expansion of the given shortcut.
6595 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
6596 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
6598 The latter command will remove all given shortcuts, the special name
6600 will remove all registered shortcuts.
6604 \*(NQ Shift the positional parameter stack (starting at
6606 by the given number (which must be a positive decimal),
6607 or 1 if no argument has been given.
6608 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
6609 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
6610 The stack as such can be managed via
6612 Note this command will fail in
6614 and hook macros unless the positional parameter stack has been
6615 explicitly created in the current context via
6622 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
6623 message text is shown.
6627 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
6632 \*(NQ Sleep for the specified number of seconds (and optionally
6633 milliseconds), by default interruptably.
6634 If a third argument is given the sleep will be uninterruptible,
6635 otherwise the error number
6639 if the sleep has been interrupted.
6640 The command will fail and the error number will be
6641 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6642 if the given duration(s) overflow the time datatype, and
6644 if the given durations are no valid integers.
6649 .It Ic sort , unsort
6650 The latter command disables sorted or threaded mode, returns to normal
6651 message order and, if the
6654 displays a header summary.
6655 The former command shows the current sorting criterion when used without
6656 an argument, but creates a sorted representation of the current folder
6657 otherwise, and changes the
6659 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
6661 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
6665 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
6666 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
6668 variable, as in, e.g.,
6669 .Ql set autosort=thread .
6670 Possible sorting criterions are:
6673 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
6675 Sort the messages by their
6677 field, that is by the time they were sent.
6679 Sort messages by the value of their
6681 field, that is by the address of the sender.
6684 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
6686 Sort the messages by their size.
6688 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
6691 Sort the messages by their message status.
6693 Sort the messages by their subject.
6695 Create a threaded display.
6697 Sort messages by the value of their
6699 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
6702 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
6708 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
6709 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6711 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
6713 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
6714 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
6715 Dependent on the settings of
6719 and also dependent on whether the command modifier
6721 had been used, encountering errors will stop sourcing of the given input.
6724 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
6725 .Va folder-hook Ns s
6728 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
6733 \*(NQ The difference to
6735 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
6736 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
6737 argument cannot be opened successfully.
6741 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
6747 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
6749 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
6750 Unless otherwise noted the
6752 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
6760 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6764 This also clears the
6766 flag of the messages in question.
6770 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
6771 .Va spam-interface ,
6772 without modifying the messages, but setting their
6774 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
6775 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
6776 Refer to the manual section
6778 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
6782 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
6788 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6794 flag of the messages in question.
6810 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
6814 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
6816 lines of each message on the user's terminal.
6817 Unless a special selection has been established for the
6821 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
6832 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
6834 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6839 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
6841 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6843 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
6846 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
6852 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
6854 selection, and all visualizable parts of MIME
6855 .Ql multipart/alternative
6860 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the user's terminal.
6861 The display of message headers is selectable via
6863 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
6865 all parts which have a registered MIME type handler (see
6866 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
6867 which produces plain text output, and all
6869 parts are shown, others are hidden except for their headers.
6870 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6874 can be used to display parts which are not displayable as plain text.
6917 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6921 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6926 Superseded by the multiplexer
6937 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
6948 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
6952 Superseded by the multiplexer
6956 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6960 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6982 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
6983 according to RFC 3986.
6987 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
6988 and manages the error number
6990 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
6991 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current
6993 \*(ID This command does not know about URLs beside that.
6995 The first argument specifies the operation:
6999 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
7003 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
7004 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
7006 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
7010 as an initial character.
7011 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
7012 If the coding operation fails the error number
7015 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
7016 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
7017 change again due to output or result storage errors.
7021 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
7025 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
7029 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
7030 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
7031 verification will fail for it.
7032 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
7034 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
7035 within the certificate,
7036 and if the message content has been altered.
7044 of \*(UA, as well as the build and running system environment.
7045 This command can produce a more
7047 output, and supports
7050 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
7055 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
7056 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
7057 numeric calculations as well as byte string and string operations.
7058 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
7059 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
7060 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
7064 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
7067 The result that is shown in case of errors is always
7069 for usage errors and numeric operations, and the empty string for byte
7070 string and string operations;
7071 if the latter two fail to provide result data for
7073 errors, e.g., when a search operation failed, they also set the
7076 .Va ^ERR Ns -NODATA .
7077 Except when otherwise noted numeric arguments are parsed as signed 64-bit
7078 numbers, and errors will be reported in the error number
7080 as the numeric error
7081 .Va ^ERR Ns -RANGE .
7084 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
7085 Numbers prefixed with
7089 are interpreted as hexadecimal (base 16) numbers, whereas
7091 indicates octal (base 8), and
7095 denote binary (base 2) numbers.
7096 It is possible to use any base in between 2 and 36, inclusive, with the
7098 notation, where the base is given as an unsigned decimal number, e.g.,
7100 is a different way of specifying a hexadecimal number.
7101 Unsigned interpretation of a number can be enforced by prefixing a
7103 (case-insensitively), e.g.,
7105 this is not necessary for power-of-two bases (2, 4, 8, 16 and 32),
7106 which will be interpreted as unsigned by default, but it still makes
7107 a difference regarding overflow detection and overflow constant.
7108 It is possible to enforce signed interpretation by (instead) prefixing a
7110 (case-insensitively).
7113 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
7115 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
7116 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
7118 which creates the bitwise complement.
7119 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
7121 subtraction (hyphen-minus
7123 multiplication (asterisk
7127 and modulo (percent sign
7129 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
7132 bitwise and (ampersand
7135 bitwise xor (circumflex
7137 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
7140 as well as for the unsigned right shift
7144 Another numeric operation is
7146 which takes a number base in between 2 and 36, inclusive, and will act
7147 on the second number given just the same as what equals sign
7149 does, but the number result will be formatted in the base given.
7152 All numeric operators can be prefixed with a commercial at
7156 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
7157 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are no longer reported
7158 via the exit status, but the result will linger at the minimum or
7159 maximum possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
7160 This is true also for the argument parse step.
7161 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
7162 Any catched overflow will be reported via the error number
7165 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
7166 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7167 ? vexpr @- +1 -9223372036854775808
7168 ? echo $?/$!/$^ERRNAME
7172 Character set agnostic string functions have no notion of locale
7173 settings and character sets.
7175 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm random"
7178 .Sx "Filename transformations"
7181 Generates a random string of the given length, or of
7183 bytes (a constant from
7185 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
7186 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a (portable) filename.
7190 Byte string operations work on 8-bit bytes and have no notion of locale
7191 settings and character sets, effectively assuming ASCII data.
7194 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm length"
7196 Queries the length of the given argument.
7199 Calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given argument.
7202 Byte-searches in the first for the second argument.
7203 Shows the resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found.
7208 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
7212 Creates a substring of its first argument.
7213 The second argument is the 0-based starting offset, a negative one
7214 counts from the end;
7215 the optional third argument specifies the length of the desired result,
7216 a negative length leaves off the given number of bytes at the end of the
7217 original string, by default the entire string is used;
7218 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments (set
7220 for error logs), but reports them via the error number
7223 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
7226 Trim away whitespace characters from both ends of the argument.
7229 Trim away whitespace characters from the begin of the argument.
7232 Trim away whitespace characters from the end of the argument.
7237 String operations work, sufficient support provided, according to the
7238 active user's locale encoding and character set (see
7239 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
7242 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm regex"
7244 (One-way) Converts the argument to something safely printable on the
7248 \*(OP A string operation that will try to match the first argument with
7249 the regular expression given as the second argument.
7250 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
7251 the match offset a replacement operation is performed: the third
7252 argument is treated as if specified within dollar-single-quote (see
7253 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
7254 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
7256 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression:
7257 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7258 ? vput vexpr res regex bananarama \e
7259 (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
7260 ? echo $?/$!/$^ERRNAME: $res
7264 On otherwise identical case-insensitive equivalent to
7266 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7267 ? vput vexpr res ire bananarama \e
7268 (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
7269 ? echo $?/$!/$^ERRNAME: $res
7276 \*(NQ Manage the positional parameter stack (see
7280 If the first argument is
7282 then the positional parameter stack of the current context, or the
7283 global one, if there is none, is cleared.
7286 then the remaining arguments will be used to (re)create the stack,
7287 if the parameter stack size limit is excessed an
7288 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
7292 If the first argument is
7294 a round-trip capable representation of the stack contents is created,
7295 with each quoted parameter separated from each other with the first
7298 and followed by the first character of
7300 if that is not empty and not identical to the first.
7301 If that results in no separation at all a
7307 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
7308 I.e., the subcommands
7312 can be used (in conjunction with
7314 to (re)create an argument stack from and to a single variable losslessly.
7316 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7317 ? vpospar set hey, "'you ", world!
7318 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7319 ? vput vpospar x quote
7321 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7322 ? eval vpospar set ${x}
7323 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7329 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the
7331 display editor on each message.
7332 Modified contents are discarded unless the
7334 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
7335 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
7337 can be used instead for a less display oriented editor.
7341 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
7342 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
7344 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
7345 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
7346 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
7347 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
7348 depends on the execution mode.
7349 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
7351 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
7352 the processed parts.
7353 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
7354 value, the same result as writing it to
7356 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
7358 character for the filename is supported.
7359 Other user input undergoes the usual
7360 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7361 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
7363 and shell variable expansion for the message as such, not the individual
7364 parts, and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
7367 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
7368 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
7369 URL percent encoded (as via
7371 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
7372 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
7373 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
7374 a dot are appended after a number sign
7376 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
7381 \*(NQ The sole difference to
7383 is that the new macro is executed in place of the current one, which
7384 will not regain control: all resources of the current macro will be
7386 This implies that any setting covered by
7388 will be forgotten and covered variables will become cleaned up.
7389 If this command is not used from within a
7391 ed macro it will silently be (a more expensive variant of)
7401 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
7403 fuls as described under the
7406 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
7407 likewise if the argument is
7411 scrolls to the last,
7413 scrolls to the first, and
7418 A number argument prefixed by
7422 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
7423 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
7429 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
7440 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
7441 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7443 Command escapes are available in compose mode, and are used to perform
7444 special functions when composing messages.
7445 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines, and
7446 consist of a trigger (escape), and a command character.
7447 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
7449 it defaults to the tilde
7451 Otherwise ignored whitespace characters following the escape character
7452 will prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
7456 Unless otherwise noted all compose mode command escapes ensure proper
7457 updates of the variables which represent the error number
7463 is set they will, unless stated otherwise, error out message compose mode
7464 and cause a program exit if an operation fails;
7465 an effect equivalent to the command modifier
7467 can however be achieved by placing a hyphen-minus
7469 after (possible whitespace following) the escape character.
7470 If the \*(OPal key bindings are available it is possible to create
7472 ings specifically for the compose mode.
7475 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
7478 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
7480 (If the escape character has been changed,
7481 that character must be doubled instead.)
7484 .It Ic ~! Ar command
7485 Execute the indicated shell
7487 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
7488 executed command if the internal variable
7490 is set, then return to the message.
7494 End compose mode and send the message.
7496 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
7498 .Va on-compose-splice ,
7499 in order, will be called when set, after which
7501 will be checked, a set
7502 .Va on-compose-leave
7503 hook will be called,
7507 will be joined in if set,
7509 will be honoured in interactive mode, finally a given
7510 .Va message-inject-tail
7511 will be incorporated, after which the compose mode is left.
7514 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
7515 Execute the given \*(UA command.
7516 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
7519 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
7524 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
7526 is executed using the shell.
7527 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
7531 \*(OP Write a summary of command escapes.
7534 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
7535 Append or edit the list of attachments.
7536 Does not manage the error number
7542 instead if this is a concern).
7543 The append mode expects a list of
7545 arguments as shell tokens (see
7546 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
7547 token-separating commas are ignored, too), to be
7548 interpreted as documented for the command line option
7550 with the message number exception as below.
7554 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
7555 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
7556 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
7557 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
7560 In non-interactive mode or in batch mode
7562 the list of attachments is effectively not edited but instead recreated;
7563 again, an empty input ends list creation.
7565 For all modes, if a given filename solely consists of the number sign
7567 followed by either a valid message number of the currently active
7568 mailbox, or by a period
7570 referring to the current message of the active mailbox, the so-called
7572 then the given message is attached as a
7575 The number sign must be quoted to avoid misinterpretation with the shell
7579 .It Ic ~| Ar command
7580 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
7581 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
7582 retain the original text of the message.
7585 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
7589 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
7590 Low-level command meant for scripted message access, i.e., for
7591 .Va on-compose-splice
7593 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
7594 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
7595 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
7596 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
7597 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
7598 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
7599 Does not manage the error number
7603 because errors are reported via the protocol
7604 (hard errors like I/O failures cannot be handled).
7605 This command has read-only access to several virtual pseudo headers in
7606 the \*(UA private namespace, which may not exist (except for the first):
7610 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7611 .It Ql Mailx-Command:
7612 The name of the command that generates the message, one of
7620 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-To:
7621 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Cc:
7622 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Bcc:
7623 Represent the frozen initial state of these headers before any
7624 transformation (e.g.,
7627 .Va recipients-in-cc
7630 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-From:
7631 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-To:
7632 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Cc:
7633 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Bcc:
7634 The values of said headers of the original message which has been
7636 .Ic reply , forward , resend .
7640 The status codes are:
7644 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql 210"
7646 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
7649 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7650 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
7651 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
7652 plain address, e.g.,
7654 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
7655 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
7656 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
7657 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7658 commands can be issued.
7661 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7662 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
7663 terminated by an empty line.
7664 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7665 commands can be issued.
7668 Syntax error; invalid command.
7671 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
7674 Error: an argument fails verification.
7675 For example an invalid address has been specified, or an attempt was
7676 made to modify anything in \*(UA's own namespace.
7679 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
7680 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
7681 a single address only.
7686 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
7688 Most commands can fail with
7690 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
7691 The following (case-insensitive) commands are supported:
7694 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm header"
7696 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
7697 Header name case is not normalized, and case-insensitive comparison
7698 should be used when matching names.
7699 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7701 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7703 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
7705 this command is the default command of
7707 if no second argument has been given.
7708 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
7711 if no such field is defined.
7714 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
7715 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
7719 any failure results in
7723 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
7728 if no such header can be found, and
7730 on \*(UA namespace violations.
7733 This will remove from the header given as the third argument the
7734 instance at the list position (counting from one!) given with the fourth
7739 if the list position argument is not a number or on \*(UA namespace
7742 if no such header instance exists.
7745 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
7746 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
7747 (the remains of the line).
7750 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
7751 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
7753 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks or
7754 on \*(UA namespace violations, and
7756 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
7758 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
7761 is returned upon success, followed by the name of the header and the list
7762 position of the newly inserted instance.
7763 The list position is always 1 for single-instance header fields.
7764 All free-form header fields are managed in a single list.
7769 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
7770 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7772 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7774 List all attachments via
7778 if no attachments exist.
7779 This command is the default command of
7781 if no second argument has been given.
7784 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
7788 if no such attachment can be found.
7789 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
7790 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
7791 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
7792 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
7793 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
7796 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
7798 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
7799 will be searched for
7801 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
7802 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
7807 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
7808 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
7812 if the argument is not a number or
7814 if no such attachment exists.
7817 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
7818 documented for the command line option
7820 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
7824 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
7826 if the given file cannot be opened,
7828 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
7830 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
7831 requested but not available.
7834 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7836 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
7840 if no such attachment can be found.
7841 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
7842 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
7846 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7848 and is otherwise identical to
7851 .It Cm attribute-set
7852 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7854 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
7855 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
7856 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
7857 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
7858 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
7862 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
7864 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
7866 if no such attachment can be found.
7867 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
7869 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".It Ql filename"
7871 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
7872 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
7873 .It Ql content-description
7874 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
7875 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
7877 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
7878 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
7881 upon address content verification failure.
7883 Defines the media type/subtype of the part, which is managed
7884 automatically, but can be overwritten.
7885 .It Ql content-disposition
7886 Automatically set to the string
7890 .It Cm attribute-set-at
7891 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7893 and is otherwise identical to
7902 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \| Va Sign .
7907 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \| Va sign .
7910 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
7911 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
7914 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
7915 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
7919 Read the file specified by the
7921 variable into the message.
7927 on the message collected so far, then return to compose mode.
7929 can be used for a more display oriented editor.
7932 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
7933 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
7934 message headers and MIME parts.
7935 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7939 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
7940 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
7941 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7943 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7945 white- and blacklist selection of
7947 For MIME multipart messages,
7948 only the first displayable part is included.
7952 Edit the message header fields
7957 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7958 The default values for these fields originate from the
7966 Edit the message header fields
7972 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7975 .It Ic ~I Ar variable
7976 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message.
7977 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7978 Any embedded character sequences
7980 horizontal tabulator and
7982 line feed are expanded in
7984 mode; otherwise the expansion should occur at
7986 time (\*(ID by using the command modifier
7990 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
7993 but appends a newline character.
7996 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
7997 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
8000 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
8004 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
8005 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
8008 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
8010 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
8012 white- and blacklist selection of
8014 For MIME multipart messages,
8015 only the first displayable part is included.
8019 Display the message collected so far,
8020 prefaced by the message header fields
8021 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
8025 Read in the given / current message(s) according to the algorithm of
8030 Abort the message being sent,
8031 copying it to the file specified by the
8038 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
8041 but indent each line that has been read by
8045 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
8046 Read the named file, object to the usual
8047 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
8048 into the message; if (the expanded)
8052 then standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
8053 Only in this latter mode
8055 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
8057 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
8059 is a required argument in non-interactive mode; if it is single-quote
8060 quoted then the pasted content will not be expanded, \*(ID otherwise
8061 a future version of \*(UA may perform shell-style expansion on the content.
8065 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
8066 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
8067 normalized to space (SP) characters.
8070 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
8071 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
8074 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
8075 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
8079 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
8080 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
8086 editor on the message collected so far, then return to compose mode.
8088 can be used for a less display oriented editor.
8091 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
8092 Write the message onto the named file, which is object to the usual
8093 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
8095 the message is appended to it.
8101 except that the message is not saved at all.
8107 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
8108 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
8110 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
8114 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
8118 has the same effect as using
8125 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
8127 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
8128 Both commands support a more
8131 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
8134 implicitly, others can be imported explicitly with the command
8136 and henceforth share said properties.
8139 Two different kinds of internal variables exist, and both of which can
8141 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
8145 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
8146 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
8147 introduction of the section
8149 documents the supported quoting rules.
8151 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8152 ? wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
8153 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
8154 varshow one two three four; \e
8155 unset one two three four
8159 Dependent upon the actual option string values may become interpreted as
8160 colour names, command specifications, normal text, etc.
8161 They may be treated as numbers, in which case decimal values are
8162 expected if so documented, but otherwise any numeric format and
8163 base that is valid and understood by the
8165 command may be used, too.
8168 There also exists a special kind of string value, the
8169 .Dq boolean string ,
8170 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
8174 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
8180 for a false boolean and
8186 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
8188 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
8189 (case-insensitive) term
8193 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
8194 boolean as the default value.
8197 Variable chains extend a plain
8202 .Ql variable-USER@HOST
8210 had been specified in the contextual Uniform Resource Locator URL, see
8211 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
8212 Even though this mechanism is based on URLs no URL percent encoding may
8213 be applied to neither of
8217 variable chains need to be specified using raw data;
8218 the mentioned section contains examples.
8219 Variables which support chains are explicitly documented as such, and
8220 \*(UA treats the base name of any such variable special, meaning that
8221 users should not create custom names like
8223 in order to avoid false classifications and treatment of such variables.
8225 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
8226 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
8227 .Ss "Initial settings"
8229 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
8235 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
8249 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
8251 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
8253 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
8261 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
8270 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
8272 variable \(en use command line options or
8274 to pass options through to a
8276 And the default global
8278 file, which is loaded unless the
8280 (with according argument) or
8282 command line options have been used, or the
8283 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
8284 environment variable is set (see
8285 .Sx "Resource files" )
8286 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
8291 to name a few, establishes a default
8293 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
8296 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
8299 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
8303 \*(RO The exit status of the last command, or the
8308 This status has a meaning in the state machine: in conjunction with
8310 any non-0 exit status will cause a program exit, and in
8312 mode any error while loading (any of the) resource files will have the
8316 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
8317 can be used to instruct the state machine to ignore errors.
8321 \*(RO The current error number
8322 .Pf ( Xr errno 3 ) ,
8323 which is set after an error occurred; it is also available via
8325 and the error name and documentation string can be queried via
8329 \*(ID This machinery is new and the error number is only really usable
8330 if a command explicitly states that it manages the variable
8332 for others errno will be used in case of errors, or
8334 if that is 0: it thus may or may not reflect the real error.
8335 The error number may be set with the command
8341 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
8342 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
8345 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
8349 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
8350 The number, documentation, and name of the current
8352 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
8353 The documentation is an \*(OP, the name is used if not available.
8354 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
8355 explicitly states that it manages the variable
8357 which is effectively identical to
8359 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
8360 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
8361 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
8362 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8364 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1:\e
8365 \e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
8366 vput vexpr i + "$1" 1
8378 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
8380 separated by the first character of the value of
8382 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
8384 are not yet supported.
8388 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
8390 separated by a space character.
8391 If placed in double quotation marks, each positional parameter is
8392 properly quoted to expand to a single parameter again.
8396 \*(RO Expands to the number of positional parameters, i.e., the size of
8397 the positional parameter stack in decimal.
8401 \*(RO Inside the scope of a
8405 ed macro this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
8406 string if the macro is running from top-level.
8407 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
8409 this expands to the entire matching expression.
8410 It represents the program name in global context.
8414 \*(RO Access of the positional parameter stack.
8415 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
8418 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
8420 The parameter stack contains, e.g., the arguments of a
8424 d macro, the matching groups of the \*(OPal regular expression search
8425 and replace expression of
8427 and can be explicitly created or overwritten with the command
8432 \*(RO Is set to the active
8436 .It Va add-file-recipients
8437 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
8438 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
8439 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
8440 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
8444 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
8445 when comparing addresses.
8449 \*(BO Causes messages saved in the
8451 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
8453 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
8454 This should always be set.
8458 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
8462 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
8466 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message.
8467 An empty line finalizes the list.
8471 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
8472 (at the end of each message if
8480 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
8481 recipients (at the end of each message if
8489 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for confirmation to send the
8490 message or reenter compose mode after having been shown an envelope
8492 This is by default enabled.
8496 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
8497 signed at the end of each message.
8500 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
8504 .\" The alternative *ask* is not documented on purpose
8505 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject upon entering compose mode
8506 unless a subject already exists.
8510 A sequence of characters to display in the
8514 as shown in the display of
8516 each for one type of messages (see
8517 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
8518 with the default being
8521 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
8524 variable is set, in the following order:
8526 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
8548 start of a collapsed thread.
8550 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
8554 classified as possible spam.
8560 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
8561 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
8565 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
8566 message will be sent automatically.
8570 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when .Ql thread Ns
8573 mode is entered (see the
8579 \*(BO Enable automatic
8581 ing of a(n existing)
8587 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
8589 is shown automatically, as via
8596 Causes sorted mode (see the
8598 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
8599 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
8600 .Ql set autosort=thread .
8604 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
8607 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
8609 shell escape command and
8611 one of the compose mode
8612 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8613 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
8617 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
8618 input, for example for function and other special keys.
8619 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
8620 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
8621 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
8622 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8623 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
8629 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
8630 has the same affect as setting
8632 and all other variables prefixed with
8634 it also changes the behaviour of
8636 (which does not exist in BSD).
8640 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
8641 summary to traditional BSD style.
8645 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
8650 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
8656 field to appear immediately after the
8658 field in message headers and with the
8660 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8666 .It Va build-cc , build-ld , build-os , build-rest
8667 \*(RO The build environment, including the compiler, the linker, the
8668 operating system \*(UA has been build for, usually taken from
8672 and then lowercased, as well as all the rest that may possibly be useful
8673 to include in a bug report, respectively.
8677 The value that should appear in the
8681 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
8683 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
8684 US-ASCII compatible.
8688 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
8689 member of the variable
8691 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
8692 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise (unless the operating system
8693 environment is known to always and exclusively support UTF-8 locales),
8694 in which case the only supported character set is
8696 and this variable is effectively ignored.
8697 Refer to the section
8698 .Sx "Character sets"
8699 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
8702 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
8703 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
8705 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
8707 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
8708 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
8709 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
8711 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
8712 otherwise the (final) value of
8714 is used for this purpose.
8716 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
8717 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
8718 of a MIME message part that uses the
8720 character set is forcefully treated as text.
8724 The default value for the
8729 .It Va colour-disable
8730 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
8731 Also see the section
8732 .Sx "Coloured display" .
8736 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
8738 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
8746 in order to support colours.
8747 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
8748 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
8750 (see there for more).
8754 .It Va contact-mail , contact-web
8755 \*(RO Addresses for contact per email and web, respectively, e.g., for
8756 bug reports, suggestions, or help regarding \*(UA.
8757 The former can be used directly:
8758 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
8762 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
8763 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
8764 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
8768 can be forced by setting this to the value
8770 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
8771 terminal screen to compute the threshold (see
8776 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
8777 format, which, dependent on the
8779 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
8780 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
8784 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
8786 A custom header consists of the field name followed by a colon
8788 and the field content body.
8789 Standard header field names cannot be overwritten by a custom header.
8790 Different to the command line option
8792 the variable value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom
8793 headers: to include commas in header bodies they need to become escaped
8794 with reverse solidus
8796 Headers can be managed more freely in compose mode via
8799 .Dl ? set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
8803 Controls the appearance of the
8805 date and time format specification of the
8807 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
8809 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
8810 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
8812 It is possible to assign a
8814 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
8816 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
8818 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
8820 .Va datefield-markout-older .
8823 .It Va datefield-markout-older
8824 Only used in conjunction with
8826 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
8827 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
8829 option of the POSIX utility
8831 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
8833 will be displayed, but a
8835 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
8841 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
8842 actual delivery of messages and also implies
8848 .It Va disposition-notification-send
8850 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
8851 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
8855 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
8857 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8858 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
8859 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
8861 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8862 .\"for a specific account.
8866 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
8868 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive or batch
8870 compose mode will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the
8871 normal end-of-file condition).
8872 This behaviour is implied in
8878 .It Va dotlock-disable
8879 \*(BO\*(OP Disable creation of
8884 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
8885 \*(OB\*(BO\*(OP Ignore failures when creating
8887 .Sx "dotlock files" .
8894 If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically when
8895 a message is composed in interactive mode.
8896 If the value starts with the letter
8898 then this acts as if
8902 .Pf (see\0 Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" )
8906 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
8910 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
8911 its header is included in the editable text.
8915 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
8916 .Dq \&No mail for user
8917 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
8918 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or non-existent
8919 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
8925 \*(BO Let each command with a non-0 exit status, including every
8929 s a non-0 status, cause a program exit unless prefixed by
8932 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
8934 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
8935 but which use a different modifier for ignoring the error.
8936 Please refer to the variable
8938 for more on this topic.
8942 The first character of this value defines the escape character for
8943 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8945 The default value is the character tilde
8947 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
8951 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
8952 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
8953 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
8954 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
8955 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
8957 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
8958 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8962 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
8964 (it actually acts like
8965 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
8966 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8968 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
8971 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
8972 send error instead of only filtering them out.
8973 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
8974 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
8976 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
8980 addresses all possible address specifications,
8984 command pipeline targets,
8986 plain user names and (MTA) aliases and
8989 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
8990 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
8991 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
8992 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
8996 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
8998 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
8999 To change this so that any encountered invalid email address causes
9000 a hard error it must be ensured that
9002 is an entry in the above list.
9003 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
9004 (it actually acts like
9005 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
9006 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
9010 Unless this variable is set additional
9012 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
9013 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
9015 separator, results in a program termination with failure status.
9016 The same can be accomplished by using the special (case-insensitive) value
9018 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
9020 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
9021 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
9025 The empty value will allow unconditional usage.
9029 \*(RO String giving a list of optional features.
9030 Features are preceded with a plus sign
9032 if they are available, with a hyphen-minus
9035 The output of the command
9037 will include this information in a more pleasant output.
9041 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
9042 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
9043 included in the header of a message
9044 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
9045 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
9046 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
9049 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
9051 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
9052 are not affected by the current setting of
9057 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
9058 filenames that begin with the plus sign
9060 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
9061 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
9062 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
9065 for more on this topic.
9066 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
9067 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
9071 will be prefixed automatically.
9072 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
9074 will be updated for caching purposes.
9077 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER , Va folder-hook
9080 macro which will be called whenever a
9083 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
9084 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
9085 only include newly arrived messages then.
9087 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
9088 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
9090 The specialized form will override the generic one if
9092 matches the file that is opened.
9093 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
9094 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
9095 However, if the mailbox resides under
9099 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
9103 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
9104 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
9106 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
9107 first, but then followed by
9108 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
9111 .It Va folder-resolved
9112 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
9114 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
9118 \*(BO Controls whether a
9119 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
9120 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
9122 .Va followup-to-honour
9124 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
9129 .It Va followup-to-honour
9131 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
9132 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
9136 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
9146 .It Va forward-as-attachment
9147 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
9150 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
9151 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
9153 attachments with all of their parts included.
9157 .It Va forward-inject-head , forward-inject-tail
9158 The strings to put before and after the text of a message with the
9160 command, respectively.
9161 The former defaults to
9162 .Ql -------- Original Message --------\en .
9163 Special format directives in these strings will be expanded if possible,
9164 and if so configured the output will be folded according to
9166 for more please refer to
9167 .Va quote-inject-head .
9168 These variables are ignored if the
9169 .Va forward-as-attachment
9175 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
9177 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
9178 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
9179 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
9180 According to that RFC setting the
9182 variable is required if
9184 contains more than one address.
9187 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
9192 If a file-based MTA is used, then
9194 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9196 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
9197 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
9199 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
9200 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
9201 .Va r-option-implicit .
9204 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
9205 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
9209 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities with
9210 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
9211 have to be set; if so the message and MIME part related unique ID fields
9215 will be created (except when disallowed by
9216 .Va message-id-disable
9223 \*(BO Due to historical reasons comments and name parts of email
9224 addresses are removed by default when sending mail, replying to or
9225 forwarding a message.
9226 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed.
9229 \*(OB Predecessor of
9230 .Va forward-inject-head .
9234 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
9235 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
9240 mode a header summary will also be displayed on folder changes.
9241 The command line option
9249 A format string to use for the summary of
9251 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
9253 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
9254 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
9255 Names and addresses are subject to modifications according to
9259 Valid format specifiers are:
9262 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9264 A plain percent sign.
9267 a space character but for the current message
9269 for which it expands to
9272 .Va headline-plain ) .
9275 a space character but for the current message
9277 for which it expands to
9280 .Va headline-plain ) .
9282 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
9285 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
9287 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
9291 The date found in the
9293 header of the message when
9295 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
9296 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
9301 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
9303 The indenting level in
9309 The address of the message sender.
9311 The message thread tree structure.
9312 (Note that this format does not support a field width, and honours
9313 .Va headline-plain . )
9315 The number of lines of the message, if available.
9319 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
9321 Message subject (if any).
9323 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
9325 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
9326 subscribed mailing list \(en see
9331 The position in threaded/sorted order.
9333 The value 0 except in an IMAP mailbox,
9334 where it expands to the UID of the message.
9338 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
9340 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
9352 .It Va headline-bidi
9353 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
9354 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
9355 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
9356 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
9357 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
9358 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
9360 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
9361 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
9362 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
9364 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
9365 fields that may occur when displaying
9367 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
9369 with special Unicode control sequences;
9370 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
9372 no value (or any value other than
9377 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
9378 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
9379 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
9381 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
9383 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
9385 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
9386 sequences onto the line).
9391 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
9392 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
9395 .It Va headline-plain
9396 \*(BO On Unicode (UTF-8) aware terminals enhanced graphical symbols are
9397 used by default for certain entries of
9399 If this variable is set only basic US-ASCII symbols will be used.
9403 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
9404 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent
9410 .It Va history-gabby
9411 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the
9413 as is normally done.
9416 .It Va history-gabby-persist
9417 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
9419 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
9420 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
9421 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
9427 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
9430 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added,
9431 and loading and incorporation of the
9433 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
9434 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
9435 entries saved to permanent storage.
9439 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
9441 and it is set by default.
9445 Used instead of the value obtained from
9449 as the hostname when expanding local addresses, e.g., in
9452 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ,
9453 especially for expansion of network addresses that contain domain-less
9454 valid user names in angle brackets).
9457 or this variable Is set the message and MIME part related unique ID fields
9461 will be created (except when disallowed by
9462 .Va message-id-disable
9465 If the \*(OPal IDNA support is available (see
9467 variable assignment is aborted when a necessary conversion fails.
9469 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
9470 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
9471 \*(IN in conjunction with the built-in SMTP
9474 also influences the results:
9475 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
9484 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
9485 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
9487 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
9489 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
9490 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
9494 The input field separator that is used (\*(ID by some functions) to
9495 determine where to split input data.
9497 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9499 Unsetting is treated as assigning the default value,
9502 If set to the empty value, no field splitting will be performed.
9504 If set to a non-empty value, all whitespace characters are extracted
9505 and assigned to the variable
9509 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9512 will be ignored at the beginning and end of input.
9513 Diverging from POSIX shells default whitespace is removed in addition,
9514 which is owed to the entirely different line content extraction rules.
9516 Each occurrence of a character of
9518 will cause field-splitting, any adjacent
9520 characters will be skipped.
9525 \*(RO Automatically deduced from the whitespace characters in
9530 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
9531 messages; instead echo them as
9533 characters and discard the current line.
9537 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
9538 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
9539 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
9540 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
9541 explicitly using one of the commands
9545 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
9548 on a line by itself or by using the
9550 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
9551 Setting this implies the behaviour that
9559 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the user's
9561 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
9564 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
9567 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
9570 for more on this topic.
9571 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
9579 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9582 option for indenting messages,
9583 in place of the POSIX mandated default tabulator character
9590 \*(BO If set, an empty
9592 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
9593 file is not removed.
9594 Note that, in conjunction with
9596 mode any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
9597 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
9598 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
9599 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
9600 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir and other
9601 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
9604 .It Va keep-content-length
9605 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing MBOX mailbox files \*(UA can
9610 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
9611 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
9612 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
9613 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
9614 work with with same mailbox files.
9615 Note that, if this is not set but
9616 .Va writebackedited ,
9617 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
9618 fields already marks the message as being modified.
9619 \*(ID At some future time \*(UA will be capable to rewrite and apply an
9621 to modified messages, and then those fields will be stripped silently.
9625 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
9626 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
9627 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
9630 .It Va line-editor-disable
9631 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
9632 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
9636 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
9637 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
9641 Error log message prefix string
9642 .Pf ( Ql "\*(uA: " ) .
9645 .It Va mailbox-display
9646 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
9648 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
9651 .It Va mailbox-resolved
9652 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
9655 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
9656 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
9657 .Sx "Resource files" .
9658 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
9660 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
9661 .Sx "Initial settings" .
9665 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
9666 it is marked as having been
9669 .Sx "Message states" .
9673 \*(BO When opening MBOX mailbox databases \*(UA by default uses tolerant
9674 POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
9676 lines) due to compatibility reasons, instead of the stricter rules that
9677 have been standardized in RFC 4155.
9678 This behaviour can be switched to the stricter RFC 4155 rules by
9679 setting this variable.
9680 (This is never necessary for any message newly generated by \*(UA,
9681 it only applies to messages generated by buggy or malicious MUAs, or may
9682 occur in old MBOX databases: \*(UA itself will choose a proper
9684 to avoid false interpretation of
9686 content lines in the MBOX database.)
9688 This may temporarily be handy when \*(UA complains about invalid
9690 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case setting this variable and
9691 re-opening the mailbox in question may correct the result.
9692 If so, copying the entire mailbox to some other file, as in
9693 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE ,
9694 will perform proper, all-compatible
9696 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
9697 Finally the variable can be unset again:
9698 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9700 localopts yes; wysh set mbox-rfc4155;\e
9701 wysh File "${1}"; eval copy * "${2}"
9703 call mboxfix /tmp/bad.mbox /tmp/good.mbox
9708 \*(BO Internal development variable.
9711 .It Va message-id-disable
9712 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
9716 message and MIME part headers can be completely suppressed, effectively
9717 leaving this task up to the
9719 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
9720 Note that according to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
9721 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
9725 .It Va message-inject-head
9726 A string to put at the beginning of each new message, followed by a newline.
9727 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
9731 are understood (use the
9735 ting the variable(s) instead).
9738 .It Va message-inject-tail
9739 A string to put at the end of each new message, followed by a newline.
9740 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
9744 are understood (use the
9748 ting the variable(s) instead).
9752 \*(BO Usually, when an
9754 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
9755 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
9760 option to be passed through to the
9762 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
9763 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
9767 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
9768 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
9769 in order to classify the
9772 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
9775 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
9776 a computation rather similar to what the
9778 command produces when used with the
9782 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
9783 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
9784 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
9789 .Ql application/octet-stream :
9790 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
9792 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
9793 interpret the contents of the part.
9795 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
9796 text data at first glance (by a
9800 file extension), then the original
9802 will not be overwritten.
9805 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
9806 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
9807 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
9808 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
9809 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9810 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
9811 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
9812 contains topic subjects.)
9815 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
9818 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
9819 Some MUAs, however, do not use
9820 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9822 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
9823 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but specify an
9824 unspecific MIME type
9825 .Pf ( Ql application/octet-stream )
9826 even for plain text attachments.
9827 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to re-classify such MIME
9828 message parts, if possible, for example via a possibly existing
9829 attachment filename.
9830 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
9831 actually a carrier of bits, best specified as a binary value, e.g.,
9834 .Bl -bullet -compact
9836 If bit two is set (counting from 1, decimal 2) then the detected
9838 will be carried along with the message and be used for deciding which
9839 MIME handler is to be used, for example;
9840 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
9841 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
9844 If bit three is set (decimal 4) then the counter-evidence is always
9845 produced and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even
9846 forcefully overriding the parts given MIME type.
9848 If bit four is set (decimal 8) as a last resort the actual content of
9849 .Ql application/octet-stream
9850 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
9852 This mode is even more relaxed when data is to be displayed to the user
9853 or used as a message quote (data consumers which mangle data for display
9854 purposes, which includes masking of control characters, for example).
9858 .It Va mime-encoding
9860 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
9861 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
9862 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
9865 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9868 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
9869 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
9870 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
9871 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
9872 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
9873 .It Ql quoted-printable
9875 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
9876 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
9877 be read as-is; it is also acceptable for other single-byte locales that
9878 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
9879 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
9880 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
9881 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
9882 It is the default encoding.
9884 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
9885 This encoding is 7-bit clean and will always be used for binary data.
9886 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
9887 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
9888 to four bytes of output.
9889 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
9894 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
9895 Can be used to control which of
9896 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9897 are loaded: if the letter
9899 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
9901 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
9903 controls loading of the system wide
9905 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
9907 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
9908 Incorporation of the \*(UA-built-in MIME types cannot be suppressed,
9909 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
9912 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
9913 value string contains an equals sign
9915 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
9918 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
9919 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
9920 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9921 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
9922 the MIME type cache).
9927 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
9928 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with the protocol
9930 or \*(OPally a SMTP a.k.a. SUBMISSION protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
9932 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9935 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
9936 The default has been chosen at compile time.
9937 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
9938 run asynchronously and without supervision unless either the
9943 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
9950 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
9952 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
9955 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
9958 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
9961 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
9966 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
9967 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
9968 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
9969 (which will also disable passing
9973 (for not treating a line with only a dot
9975 character as the end of input),
9983 variable is set); in conjunction with the
9985 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
9991 \*(OPally \*(UA can send mail over SMTP a.k.a. SUBMISSION network
9992 connections to a single defined smart host by setting this variable to
9993 a SMTP or SUBMISSION URL (see
9994 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
9995 An authentication scheme can be specified via the variable chain
9997 Encrypted network connections are \*(OPally available, the section
9998 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
9999 should give an overview and provide links to more information on this.
10000 Note that with some mail providers it may be necessary to set the
10002 variable in order to use a specific combination of
10007 \*(UA also supports forwarding of all network traffic over a specified
10009 The following SMTP variants may be used:
10013 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
10014 server port 25 and requires setting the
10015 .Va smtp-use-starttls
10016 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
10017 Assign a value like \*(IN
10018 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
10020 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
10021 to choose this protocol.
10023 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
10024 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
10025 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
10026 be supported by your hosts network service database
10027 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
10030 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
10031 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
10032 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
10034 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
10035 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
10036 specify the port as
10040 The SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409) lives on server port 587 and
10041 is identically to the SMTP protocol from \*(UA's point of view;
10042 it requires setting
10043 .Va smtp-use-starttls
10044 to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state; e.g., \*(IN
10045 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port] .
10047 The SUBMISSIONS protocol (RFC 8314) that lives on server port 465 and is
10048 SSL/TLS secured by default.
10049 It can be chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
10050 .Ql submissions://[user[:password]@]server[:port] .
10051 Due to the problems mentioned for SMTPS above and the fact that
10052 SUBMISSIONS is new and a successor that lives on the same port as the
10053 historical engineering mismanagement named SMTPS, it is usually
10054 necessary to explicitly specify the port as
10060 .It Va mta-arguments
10061 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
10063 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
10064 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
10065 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
10066 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
10067 .Ql ? wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"' .
10070 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
10071 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
10072 standard command line options to a file-based
10074 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
10077 .It Va mta-no-receiver-arguments
10078 \*(BO By default a file-based
10080 will be passed all receiver addresses on the command line.
10081 This variable can be set to suppress any such argument.
10085 Many systems use a so-called
10087 environment to ensure compatibility with
10089 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
10091 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
10092 actually executed when calling the file-based
10094 will treat its contents as that name.
10096 .Mx Va netrc-lookup
10097 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
10098 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the user's
10100 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
10101 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
10102 and for the command
10105 .Sx "The .netrc file"
10106 documents the file format.
10118 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the user's
10120 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
10121 This can be used to, e.g., store
10124 .Ql ? set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp' .
10128 \*(OP If this variable has the value
10130 newly created local folders will be in Maildir instead of MBOX format.
10134 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
10135 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
10136 If this variable is set to the special value
10138 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
10139 timestamp changes are detected.
10140 Maildir folders are \*(OPal.
10144 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
10147 and the sender-based filenames for the
10151 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
10153 variable rather than to the current directory,
10154 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
10156 .Mx Va on-account-cleanup
10157 .It Va on-account-cleanup-ACCOUNT , Va on-account-cleanup
10158 Macro hook which will be called once an
10160 is left, as the very last step before unrolling per-account
10162 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
10163 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
10166 The specialized form is used in favour of the generic one if found.
10169 .It Va on-compose-cleanup
10170 Macro hook which will be called after the message has been sent (or not,
10171 in case of failures), as the very last step before unrolling compose mode
10173 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
10174 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
10178 For compose mode hooks that may affect the message content please see
10179 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave , on-compose-splice .
10180 \*(ID This hook exists because
10181 .Ic alias , alternates , commandalias , shortcut ,
10182 to name a few, are not covered by
10184 changes applied in compose mode will continue to be in effect thereafter.
10189 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
10190 Macro hooks which will be called once compose mode is entered,
10191 and after composing has been finished, but before a set
10192 .Va message-inject-tail
10193 has been injected etc., respectively.
10195 are enabled for these hooks, and changes on variables will be forgotten
10196 after the message has been sent.
10197 .Va on-compose-cleanup
10198 can be used to perform other necessary cleanup steps.
10200 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
10201 execution of the macros to represent respective message headers, to
10202 the empty string otherwise; most of them correspond to according virtual
10203 message headers that can be accessed via
10206 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10208 .Va on-compose-splice
10212 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va mailx_subject"
10213 .It Va mailx-command
10214 The command that generates the message.
10215 .It Va mailx-subject
10219 .It Va mailx-sender
10221 .It Va mailx-to , mailx-cc , mailx-bcc
10222 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
10223 .It Va mailx-raw-to , mailx-raw-cc , mailx-raw-bcc
10224 The list of receiver addresses before any mangling (due to, e.g.,
10227 .Va recipients-in-cc )
10228 as a space-separated list.
10229 .It Va mailx-orig-from
10230 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
10232 of the given message.
10233 .It Va mailx-orig-to , mailx-orig-cc , mailx-orig-bcc
10234 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
10235 receivers of the given message.
10239 Here is am example that injects a signature via
10240 .Va message-inject-tail ;
10242 .Va on-compose-splice
10243 to simply inject the file of desire via
10247 may be a better approach.
10249 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10251 vput ! i cat ~/.mysig
10253 vput vexpr message-inject-tail trim-end $i
10257 readctl create ~/.mysig
10261 vput vexpr message-inject-tail trim-end $i
10263 readctl remove ~/.mysig
10266 set on-compose-leave=t_ocl
10272 .It Va on-compose-splice , on-compose-splice-shell
10273 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
10274 .Va on-compose-leave
10275 macro hook is called, the
10276 .Va message-inject-tail
10278 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
10279 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
10281 The difference in between them is that the latter is a
10283 command, whereas the former is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
10284 restricted to a small set of commands (the
10288 will indicate said capability).
10290 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
10291 to be forgotten after the message has been sent;
10292 .Va on-compose-cleanup
10293 can be used to perform other cleanup as necessary.
10296 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
10297 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
10298 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10299 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproducibilities sake
10303 will be set to their defaults.
10304 The compose mode command
10306 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
10307 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
10308 version of said command escape, currently
10310 backward incompatible protocol changes have to be expected.
10313 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks and other false control flow:
10314 if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
10315 same time, or one does not expect more input but the other is stuck
10316 waiting for consumption of its output, etc.
10317 There is no automatic synchronization of the hook: it will not be
10318 stopped automatically just because it, e.g., emits
10320 The hooks will however receive a termination signal if the parent enters
10321 an error condition.
10322 \*(ID Protection against and interaction with signals is not yet given;
10323 it is likely that in the future these scripts will be placed in an
10324 isolated session, which is signalled in its entirety as necessary.
10326 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10327 define ocs_signature {
10329 echo '~< ~/.mysig' # '~<! fortune pathtofortunefile'
10331 set on-compose-splice=ocs_signature
10333 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
10335 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
10336 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
10337 read status result;\e
10338 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
10343 echo Splice protocol version is $version
10344 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substring "${hl}" 0 1
10346 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'; xit
10348 if [ "$hl" @i!% ' cc' ]
10349 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
10350 vput vexpr es substring "${es}" 0 1
10352 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
10353 # (no xit, macro finishs anyway)
10357 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
10362 .It Va on-resend-cleanup
10364 .Va on-compose-cleanup ,
10365 but is only triggered by
10369 .It Va on-resend-enter
10371 .Va on-compose-enter ,
10372 but is only triggered by
10377 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
10379 is followed by a formfeed character
10383 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
10384 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
10385 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
10386 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
10387 the authentication method requires a password.
10388 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
10389 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
10391 .It Va password-USER@HOST
10392 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
10393 Set the password for
10397 If no such variable is defined for a host,
10398 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
10399 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
10400 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
10404 \*(BO Send messages to the
10406 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
10410 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
10411 When a MIME message part of type
10413 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
10414 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
10416 Note that only parts which can be displayed inline as plain text (see
10417 .Cd copiousoutput )
10418 are displayed unless otherwise noted, other MIME parts will only be
10419 considered by and for the command
10423 The special value commercial at
10425 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
10426 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
10427 will henceforth display XML
10429 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
10432 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
10433 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
10434 \(em these directives,
10436 has already been used, should be referred to for further documentation.
10441 can in fact be used as a trigger character to adjust usage and behaviour
10442 of a following shell command specification more thoroughly by appending
10443 more special characters which refer to further mailcap directives, e.g.,
10444 the following hypothetical command specification could be used:
10446 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10447 ? set pipe-X/Y='@!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
10451 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
10453 The command produces plain text to be integrated in \*(UAs output:
10454 .Cd copiousoutput .
10457 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
10458 but only when it will be displayed:
10459 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
10462 Run the command asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA:
10463 .Cd x-mailx-async .
10466 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
10467 temporarily release the terminal to it:
10468 .Cd needsterminal .
10471 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
10472 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
10473 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY :
10474 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
10475 If given twice then the file will be unlinked automatically by \*(UA
10476 when the command loop is entered again at latest:
10477 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
10480 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
10481 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
10482 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
10483 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
10484 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
10485 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
10490 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
10491 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
10492 remaining characters.
10493 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
10497 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
10498 the environment of the shell command:
10501 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
10503 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
10504 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
10507 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
10509 .Va mime-counter-evidence
10510 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
10511 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
10512 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
10516 .It Ev MAILX_EXTERNAL_BODY_URL
10518 .Ql message/external-body access-type=url
10519 will store the access URL in this variable, it is empty otherwise.
10520 URL targets should not be activated automatically, without supervision.
10523 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
10524 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
10527 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
10531 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
10532 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
10533 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
10539 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
10540 This is identical to
10541 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
10544 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
10545 names a file extension, e.g.,
10547 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
10550 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
10551 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
10552 The only possible value as of now is
10554 which is thus the default.
10556 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
10557 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
10558 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
10559 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
10560 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
10562 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
10563 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
10565 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
10566 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
10567 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
10568 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
10569 but practical experience may vary.
10570 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
10574 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
10576 .Mx Va pop3-no-apop
10577 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
10578 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
10580 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
10581 advertises support.
10584 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
10585 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
10587 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
10590 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
10591 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
10592 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10594 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
10595 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
10596 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
10598 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
10604 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
10605 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
10606 It will be set implicitly before the
10607 .Sx "Resource files"
10608 are loaded if the environment variable
10609 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10610 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
10612 The following behaviour is covered and enforced by this mechanism:
10615 .Bl -bullet -compact
10617 In non-interactive mode, any error encountered while loading resource
10618 files during program startup will cause a program exit, whereas in
10619 interactive mode such errors will stop loading of the currently loaded
10620 (stack of) file(s, i.e., recursively).
10621 These exits can be circumvented on a per-command base by using
10624 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
10625 for each command which shall be allowed to fail.
10629 will replace the list of alternate addresses instead of appending to it.
10632 The variable inserting
10633 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10639 will expand embedded character sequences
10641 horizontal tabulator and
10644 \*(ID For compatibility reasons this step will always be performed.
10647 Upon changing the active
10651 will be displayed even if
10658 implies the behaviour described by
10664 is extended to cover any empty mailbox, not only empty
10666 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
10667 es: they will be removed when they are left in empty state otherwise.
10672 .It Va print-alternatives
10673 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
10674 .Ql multipart/alternative
10675 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
10677 other parts are normally discarded.
10678 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
10679 just as if the surrounding part was of type
10680 .Ql multipart/mixed .
10684 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
10685 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is treated as if specified
10686 within dollar-single-quotes (see
10687 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
10688 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
10689 status information, for example
10694 .Va mailbox-display .
10696 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
10697 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
10698 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
10700 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
10702 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
10704 .Ql set noprompt ) .
10708 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
10715 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
10721 message is started with the quoted original message,
10722 the lines of which are prefixed by the value of the variable
10724 taking into account
10728 If set to the empty value, the quoted message will be preceded and
10729 followed by the expansions of the values of
10730 .Va quote-inject-head
10732 .Va quote-inject-tail ,
10734 None of the headers of the quoted message is included in the quote if
10737 and only the headers selected by the
10740 selection are put above the message body for
10742 whereas all headers and all MIME parts are included for
10745 .Va quote-as-attachment
10749 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10752 .It Va quote-as-attachment
10753 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
10755 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
10756 Note this works regardless of the setting of
10761 Can be set to a string consisting of non-whitespace ASCII characters
10762 which shall be treated as quotation leaders, the default being
10767 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
10769 and creates a more fancy quotation in that leading quotation characters
10770 .Pf ( Va quote-chars )
10771 are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
10773 can be set to either one, two or three (space separated) numeric values,
10774 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
10775 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
10777 program, but line- instead of paragraph-based.
10778 The third value is used as the maximum line length instead of the first
10779 if no better break point can be found; it is ignored unless it is larger
10780 than the minimum and smaller than the maximum.
10781 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
10782 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
10784 plus some additional pad; necessary adjustments take place silently.
10789 .It Va quote-inject-head , quote-inject-tail
10790 The strings to put before and after the text of a
10792 d message, respectively.
10793 The former defaults to
10794 .Ql %f wrote:\en\en .
10795 Special format directives will be expanded if possible, and if so
10796 configured the output will be folded according to
10798 Format specifiers in the given strings start with a percent sign
10800 and expand values of the original message, unless noted otherwise.
10801 Note that names and addresses are not subject to the setting of
10803 Valid format specifiers are:
10806 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
10808 A plain percent sign.
10810 The address(es) of the sender(s).
10812 The date found in the
10814 header of the message when
10816 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
10817 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
10822 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
10824 The full name(s) (name and address, as given) of the sender(s).
10829 The real name(s) of the sender(s) if there is one and
10831 allows usage, the address(es) otherwise.
10833 The senders real name(s) if there is one, the address(es) otherwise.
10838 .It Va r-option-implicit
10839 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
10841 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10843 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
10845 option (empty argument case).
10848 .It Va recipients-in-cc
10855 are by default merged into the new
10857 If this variable is set, only the original
10861 the rest is merged into
10866 Unless this variable is defined, no copies of outgoing mail will be saved.
10867 If defined it gives the pathname, subject to the usual
10868 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
10869 of a folder where all new, replied-to or forwarded messages are saved:
10870 when saving to this folder fails the message is not sent, but instead
10874 The standard defines that relative (fully expanded) paths are to be
10875 interpreted relative to the current directory
10877 to force interpretation relative to
10880 needs to be set in addition.
10883 .It Va record-files
10884 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10886 will be extended to cover messages which target only file and pipe
10889 These address types will not appear in recipient lists unless
10890 .Va add-file-recipients
10894 .It Va record-resent
10895 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10897 will be extended to also cover the
10904 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
10905 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
10906 character set of the original message for replies.
10907 If this fails, the mechanism described in
10908 .Sx "Character sets"
10909 is evaluated as usual.
10912 .It Va reply-strings
10913 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
10914 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
10915 built-in strings as
10917 reply message indicators \(en built-in are
10919 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
10924 which often has been seen in the wild;
10925 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
10929 A list of addresses to put into the
10931 field of the message header.
10932 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
10941 .It Va reply-to-honour
10944 header is honoured when replying to a message via
10948 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
10952 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
10953 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
10955 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
10957 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
10961 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
10963 upon interrupt or delivery error.
10967 The number of lines that represents a
10976 line display and scrolling via
10978 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
10979 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
10980 terminal, the more will be shown.
10981 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
10982 environment variables
10990 .It Va searchheaders
10991 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
10993 to all messages containing the substring
10995 in the header field
10997 The string search is case insensitive.
11000 .It Va sendcharsets
11001 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
11002 outgoing internet mail.
11003 The value of the variable
11005 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
11006 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
11007 the only supported charset is
11010 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
11011 and refer to the section
11012 .Sx "Character sets"
11013 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
11016 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
11017 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
11019 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
11021 had been set to the value of the variable
11023 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
11024 character set of the current locale encoding:
11025 therefore mail message text will be (assumed to be) in ISO-8859-1
11026 encoding when send from within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8
11027 encoding when send from within an UTF-8 locale.
11031 never comes into play as
11033 is implicitly assumed to be 8-bit and capable to represent all files the
11034 user may specify (as is the case when no character set conversion
11035 support is available in \*(UA and the only supported character set is
11037 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
11038 This might be a problem for scripts which use the suggested
11040 setting, since in this case the character set is US-ASCII by definition,
11041 so that it is better to also override
11047 An address that is put into the
11049 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
11050 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
11051 This field should normally not be used unless the
11053 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
11056 address is handled as if it were in the
11060 .Va r-option-implicit .
11063 \*(OB Predecessor of
11066 .It Va sendmail-arguments
11067 \*(OB Predecessor of
11068 .Va mta-arguments .
11070 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
11071 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
11072 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
11074 .It Va sendmail-progname
11075 \*(OB Predecessor of
11080 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
11082 (including the built-in SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
11084 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
11085 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
11086 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
11090 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
11091 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder, as well as with
11098 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
11099 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
11103 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
11104 summary if the message was sent by the user.
11111 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11113 .Va message-inject-tail ,
11114 .Va on-compose-leave
11116 .Va on-compose-splice .
11123 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11125 .Va message-inject-tail ,
11126 .Va on-compose-leave
11128 .Va on-compose-splice .
11133 .Va on-compose-splice
11135 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
11137 .Va on-compose-leave
11139 .Va message-inject-tail
11143 .It Va skipemptybody
11144 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
11145 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
11146 command line option
11151 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
11152 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
11153 Enhanced Mail) for the purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
11155 documents the necessary preparation steps to use the former.
11156 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
11157 be explicitly turned off by setting
11158 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
11159 and further fine-tuning is possible via
11160 .Va smime-ca-flags .
11163 .It Va smime-ca-flags
11164 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
11165 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
11166 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
11170 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
11171 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
11172 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
11174 .Mx Va smime-cipher
11175 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
11176 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
11177 messages (for the specified account).
11178 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
11181 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
11189 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
11191 is not available) and
11193 (DES CBC, 56 bits).
11195 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
11196 library that \*(UA uses.
11197 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
11198 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
11199 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
11200 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
11203 .It Va smime-crl-dir
11204 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
11205 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
11208 .It Va smime-crl-file
11209 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
11210 verifying S/MIME messages.
11213 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
11214 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
11215 encrypted before sending.
11216 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
11217 contains a certificate in PEM format.
11219 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
11220 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
11221 individually encrypted message;
11222 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
11224 .Va smime-force-encryption
11226 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
11231 .It Va smime-force-encryption
11232 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
11236 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
11237 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
11238 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
11239 a valid certificate,
11240 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
11241 header and that the message content has not been altered.
11242 It does not change the message text,
11243 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
11245 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
11247 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
11249 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
11250 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
11251 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
11252 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
11253 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
11255 For message signing
11257 is always derived from the value of
11259 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
11261 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
11262 (certificate) is expected; the command
11264 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
11265 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
11266 gives some details).
11267 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
11269 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
11274 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
11276 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
11277 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
11278 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
11280 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
11281 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
11282 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
11283 for the private key
11285 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
11286 for the certificate stored in the same file)
11287 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
11288 therefore the lookup can be automated via the mechanisms described in
11289 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
11290 For example, the hypothetical address
11292 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
11293 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
11294 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
11295 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
11297 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
11298 To include intermediate certificates, use
11299 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
11301 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
11302 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
11303 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
11304 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
11305 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
11306 .Va smime-sign-cert
11308 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
11309 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
11310 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
11311 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
11312 .Va smime-sign-cert .
11313 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
11314 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
11316 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
11318 refers to the content of the internal variable
11320 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
11323 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
11324 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
11325 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automated
11326 via the mechanisms described in
11327 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
11329 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
11330 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
11331 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
11332 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
11334 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
11342 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
11343 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
11344 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
11345 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
11346 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
11347 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
11348 Remember that for this
11350 refers to the variable
11352 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
11356 \*(OB\*(OP To use the built-in SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
11358 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
11360 is used in preference of
11364 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
11365 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
11367 authentication method, possible values are
11373 as well as the \*(OPal methods
11379 method does not need any user credentials,
11381 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
11389 .Va smtp-auth-password
11391 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
11396 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
11397 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
11400 .It Va smtp-auth-password
11401 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
11402 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
11403 .Va smtp-auth-password
11405 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
11407 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
11409 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
11411 .Va smtp-auth-password
11412 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
11415 .It Va smtp-auth-user
11416 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
11417 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
11420 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
11422 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
11424 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
11427 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
11431 .It Va smtp-hostname
11432 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
11434 to derive the necessary
11436 information in order to issue a
11443 can be used to use the
11445 from the SMTP account
11452 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
11454 or the local hostname as a last resort).
11455 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
11456 a provider other than which (in
11458 is about to send the message.
11459 Setting this variable also influences generated
11464 If the \*(OPal IDNA support is available (see
11466 variable assignment is aborted when a necessary conversion fails.
11468 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
11469 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
11470 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
11472 command to make an SMTP
11474 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
11477 .It Va socks-proxy-USER@HOST , socks-proxy-HOST , socks-proxy
11478 \*(OP If this is set to the hostname (SOCKS URL) of a SOCKS5 server then
11479 \*(UA will proxy all of its network activities through it.
11480 This can be used to proxy SMTP, POP3 etc. network traffic through the
11481 Tor anonymizer, for example.
11482 The following would create a local SOCKS proxy on port 10000 that
11483 forwards to the machine
11485 and from which the network traffic is actually instantiated:
11486 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11487 # Create local proxy server in terminal 1 forwarding to HOST
11488 $ ssh -D 10000 USER@HOST
11489 # Then, start a client that uses it in terminal 2
11490 $ \*(uA -Ssocks-proxy-USER@HOST=localhost:10000
11494 .It Va spam-interface
11495 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
11497 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
11498 Please refer to the manual section
11499 .Sx "Handling spam"
11500 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
11501 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
11503 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
11509 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
11511 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
11512 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
11513 knowledge to parse the program's output.
11514 A default value for
11516 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
11520 during compilation.
11521 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
11522 using a configuration file for that), the variable
11523 .Va spamc-arguments
11524 can be used as in, e.g.,
11525 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
11526 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
11528 Note that this interface does not inspect the
11530 flag of a message for the command
11534 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
11535 This interface is meant for programs like
11537 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
11538 status for at least the command
11541 meaning a message is spam,
11545 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
11546 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
11547 can be intercepted as necessary.
11549 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11552 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
11554 .Sx "Handling spam"
11555 contains examples for some programs.
11556 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
11557 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
11559 Note that spam score support for
11561 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
11563 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
11569 .It Va spam-maxsize
11570 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
11572 .Va spam-interface .
11573 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
11576 .It Va spamc-command
11577 \*(OP The path to the
11581 .Va spam-interface .
11582 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
11584 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
11585 executable had been found during compilation.
11588 .It Va spamc-arguments
11589 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
11592 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
11593 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
11594 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
11598 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
11600 .Va spam-interface .
11601 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
11610 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
11611 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
11612 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
11614 .Va spam-interface .
11616 .Sx "Handling spam"
11617 contains examples for some programs.
11620 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
11621 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
11624 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
11625 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
11626 be used to overcome this restriction.
11627 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
11628 must be followed by a semicolon
11630 and an extended regular expression.
11631 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
11632 .Va spamfilter-rate
11633 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
11634 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
11638 .It Va ssl-ca-dir-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-dir-HOST , ssl-ca-dir ,\
11639 ssl-ca-file-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-file-HOST , ssl-ca-file
11640 \*(OP Directory and file, respectively, pools of trusted CA certificates
11641 in PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) format, for the purpose of verification
11642 of SSL/TLS server certificates.
11643 Concurrent use is possible, the file is loaded once needed first, the
11644 directory lookup is performed anew as a last resort whenever necessary.
11645 The CA certificate pool built into the SSL/TLS library can be disabled via
11646 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
11647 further fine-tuning is possible via
11649 Note the directory search variant requires the certificate files to
11650 adhere special filename conventions, please see
11651 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11658 .Mx Va ssl-ca-flags
11659 .It Va ssl-ca-flags-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-flags-HOST , ssl-ca-flags
11660 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
11661 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
11663 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
11664 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
11665 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
11666 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
11667 which are usually defined in a file
11668 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
11669 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
11670 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
11672 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
11675 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11676 .It Cd no-alt-chains
11677 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
11679 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
11680 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
11681 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
11682 .Cd trusted-first .
11683 .It Cd no-check-time
11684 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
11685 .It Cd partial-chain
11686 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
11687 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
11688 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
11689 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
11691 The OpenSSL manual page
11692 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11693 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
11695 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
11696 .It Cd trusted-first
11697 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
11698 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
11699 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
11700 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
11701 .Cd no-alt-chains .
11705 .Mx Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
11706 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-no-defaults-HOST ,\
11708 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
11709 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
11712 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
11713 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11716 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11718 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
11719 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
11720 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11723 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11726 .It Va ssl-config-file
11727 \*(OP If this variable is set
11728 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
11730 .Ql +modules-load-file
11733 is used to allow resource file based configuration of the SSL/TLS library.
11734 This happens once the library is used first, which may also be early
11735 during startup (logged with
11737 If a non-empty value is given then the given file, after performing
11738 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
11739 will be used instead of the global OpenSSL default, and it is an error
11740 if the file cannot be loaded.
11741 The application name will always be passed as
11743 Some SSL/TLS libraries support application-specific configuration via
11744 resource files loaded like this, please see
11745 .Va ssl-config-module .
11747 .Mx Va ssl-config-module
11748 .It Va ssl-config-module-USER@HOST , ssl-config-module-HOST ,\
11750 \*(OP If file based application-specific configuration via
11751 .Va ssl-config-file
11752 is available, announced as
11756 indicating availability of
11757 .Xr SSL_CTX_config 3 ,
11758 then, it becomes possible to use a central SSL/TLS configuration file
11759 for all programs, including \*(uA, e.g.:
11760 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11761 # Register a configuration section for \*(uA
11762 \*(uA = mailx_master
11763 # The top configuration section creates a relation
11764 # in between dynamic SSL configuration and an actual
11765 # program specific configuration section
11767 ssl_conf = mailx_ssl_config
11768 # Well that actual program specific configuration section
11769 # now can map individual ssl-config-module names to sections,
11770 # e.g., ssl-config-module=account_xy
11772 account_xy = mailx_account_xy
11773 account_yz = mailx_account_yz
11775 MinProtocol = TLSv1.2
11778 CipherString = TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:
11779 MinProtocol = TLSv1.1
11784 .Mx Va ssl-config-pairs
11785 .It Va ssl-config-pairs-USER@HOST , ssl-config-pairs-HOST , ssl-config-pairs
11786 \*(OP The value of this variable chain will be interpreted as
11787 a comma-separated list of directive/value pairs.
11788 Directives and values need to be separated by equals signs
11790 any whitespace surrounding pair members is removed.
11791 Keys are (usually) case-insensitive.
11792 Different to when placing these pairs in a
11793 .Va ssl-config-module
11795 .Va ssl-config-file ,
11798 need to be escaped with a reverse solidus
11800 when included in pairs; also different: if the equals sign
11802 is preceded with an asterisk
11804 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11805 will be performed on the value; it is an error if these fail.
11806 Unless proper support is announced by
11808 .Pf ( Ql +conf-ctx )
11809 only the keys below are supported, otherwise the pairs will be used
11810 directly as arguments to the function
11811 .Xr SSL_CONF_cmd 3 .
11814 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd C_rtificate"
11816 Filename of a SSL/TLS client certificate (chain) required by some servers.
11817 Fallback support via
11818 .Xr SSL_CTX_use_certificate_chain_file 3 .
11819 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11821 .\" v15compat: remove the next sentence
11823 if you use this you need to specify the private key via
11828 .It Cd CipherString
11829 A list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections, see
11831 By default no list of ciphers is set, resulting in a
11832 .Cd Protocol Ns - Ns
11833 specific list of ciphers (the protocol standards define lists of
11834 acceptable ciphers; possibly cramped by the used SSL/TLS library).
11835 Fallback support via
11836 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list 3 .
11838 .It Cd Ciphersuites
11839 A list of ciphers used for TLSv1.3 connections, see
11841 These will be joined onto the list of ciphers from
11846 .Ql +ctx-set-ciphersuites ,
11848 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_ciphersuites 3 .
11851 A list of supported elliptic curves, if applicable.
11852 By default no curves are set.
11853 Fallback support via
11854 .Xr SSL_CTX_set1_curves_list 3 ,
11857 .It Cd MaxProtocol , MinProtocol
11858 The maximum and minimum supported SSL/TLS versions, respectively.
11862 .Ql +ctx-set-maxmin-proto ,
11864 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_max_proto_version 3
11866 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_min_proto_version 3 ;
11867 these fallbacks use an internal parser which understands the strings
11873 and the special value
11875 which disables the given limit.
11878 Various flags to set.
11880 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_options 3 ,
11881 in which case any other value but (exactly)
11883 results in an error.
11886 Filename of the private key in PEM format of a SSL/TLS client certificate.
11887 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
11888 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11891 .Xr SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_file 3 .
11892 .\" v15compat: remove the next sentence
11894 if you use this you need to specify the certificate (chain) via
11900 The used SSL/TLS protocol.
11906 .Ql ctx-set-maxmin-proto
11913 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_options 3 ,
11914 driven via an internal parser which understands the strings
11920 and the special value
11922 Multiple protocols may be given as a comma-separated list, any
11923 whitespace is ignored, an optional plus sign
11925 prefix enables, a hyphen-minus
11927 prefix disables a protocol, so that
11929 enables only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
11935 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
11936 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
11937 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
11940 .It Va ssl-curves-USER@HOST , ssl-curves-HOST , ssl-curves
11941 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11944 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11947 .It Va ssl-features
11948 \*(OP\*(RO This expands to a comma separated list of the TLS/SSL library
11949 identity and optional TLS/SSL library features.
11950 Currently supported identities are
11954 (OpenSSL v1.1.x series)
11957 (elder OpenSSL series, other clones).
11958 Optional features are preceded with a plus sign
11960 when available, and with a hyphen-minus
11963 .Ql modules-load-file
11964 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-file ) ,
11966 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-pairs ) ,
11968 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-module ) ,
11969 .Ql ctx-set-maxmin-proto
11970 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-pairs )
11973 .Pf ( Va ssl-rand-egd ) .
11976 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
11977 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11980 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11982 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
11983 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11986 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11988 .Mx Va ssl-protocol
11989 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
11990 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11993 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11996 .It Va ssl-rand-egd
11997 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
11999 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this,
12001 announces availability with
12005 .It Va ssl-rand-file
12006 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
12007 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
12008 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
12009 .Sx "Filename transformations"
12011 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
12012 will be used to create the filename.
12013 If the SSL PRNG was seeded successfully
12014 The file will be updated
12015 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 )
12016 if and only if seeding and buffer stirring succeeds.
12017 This variable is only used if
12019 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
12022 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
12023 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
12024 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
12025 specified or default trust stores
12028 or the SSL/TLS library built-in defaults (unless usage disallowed via
12029 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
12030 and as fine-tuned via
12032 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
12034 (fail and close connection immediately),
12036 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
12038 (show a warning and continue),
12040 (do not perform validation).
12046 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
12052 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
12053 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
12054 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
12055 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
12056 to track down the originating mail user agent.
12057 If set to the value
12063 suppression does not occur.
12066 .It Va system-mailrc
12067 \*(RO The compiled in path of the system wide initialization file
12069 .Sx "Resource files" :
12075 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
12080 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
12081 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
12084 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
12085 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
12088 String capabilities form
12090 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
12091 Numerics have to be notated as
12093 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
12094 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
12095 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
12096 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
12097 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
12098 for one notations like
12101 .Ql control-LETTER ,
12102 and for clarification purposes
12104 can be used to specify
12106 (the control notation
12108 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
12109 the standard CSI sequence);
12110 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
12113 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
12114 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
12116 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12117 ? set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
12121 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
12122 operation of the built-in line editor or \*(UA in general:
12125 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd yay"
12127 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
12129 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
12130 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
12131 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
12134 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
12137 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
12138 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen ca-mode,
12139 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
12140 This must be enabled explicitly by setting
12141 .Va termcap-ca-mode .
12143 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
12147 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
12148 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
12149 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
12150 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
12152 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
12156 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
12158 clear the screen and home cursor.
12159 (Will be simulated via
12164 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
12169 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
12171 clear to the end of line.
12172 (Will be simulated via
12174 plus repetitions of space characters.)
12176 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
12177 .Cd column_address :
12178 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
12179 (Will be simulated via
12185 .Cd carriage_return :
12186 move to the first column in the current row.
12187 The default built-in fallback is
12190 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
12192 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
12193 The default built-in fallback is
12196 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
12198 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
12199 The default built-in fallback is
12201 which is used by most terminals.
12209 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
12214 .It Va termcap-ca-mode
12215 \*(OP Allow usage of the
12219 terminal capabilities, see
12222 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
12223 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
12226 .It Va termcap-disable
12227 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
12228 If set only some generic fallback built-ins and possibly the content of
12230 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
12232 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
12233 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
12237 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
12240 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
12243 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
12244 unsigned right shifting (see
12252 \*(BO If set then the
12254 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
12258 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
12259 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
12260 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
12261 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1.
12262 Otherwise it defaults to UTF-8.
12263 Sufficient locale support provided the default will be preferably
12264 deduced from the locale environment if that is set (e.g.,
12266 see there for more); runtime locale changes will be reflected by
12268 except during the program startup phase and if
12270 had been used to freeze the given value.
12271 Refer to the section
12272 .Sx "Character sets"
12273 for the complete picture about character sets.
12276 .It Va typescript-mode
12277 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
12278 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
12281 .Va colour-disable ,
12282 .Va line-editor-disable
12283 and (before startup completed only)
12284 .Va termcap-disable .
12285 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
12289 For a safe-by-default policy the process file mode creation mask
12293 on program startup by default.
12294 Child processes inherit the file mode creation mask of their parent, and
12295 by setting this variable to an empty value no change will be applied,
12296 and the inherited value will be used.
12297 Otherwise the given value will be made the new file mode creation mask.
12300 .It Va user-HOST , user
12301 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
12302 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
12304 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
12308 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
12309 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
12310 how they are handled.
12311 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
12312 doing things, respectively.
12316 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
12318 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
12319 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
12320 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
12321 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
12322 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
12325 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
12332 .It Va version , version-date , \
12333 version-hexnum , version-major , version-minor , version-update
12334 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable is a string with
12335 the complete version identification, the second the release date in ISO
12336 8601 notation without time.
12337 The third is a 32-bit hexadecimal number with the upper 8 bits storing
12338 the major, followed by the minor and update version numbers which occupy
12340 The latter three variables contain only decimal digits: the major, minor
12341 and update version numbers.
12342 The output of the command
12344 will include this information.
12347 .It Va writebackedited
12348 If this variable is set messages modified using the
12352 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
12353 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
12354 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
12355 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
12356 performed, and proper RFC 4155
12358 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an exercise to
12361 .\" }}} (Variables)
12363 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
12366 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
12370 .Dq environment variable
12371 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
12372 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
12373 commonly found in there.
12374 The process environment is inherited from the
12376 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
12377 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
12378 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
12379 from \*(UA's point of view.
12380 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
12384 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
12385 newly created child processes).
12388 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
12389 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
12391 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
12392 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
12393 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
12395 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
12397 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
12399 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12400 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
12402 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
12405 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
12408 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
12410 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
12411 processes and the MLE (see
12412 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
12413 in interactive mode thereafter.
12414 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 80 columns, unless in
12420 The name of the (mailbox)
12422 to use for saving aborted messages if
12424 is set; this defaults to
12428 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
12433 Pathname of the text editor to use for the
12437 .Pf (see\0 Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) ;
12439 is used for a more display oriented editor.
12443 The user's home directory.
12444 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
12445 The calling user's home directory will be used instead if this directory
12446 does not exist, is not accessible or cannot be read;
12447 it will always be used for the root user.
12448 (No test for being writable is performed to allow usage by
12449 non-privileged users within read-only jails, but dependent on the
12450 variable settings this directory is a default write target, e.g. for
12458 .It Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , LANG
12459 \*(OP The (names in lookup order of the)
12463 which indicates the used
12464 .Sx "Character sets" .
12465 Runtime changes trigger automatic updates of the entire locale system,
12466 which includes updating
12468 (except during startup if the variable has been frozen via
12473 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
12474 or window size in lines.
12475 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
12476 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
12477 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 24 lines, unless in
12483 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
12485 command when operating on local mailboxes.
12488 (path search through
12493 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
12494 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
12495 name to any newly created child process.
12499 Is used as the user's
12501 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
12505 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
12509 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
12510 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
12511 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
12512 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
12513 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
12514 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
12515 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
12519 Is used as a startup file instead of
12522 In order to avoid side-effects from configuration files scripts should
12523 either set this variable to
12527 command line option should be used.
12530 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
12531 If this variable is set then reading of
12534 .Va system-mailrc )
12535 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
12536 had been started up with the option
12538 (and according argument) or
12540 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
12544 The name of the user's
12546 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
12548 A logical subset of the special
12549 .Sx "Filename transformations"
12555 Traditionally this MBOX is used as the file to save messages from the
12557 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
12558 that have been read.
12560 .Sx "Message states" .
12564 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
12570 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
12574 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
12575 The default paginator is
12577 (path search through
12580 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
12582 then a non-existing environment variable
12589 will optionally be set to
12596 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
12597 looking for commands, e.g.,
12598 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
12601 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
12602 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
12608 The shell to use for the commands
12613 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
12614 and when starting subprocesses.
12615 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
12618 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
12619 Specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch (1970-01-01) to be
12620 used in place of the current time.
12621 This variable is looked up upon program startup, and its existence will
12622 switch \*(UA to a reproducible mode
12623 .Pf ( Lk https://reproducible-builds.org )
12624 which uses deterministic random numbers, a special fixated pseudo
12627 This operation mode is used for development and by software packagers.
12628 \*(ID Currently an invalid setting is only ignored, rather than causing
12629 a program abortion.
12631 .Dl $ SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=`date +%s` \*(uA
12635 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
12636 For extended colour and font control please refer to
12637 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
12638 and for terminal management in general to
12639 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
12643 Except for the root user this variable defines the directory for
12644 temporary files to be used instead of
12646 (or the given compile-time constant) if set, existent, accessible as
12647 well as read- and writable.
12648 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
12649 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
12650 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
12656 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
12657 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
12661 Pathname of the text editor to use for the
12665 .Pf (see\0 Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) ;
12667 is used for a less display oriented editor.
12677 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
12679 User-specific file giving initial commands, one of the
12680 .Sx "Resource files" .
12681 The actual value is read from
12685 System wide initialization file, one of the
12686 .Sx "Resource files" .
12687 The actual value is read from
12688 .Va system-mailrc .
12692 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
12693 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
12694 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
12695 a configuration option and can be overridden via
12699 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
12700 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
12701 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
12702 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
12703 a configuration option and can be overridden via
12707 The default value for
12712 Personal MIME types, see
12713 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
12717 System wide MIME types, see
12718 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
12722 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the user's
12724 file \(en the section
12725 .Sx "The .netrc file"
12726 documents the file format.
12727 The actually used path can be overridden via
12737 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
12738 .Ss "Resource files"
12740 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files, in order:
12742 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
12745 System wide initialization file
12746 .Pf ( Va system-mailrc ) .
12747 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
12749 (and according argument) or
12751 command line options, or by setting the
12754 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
12758 File giving initial commands.
12759 A different file can be chosen by setting the
12763 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
12765 command line option.
12767 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
12768 Defines a startup file to be read after all other resource files.
12769 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
12771 implementations, for example.
12772 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
12774 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
12778 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
12781 .Bl -bullet -compact
12783 The whitespace characters space, tabulator and newline,
12784 as well as those defined by the variable
12786 are removed from the beginning and end of input lines.
12788 Empty lines are ignored.
12790 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
12791 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
12793 by placing a reverse solidus character
12795 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
12796 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
12797 remains in the input.
12799 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
12801 then it is a comment-command and also ignored.
12802 (The comment-command is a real command, which does nothing, and
12803 therefore the usual follow lines mechanism applies!)
12807 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
12808 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
12809 More files with syntactically equal content can be
12811 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
12813 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12814 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
12815 es, it is really continued here.
12822 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
12823 .Ss "The mime.types files"
12826 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
12827 \*(UA needs to learn about MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
12828 media types in order to classify message and attachment content.
12829 One source for them are
12831 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
12832 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12833 Another is the command
12835 which also offers access to \*(UAs MIME type cache.
12837 files have the following syntax:
12839 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12840 type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12841 # E.g., text/html html htm
12847 define the MIME media type, as standardized in RFC 2046:
12849 is used to declare the general type of data, while the
12851 specifies a specific format for that type of data.
12852 One or multiple filename
12854 s, separated by whitespace, can be bound to the media type format.
12855 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
12857 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
12859 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in especially
12860 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
12861 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12862 and prepends an optional
12866 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12869 The following type markers are supported:
12872 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
12874 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
12879 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
12880 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
12881 the content as plain text instead.
12885 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
12886 handler to be defined.
12888 If no handler can be found a text message is displayed which says so.
12889 This can be annoying, for example signatures serve a contextual purpose,
12890 their content is of no use by itself.
12891 This marker will avoid displaying the text message.
12896 for sending messages:
12898 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
12899 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12900 For reading etc. messages:
12901 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12902 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
12904 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12905 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12906 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12907 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12910 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
12911 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
12913 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
12914 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
12916 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
12917 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports (see
12918 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
12919 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
12920 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
12921 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
12922 et cetera MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that
12923 includes multiple possible locations of
12927 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
12928 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
12929 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
12930 the list of MIME type handler directives.
12934 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
12935 Comment lines start with a number sign
12937 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
12938 Empty lines are also ignored.
12939 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
12941 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
12942 follow lines if newline characters are
12944 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
12946 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
12947 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
12951 entries consist of a number of semicolon
12953 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
12955 character can be used to escape any following character including
12956 semicolon and itself.
12957 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
12958 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
12959 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
12962 The first field defines the MIME
12964 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
12965 escaping is possible in this field).
12966 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
12968 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
12970 would match any audio type.
12971 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
12973 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
12980 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
12981 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
12984 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
12985 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
12988 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
12989 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
12991 In any case any given
12993 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
12994 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
12996 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
12997 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
12998 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
13000 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
13001 flags had been set; see below for more.
13004 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
13005 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
13006 naming the field followed by an equals sign
13008 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
13010 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
13011 Optional fields include the following:
13014 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
13016 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
13018 (Currently unused.)
13020 .It Cd composetyped
13023 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
13025 header field to be applied to the composed data.
13026 (Currently unused.)
13029 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
13031 (Currently unused.)
13034 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
13036 (Currently unused.)
13039 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
13040 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
13041 this mailcap entry applies.
13042 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
13043 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
13046 .It Cd needsterminal
13047 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
13048 an interactive terminal.
13049 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
13050 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
13051 ignored; this flag implies
13052 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
13055 .It Cd copiousoutput
13056 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
13058 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
13059 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
13060 It is mutually exclusive with
13061 .Cd needsterminal .
13063 .It Cd textualnewlines
13064 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
13065 that, if encoded in
13067 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
13068 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
13069 (Currently unused.)
13071 .It Cd nametemplate
13072 This field gives a filename format, in which
13074 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
13075 will be used as the filename denoted by
13076 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
13077 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
13078 have a name ending in
13081 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
13082 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
13083 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
13084 characters, the underscore and dot only.
13087 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
13088 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
13089 This field is not used by \*(UA.
13092 A textual description that describes this type of data.
13095 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
13096 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
13098 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
13099 then their use will be considered.
13100 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
13101 .Cd needsterminal .
13104 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
13105 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
13108 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
13109 (as it would be by default).
13112 .It Cd x-mailx-async
13113 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
13115 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
13116 Cannot be used in conjunction with
13117 .Cd needsterminal .
13120 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
13121 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
13123 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
13124 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
13125 .Dq running under the X Window System .
13128 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
13129 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
13130 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
13131 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
13132 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
13137 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
13138 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
13139 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
13141 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
13142 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
13143 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
13145 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
13150 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
13151 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
13152 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
13153 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
13154 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
13156 format, or in conjunction with
13157 .Cd x-mailx-async ,
13158 or without also setting
13159 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
13161 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
13164 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
13167 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
13169 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
13171 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
13176 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
13177 entry fields, prefixed by
13179 Flag fields apply to the entire
13181 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
13182 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
13183 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
13184 one does not provide enough information.
13187 command needs to specify the
13191 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
13195 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
13197 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13198 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
13199 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
13203 In fields any occurrence of the format string
13205 will be replaced by the
13208 Named parameters from the
13210 field may be placed in the command execution line using
13212 followed by the parameter name and a closing
13215 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
13216 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
13218 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13220 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
13223 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
13224 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
13226 # Executed shell command
13227 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
13231 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
13232 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
13233 shown in this example (as of today).
13234 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
13238 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
13240 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
13241 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
13242 in additional user-provided quotes:
13244 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13246 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
13248 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
13250 application/pdf; \e
13252 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
13253 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
13255 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
13257 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
13258 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vet; \e
13259 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
13264 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
13265 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
13268 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
13269 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
13270 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
13273 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
13274 .Ss "The .netrc file"
13278 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
13279 The default location
13281 may be overridden by the
13283 environment variable.
13284 It is possible to load encrypted
13286 files by using an appropriate value in
13290 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
13291 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
13292 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
13293 of that file format, shall their
13295 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
13298 .Bl -bullet -compact
13300 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
13301 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
13303 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
13304 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
13306 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
13308 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
13310 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
13311 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
13312 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
13314 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
13315 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
13316 whitespace, with a number sign
13318 then the rest of the line is ignored.
13320 Whereas other programs may require that the
13322 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
13324 token for any other
13328 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
13332 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
13337 At runtime the command
13339 can be used to control \*(UA's
13343 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
13344 .It Cd machine Ar name
13345 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
13347 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
13352 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
13355 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
13356 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
13358 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13359 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
13360 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
13361 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
13367 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
13371 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
13372 Note that in the example neither
13373 .Ql pop3.example.com
13375 .Ql smtp.example.com
13376 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
13377 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
13380 This is the same as
13382 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
13383 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
13384 and it must be the last first-class token.
13386 .It Cd login Ar name
13387 The user name on the remote machine.
13389 .It Cd password Ar string
13390 The user's password on the remote machine.
13392 .It Cd account Ar string
13393 Supply an additional account password.
13394 This is merely for FTP purposes.
13396 .It Cd macdef Ar name
13398 A macro is defined with the specified
13400 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
13401 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
13404 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
13405 defined following the
13407 they are intended to be used with.)
13410 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
13411 This is merely for FTP purposes.
13418 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
13421 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
13422 .Ss "An example configuration"
13424 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13425 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
13428 # Request strict SSL/TLS transport security checks
13429 set ssl-verify=strict
13431 # Where are the up-to-date SSL/TLS certificates?
13432 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
13433 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
13434 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
13435 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
13436 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
13437 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
13438 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
13439 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
13441 # This could be outsourced to a central configuration file via
13442 # ssl-config-file plus ssl-config-module if the used library allows.
13443 # CipherString: explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may
13444 # improve security, especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2.
13445 # See ciphers(1). Possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
13446 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
13447 # Note that TLSv1.3 uses Ciphersuites= instead, which will join
13448 # with CipherString (if protocols older than v1.3 are allowed)
13449 # Curves: especially with TLSv1.3 curves selection may be desired.
13450 # MinProtocol,MaxProtocol: do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
13451 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
13452 # maybe use chain support via ssl-config-pairs-HOST / -USER@HOST
13453 # to define such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
13454 # MinProtocol=TLSv1.1
13455 if [ "$ssl-features" =% +ctx-set-maxmin-proto ]
13456 wysh set ssl-config-pairs='\e
13457 CipherString=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH,\e
13458 Curves=P-521:P-384:P-256,\e
13459 MinProtocol=TLSv1.1'
13461 wysh set ssl-config-pairs='\e
13462 CipherString=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH,\e
13463 Curves=P-521:P-384:P-256,\e
13464 Protocol=-ALL\e,+TLSv1.1 \e, +TLSv1.2\e, +TLSv1.3'
13467 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
13468 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
13470 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
13471 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
13472 set reply-in-same-charset
13474 # When replying, do not merge From: and To: of the original message
13475 # into To:. Instead old From: -> new To:, old To: -> merge Cc:.
13476 set recipients-in-cc
13478 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
13479 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
13480 # exit status of the MTA (including the built-in SMTP one)!
13483 # Only use built-in MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
13484 set mimetypes-load-control
13486 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
13488 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
13489 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
13490 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt \e
13491 record=+sent.mbox record-files record-resent
13493 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
13494 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
13496 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
13497 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
13499 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
13500 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
13501 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
13502 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
13503 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
13506 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
13508 colour-pager crt= \e
13509 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes fullnames \e
13510 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
13511 mime-counter-evidence=0b1111 \e
13512 prompt='?\e$?!\e$!/\e$^ERRNAME[\e$account#\e$mailbox-display]? ' \e
13513 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
13516 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
13517 headerpick type retain from_ date from to cc subject \e
13518 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
13519 # ...when forwarding messages
13520 headerpick forward retain subject date from to cc
13521 # ...when saving message, etc.
13522 #headerpick save ignore ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
13524 # Some mailing lists
13525 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
13526 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
13528 # Handle a few file extensions (to store MBOX databases)
13529 filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
13530 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
13531 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
13532 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
13534 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
13535 # Instead of directly placing content inside `account',
13536 # we `define' a macro: like that we can switch "accounts"
13537 # from within *on-compose-splice*, for example!
13539 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
13540 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
13542 set pop3-no-apop-pop.gmXil.com
13543 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.gmXil.com
13544 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.gmXil.com
13545 # Or, entirely IMAP based setup
13546 #set folder=imaps://imap.gmail.com record="+[Gmail]/Sent Mail" \e
13547 # imap-cache=~/spool/cache
13549 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
13551 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.gmail.com:465
13557 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
13558 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
13559 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
13560 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
13561 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
13562 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
13564 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
13565 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
13567 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.yaXXex.com
13568 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.yaXXex.com
13570 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.com:465 \e
13571 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
13577 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
13578 commandalias lls '!ls ${LS_COLOUR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
13579 commandalias llS '!ls ${LS_COLOUR_FLAG} -aFlS'
13581 set pipe-message/external-body='@* echo $MAILX_EXTERNAL_BODY_URL'
13583 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
13584 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
13587 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
13588 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
13589 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
13591 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
13594 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
13595 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
13596 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
13600 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
13601 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
13608 commandalias V '\e'call V
13612 When storing passwords in
13614 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
13615 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
13618 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
13620 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
13621 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
13623 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13625 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
13626 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
13628 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
13629 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
13631 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
13632 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
13633 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
13634 commandalias xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
13646 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13647 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
13651 This configuration should now work just fine:
13654 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -dvv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
13657 .\" .Ss "S/MIME step by step" {{{
13658 .Ss "S/MIME step by step"
13660 \*(OP The first thing that is needed for
13661 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
13662 is a personal certificate, and a private key.
13663 The certificate contains public information, in particular a name and
13664 email address(es), and the public key that can be used by others to
13665 encrypt messages for the certificate holder (the owner of the private
13668 signed messages generated with that certificate('s private key).
13669 Whereas the certificate is included in each signed message, the private
13670 key must be kept secret.
13671 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with the
13672 public key, and to sign messages.
13675 For personal use it is recommended that get a S/MIME certificate from
13676 one of the major CAs on the Internet.
13677 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
13678 Usually offered is a combined certificate and private key in PKCS#12
13679 format which \*(UA does not accept directly.
13680 To convert it to PEM format, the following shell command can be used;
13681 please read on for how to use these PEM files.
13683 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13684 $ openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out certpem.pem -clcerts -nodes
13686 $ openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out cert.pem -clcerts -nokeys
13687 $ openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out key.pem -nocerts -nodes
13692 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
13693 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
13694 community for free; their root certificate
13695 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
13696 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
13697 which means their root certificate has to be downloaded separately,
13698 and needs to be part of the S/MIME certificate validation chain by
13701 or as a vivid member of the
13702 .Va smime-ca-file .
13703 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
13704 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
13707 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
13708 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
13709 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
13710 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
13711 entries of the web interface.
13712 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
13713 .Dq client certificate ,
13714 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
13715 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
13719 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
13720 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
13721 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
13724 .Dl $ openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
13727 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
13729 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
13730 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
13731 .Dq advanced options
13732 to see the corresponding text field).
13733 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
13734 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
13735 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
13736 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
13737 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
13742 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
13743 (certificate) file has to be created:
13746 .Dl $ cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
13749 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
13750 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
13751 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted, unless this
13752 operation has been automatized as described in
13753 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" .
13754 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
13756 is of interest for verification only):
13758 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13759 ? set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
13760 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
13761 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
13767 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
13768 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
13770 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
13771 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
13772 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
13773 declared invalid after they have been issued.
13774 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
13776 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
13777 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
13778 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
13779 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
13780 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
13781 invalidated certificates.
13782 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
13783 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
13786 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
13787 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
13790 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
13793 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
13794 (and no other files) must be created.
13799 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
13800 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
13801 to verify a certificate.
13810 In general it is a good idea to turn on
13816 twice) if something does not work well.
13817 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
13818 problems' solution.
13820 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
13821 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
13823 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
13824 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
13826 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
13827 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
13829 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
13833 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
13836 return the expected value?
13837 Does this local hostname have a domain suffix?
13838 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
13840 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
13843 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
13844 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
13846 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
13848 unless they use a special authentication method (OAuth 2.0) which
13849 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
13850 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
13853 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
13854 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
13855 her- and himself with the locally installed
13857 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
13858 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
13859 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
13860 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
13863 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
13864 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
13865 .Dq less secure app
13866 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
13867 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
13872 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
13875 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
13877 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
13879 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
13880 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
13881 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
13885 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
13886 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
13888 It can happen that the terminal library (see
13889 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
13892 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
13893 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
13894 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
13895 Especially without the \*(OPal terminal capability library support one
13896 reason for this may be that the (possibly even non-existing) keypad
13897 is not turned on and the resulting layout reports the keypad control
13898 codes for the normal keyboard keys.
13903 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
13906 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
13908 in conjunction with the command line option
13910 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
13911 by keypresses, and use the variable
13913 to make \*(UA aware of them.
13914 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
13915 an example showing the shifted home key:
13917 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13920 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
13925 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
13932 .\" .Ss "Can \*(UA git-send-email?" {{{
13933 .Ss "Can \*(UA git-send-email?"
13936 Put (at least parts of) the following in your
13939 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13941 smtpserver = /usr/bin/s-mailx
13942 smtpserveroption = -t
13943 #smtpserveroption = -Sexpandaddr
13944 smtpserveroption = -Athe-account-you-need
13947 suppressfrom = false
13948 assume8bitEncoding = UTF-8
13951 chainreplyto = true
13962 .\" .Sh "IMAP CLIENT" {{{
13965 \*(OPally there is IMAP client support available.
13966 This part of the program is obsolete and will vanish in v15 with the
13967 large MIME and I/O layer rewrite, because it uses old-style blocking I/O
13968 and makes excessive use of signal based long code jumps.
13969 Support can hopefully be readded later based on a new-style I/O, with
13970 SysV signal handling.
13971 In fact the IMAP support had already been removed from the codebase, but
13972 was reinstantiated on user demand: in effect the IMAP code is at the
13973 level of \*(UA v14.8.16 (with
13975 being the sole exception), and should be treated with some care.
13982 protocol prefixes, and an IMAP-based
13985 IMAP URLs (paths) undergo inspections and possible transformations
13986 before use (and the command
13988 can be used to manually apply them to any given argument).
13989 Hierarchy delimiters are normalized, a step which is configurable via the
13991 variable chain, but defaults to the first seen delimiter otherwise.
13992 \*(UA supports internationalised IMAP names, and en- and decodes the
13993 names from and to the
13995 as necessary and possible.
13996 If a mailbox name is expanded (see
13997 .Sx "Filename transformations" )
13998 to an IMAP mailbox, all names that begin with `+' then refer to IMAP
13999 mailboxes below the
14001 target box, while folder names prefixed by `@' refer to folders below
14002 the hierarchy base, e.g., the following lists all folders below the
14003 current one when in an IMAP mailbox:
14007 Note: some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in
14008 the hierarchy base, but require that they are created as subfolders of
14009 `INBOX' \(en with such servers a folder name of the form
14011 .Dl imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.
14013 should be used (the last character is the server's hierarchy
14015 The following IMAP-specific commands exist:
14018 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
14021 Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes;
14022 takes a message list and reads the specified messages into the IMAP
14027 If operating in disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
14028 switch to online mode and connect to the mail server while retaining
14029 the mailbox status.
14030 See the description of the
14032 variable for more information.
14036 If operating in online mode on an IMAP mailbox,
14037 switch to disconnected mode while retaining the mailbox status.
14038 See the description of the
14041 A list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
14042 the respective messages are then read into the cache before the
14043 connection is closed, thus
14045 makes the entire mailbox available for disconnected use.
14049 Sends command strings directly to the current IMAP server.
14050 \*(UA operates always in IMAP `selected state' on the current mailbox;
14051 commands that change this will produce undesirable results and should be
14053 Useful IMAP commands are:
14054 .Bl -tag -offset indent -width ".Ic getquotearoot"
14056 Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and creates it.
14058 (RFC 2087) Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument
14059 and prints the quotas that apply to the mailbox.
14060 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
14062 (RFC 2342) Takes no arguments and prints the Personal Namespaces,
14063 the Other User's Namespaces and the Shared Namespaces.
14064 Each namespace type is printed in parentheses;
14065 if there are multiple namespaces of the same type,
14066 inner parentheses separate them.
14067 For each namespace a prefix and a hierarchy separator is listed.
14068 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
14073 Perform IMAP path transformations.
14077 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
14078 and manages the error number
14080 The first argument specifies the operation:
14082 normalizes hierarchy delimiters (see
14084 and converts the strings from the locale
14086 to the internationalized variant used by IMAP,
14088 performs the reverse operation.
14093 The following IMAP-specific internal variables exist:
14096 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
14098 .It Va disconnected
14099 \*(BO When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable is set,
14100 no connection to the server is initiated.
14101 Instead, data is obtained from the local cache (see
14104 Mailboxes that are not present in the cache
14105 and messages that have not yet entirely been fetched from the server
14107 to fetch all messages in a mailbox at once,
14109 .No ` Ns Li copy * /dev/null Ns '
14110 can be used while still in connected mode.
14111 Changes that are made to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued
14112 and committed later when a connection to that server is made.
14113 This procedure is not completely reliable since it cannot be guaranteed
14114 that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs) on the server still match the
14115 ones in the cache at that time.
14118 when this problem occurs.
14120 .It Va disconnected-USER@HOST
14121 The specified account is handled as described for the
14124 but other accounts are not affected.
14127 .It Va imap-auth-USER@HOST , imap-auth
14128 Sets the IMAP authentication method.
14129 Valid values are `login' for the usual password-based authentication
14131 `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication that does not send
14132 the password over the network in clear text,
14133 and `gssapi' for GSS-API based authentication.
14137 Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes.
14138 The value of this variable must point to a directory that is either
14139 existent or can be created by \*(UA.
14140 All contents of the cache can be deleted by \*(UA at any time;
14141 it is not safe to make assumptions about them.
14144 .It Va imap-delim-USER@HOST , imap-delim-HOST , imap-delim
14145 The hierarchy separator used by the IMAP server.
14146 Whenever an IMAP path is specified it will undergo normalization.
14147 One of the normalization steps is the squeezing and adjustment of
14148 hierarchy separators.
14149 If this variable is set, any occurrence of any character of the given
14150 value that exists in the path will be replaced by the first member of
14151 the value; an empty value will cause the default to be used, it is
14153 If not set, we will reuse the first hierarchy separator character that
14154 is discovered in a user-given mailbox name.
14156 .Mx Va imap-keepalive
14157 .It Va imap-keepalive-USER@HOST , imap-keepalive-HOST , imap-keepalive
14158 IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of
14159 inactivity; the standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes,
14160 but practical experience may vary.
14161 Setting this variable to a numeric `value' greater than 0 causes
14162 a `NOOP' command to be sent each `value' seconds if no other operation
14166 .It Va imap-list-depth
14167 When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the
14169 command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid possible
14171 The value of this variable sets the maximum depth allowed.
14173 If the folder separator on the current IMAP server is a slash `/',
14174 this variable has no effect and the
14176 command does not descend to subfolders.
14178 .Mx Va imap-use-starttls
14179 .It Va imap-use-starttls-USER@HOST , imap-use-starttls-HOST , imap-use-starttls
14180 Causes \*(UA to issue a `STARTTLS' command to make an unencrypted
14181 IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted.
14182 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
14183 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the IMAPS method.
14189 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
14199 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
14208 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
14214 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
14217 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
14218 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
14219 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
14222 command already appeared in First Edition
14226 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
14227 Electronic mail was there from the start.
14228 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
14229 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
14230 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
14231 freeloaders, or whatever.
14232 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
14233 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
14234 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
14240 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
14243 distribution until 1995.
14244 Mail has then seen further development in open source
14246 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
14248 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
14249 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
14250 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
14251 This man page is derived from
14252 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
14253 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
14261 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
14262 .An "Edward Wang" ,
14263 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
14264 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
14265 .An "Gunnar Ritter" .
14266 \*(UA is developed by
14267 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq steffen@sdaoden.eu .
14270 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
14273 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
14277 from anywhere else but a command prompt is very problematic and likely
14278 to leave the program in an undefined state: many library functions
14279 cannot deal with the
14281 that this software (still) performs; even though efforts have been taken
14282 to address this, no sooner but in v15 it will have been worked out:
14283 interruptions have not been disabled in order to allow forceful breakage
14284 of hanging network connections, for example (all this is unrelated to
14288 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
14289 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
14290 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
14295 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
14296 that is capable of message queuing.
14303 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
14304 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
14305 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
14311 mode a power user may encounter crashes very occasionally (this is may
14316 in the source repository lists future directions.
14319 Please report bugs to the
14321 address, e.g., from within \*(uA:
14322 .\" v15-compat: drop eval as `mail' will expand variable?
14323 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
14326 output of the command
14328 may be helpful, e.g.,
14330 .Bd -literal -offset indent
14331 ? wysh set escape=! verbose; vput version xy; unset verbose;\e
14332 eval mail $contact-mail
14339 Information on the web at
14340 .Ql $ \*(uA -X 'echo Ns \| $ Ns Va contact-web Ns ' -Xx .