1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2016 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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34 .\"@ S-nail(1): v14.9.0-pre2 / 2016-10-31
36 .ds VV \\%v14.9.0-pre2
46 .\" If not ~/.mailrc, it breaks POSIX compatibility. And adjust main.c.
51 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
52 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
53 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
64 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
70 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
78 .Op Fl a Ar attachment
81 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
83 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
88 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
97 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
100 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
108 .Op Fl L Ar spec-list
109 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
110 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
113 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
118 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
121 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
124 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
125 .Sy Compatibility note:
126 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2018).
127 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
131 -style argument quoting rules, for example.
132 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
135 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
136 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
137 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
141 enables obsoletion warnings.
145 \*(UA is a mail processing system with a command syntax reminiscent of
147 with lines replaced by messages.
148 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
150 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
151 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3 among others.
153 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
156 .Bl -tag -width ".Fl _ Ar _ddr"
159 Explicitly control which of the
161 shall be loaded: if the letter
163 is (case-insensitively) part of the
167 is loaded, likewise the letter
169 controls loading of the user's personal
171 file, whereas the letters
175 explicitly forbid loading of any resource files.
176 This option should be used by scripts: to avoid environmental noise they
179 from any configuration files and create a script-local environment,
180 explicitly setting any of the desired
181 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
184 This option overrides
191 command for the given user email
193 after program startup is complete.
194 Being a special incarnation of
196 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived settings, activating
197 such an email account also switches to the accounts system
206 The same filename conventions as described in the section
208 apply: shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
212 not be accessible but contain a
214 character, then anything after the
216 is assumed to specify the input character set and anything before
218 the filename: this is the only option to specify (and fixate) the input
219 character set of text attachments from the command line, not using the
221 command of and in the compose mode that follows
223 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
224 for compose mode commands).
228 Make standard input and standard output line-buffered.
232 Send a blind carbon copy to
235 May be used multiple times.
237 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
241 Send carbon copies to the given receiver.
242 May be used multiple times.
247 the internal variable
249 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
250 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
256 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
257 This is useful for sending messages from scripts.
261 Just check if mail is present (in the specified or system
263 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
264 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
265 specification can be added with the option
270 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
271 first recipient's address (instead of in
276 Read in the contents of the user's
278 (or the specified file) for processing;
279 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
283 Some special conventions are recognized for the optional
285 argument which are documented for the
290 is not a argument to the flag
292 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
296 that starts with a hyphen, prefix it with a (relative) path, as in
297 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
301 Display a summary of the
303 of all messages in the specified mailbox or system
306 A configurable summary view is available via the
312 Show a short usage summary.
313 Because of widespread use a
315 argument will have the same effect.
321 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
324 .It Fl L Ar spec-list
325 Display a summary of all
327 of only those messages in the specified mailbox or the system
333 .Sx "Specifying messages"
340 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
341 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
347 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
348 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
353 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
357 and use it as the main message body.
358 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
359 .Va message-inject-head ,
362 .Va message-inject-tail .
368 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
370 and use it as the main message body.
371 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
372 .Va message-inject-head ,
375 .Va message-inject-tail .
383 and thus inhibit initial display of message headers when reading mail or
384 editing a mail folder.
388 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
393 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
394 .Sx "Resource files" .
398 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
399 contents of the specified
401 which may be standard input
403 only in non-interactive context.
409 Any folder opened will be in read-only mode.
412 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
415 is a valid address then it specifies the envelope sender address to be
416 passed to a file-based
418 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) as
420 when a message is send.
423 include a user name, then the address components will be separated and
424 the name part will be passed to file-based
430 will also be assigned to the
433 .Ql -Sfrom=from-addr ) ,
434 therefore affecting possible SMTP
436 data transfer; note this assignment does not cause value fixation.
438 If instead an empty string is passed as
440 then the content of the variable
442 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the
445 Note that \*(UA by default, without
447 that is, neither passes
451 flags to a file-based MTA by itself.
454 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
458 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
462 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
466 may be overwritten from within resource files,
467 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
472 Specify the subject of the to-be-sent message.
476 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
477 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
482 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
483 specified on the command line.
484 If a message subject is specified via
486 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
502 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
503 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
504 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
506 Any other (even custom) header field is passed through entirely
507 unchanged, and in conjunction with the option
509 it is even possible to embed
510 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
516 Initially read the primary system mailbox of
518 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
528 will also show the list of
530 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
535 ting the internal variable
537 enables display of some informational context messages.
538 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
542 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
544 to the list of commands to be executed (as a unit, just as via
546 before normal operation starts.
550 .Va batch-exit-on-error ;
551 the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode when
552 reading startup files is actively prohibited.
557 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
558 even if not in interactive mode.
559 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
560 text before sending the message:
561 .Bd -literal -offset indent
562 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.'; \e
563 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
564 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -Sttycharset=UTF-8 -d~ bob@exam.ple
570 In batch mode the full set of commands is available, just like in
571 interactive mode, and diverse variable settings and internal states are
572 adjusted for batch necessities, e.g., it
588 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
589 is enabled in compose mode.
590 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
591 .Bd -literal -offset indent
592 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' | \e
593 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d# -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
598 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
601 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
602 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
606 In the above list of supported command line options,
610 are implemented by means of
612 ting the respective internal variable, as via
615 .Op Ar mta-option ...
617 arguments that are given at the end of the command line after a
619 separator will be passed through to a file-based
621 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for an entire (interactive) session
622 \(en if the setting of
624 allows their recognition; no such constraints apply to the variable
628 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
631 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
633 Mail, a successor of the Research
636 .Dq was there from the start
641 Mail reference manual begins with the following words:
643 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
644 Mail provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
646 It divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows the
647 user to deal with them in any order.
648 In addition, it provides a set of
650 -like commands for manipulating messages and sending mail.
651 Mail offers the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
652 of outgoing messages, as well as providing the ability to define and
653 send to names which address groups of users.
657 \*(UA is thus the user side of the
659 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
660 traditionally taken by
662 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
667 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
671 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
673 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
674 using it is a smooth experience.
677 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
678 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
679 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety, however, e.g., it
684 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to
686 that would otherwise occur (see
687 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
690 to not remove empty files in order not to mangle file permissions when
691 files eventually get recreated (\*(UA actively manages the file mode
694 upon program startup).
699 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
704 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
706 to allow editing of headers as well as
708 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
710 to include the message that is being responded to when
715 contains some more complete configuration examples.
718 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
719 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
721 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a builtin
723 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
724 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
725 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
729 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
731 .Bd -literal -offset indent
732 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
733 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode first
734 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d -vv -Ssendwait \e
735 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple -. \e
736 '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
738 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d -vv -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait \e
739 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
740 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
746 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
747 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
748 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
750 special \(en these are so-called
751 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
752 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
753 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
755 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
757 allows editing of the most important message headers and
759 gives an overview of available command escapes.
763 at the beginning of an empty line leaves compose mode and causes the
764 message to be sent, whereas typing
767 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
773 Messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the variable
775 is set, therefore send errors are not recognizable until then.
781 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
782 can be used to alter default behavior; e.g.,
787 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
789 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content,
791 will cause the user to be prompted actively for carbon-copy recipients
794 will allow leaving compose mode by writing a line consisting solely of
800 hook macros may be set to automatically adjust some settings dependent
801 on receiver, sender or subject contexts.
804 Especially for using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
806 it is often necessary to set
808 and saving a copy of sent messages in a
810 may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox file targets some special
811 syntax conventions are recognized (see the
813 command for more on that).
816 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
817 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
820 contains example configurations for sending messages via some of the
821 well-known public mail providers and also gives a compact overview on
822 how to setup a secure SSL/TLS environment).
827 sandbox dry-run tests first will prove correctness.
831 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
832 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
833 account credentials, the
835 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
838 goes into the details of character encoding and how to use them for
839 representing messages and MIME part contents by specifying them in
841 and reading the section
842 .Sx "The mime.types files"
843 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
844 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
845 Over the wire an intermediate, configurable
846 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
847 may be applied to the raw message part data.
850 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
855 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
856 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
859 is not set then only network addresses (see
861 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
862 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
865 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
866 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
870 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
871 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
873 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
875 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
876 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
878 or the character sequence dot solidus
880 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
881 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen
883 Any other name which contains an at sign
885 character is treated as a network address;
886 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
888 character specifies a mailbox name;
889 Any other name which contains a solidus
891 character but no exclamation mark
895 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
896 What remains is treated as a network address.
898 .Bd -literal -offset indent
899 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
900 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
901 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
902 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave \e
903 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr -s test \e
908 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
910 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
912 and have it go to a group of people.
913 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
914 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
918 and are often tracked in a file
924 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
925 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
929 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
932 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
934 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
935 environment, ideally with the command line options
937 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
939 to specify variables:
941 .Bd -literal -offset indent
942 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
943 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
944 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr \e
945 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
946 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
947 -s 'subject' -a attachment_file \e
948 -. "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>" rec2@exam.ple \e
953 As shown, scripts can
955 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
958 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
960 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
961 can be sent by calling the
963 command with a list of recipient addresses \(em the semantics are
964 completely identical to non-interactive message sending:
966 .Bd -literal -offset indent
967 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
968 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
969 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
970 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
971 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
975 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
976 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
978 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
980 When used like that the user's system
984 for an in-depth description of the different mailbox types that exist)
985 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed.
986 The visual style of this summary of
988 can be adjusted through the variable
990 and the possible sorting criterion via
996 can be performed with the command
998 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
999 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1008 will give a listing of all available commands and
1010 will give a summary of some common ones.
1011 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1014 and see the actual expansion of
1016 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1017 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1018 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1019 possible to define overwrites with the
1022 These commands can also produce a more
1027 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1028 messages; the current message \(en the
1030 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1031 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1033 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1038 ful of header summaries containing the
1042 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1046 Message content can be displayed on the users' terminal with the
1050 If instead the command
1052 is used, only the first
1054 of a message will be shown.
1055 By default the current message
1057 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1058 a fancy message specification (see
1059 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1062 will display all unread messages,
1067 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1069 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1073 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1076 (a more substantial alias of the standard command
1078 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1079 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1082 .Dl from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1085 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1087 d, but this can be changed: either by blacklisting a list of fields via
1089 or by whitelisting only a given list with the
1092 .Ql Ic \:retain Ns \0from_ date from to cc subject .
1093 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1094 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1100 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1102 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1104 (generally speaking).
1105 Note that historically the global
1107 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1111 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1112 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1113 aims at making user experience with the many
1116 When reading the system
1122 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1124 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a primary one) then messages which
1125 have been read will be moved to a secondary mailbox, the user's
1127 file, automatically when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1128 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1129 .Sx "Message states" )
1130 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1131 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1136 After examining a message the user can also
1140 to the sender and all recipients or
1142 exclusively to the sender(s).
1143 Messages can also be
1145 ed (shorter alias is
1147 Note that when replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses
1148 will be stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1151 Deletion causes \*(UA to forget about the message;
1152 This is not irreversible, though, one can
1154 the message by giving its number,
1155 or the \*(UA session can be ended by giving the
1160 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1162 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1163 automatic moving of read messages to
1165 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1169 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1172 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1173 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1175 Messages which are HTML-only get more and more common and of course many
1176 messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME attachments.
1177 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter to deal
1178 with HTML messages (see
1179 .Sx "The mime.types files" ) ,
1180 it normally cannot deal with any of these itself, but instead programs
1181 need to become registered to deal with specific MIME types or file
1183 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input
1184 in order to enable \*(UA to display the content on the terminal,
1185 or display the content themselves, for example in a graphical window.
1188 To install an external handler program for a specific MIME type set an
1190 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1191 variable; to instead define a handler for a specific file extension set
1194 variable \(en these handlers take precedence.
1195 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1196 RFC 1524; this mechanism, documented in the section
1197 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
1198 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1199 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1200 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1201 A last source for handlers may be the MIME type definition itself, if
1202 the \*(UA specific type-marker extension was used when defining the type
1205 (Many of the builtin MIME types do so by default.)
1209 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1210 can be set to improve dealing with faulty MIME part declarations as are
1211 often seen in real-life messages.
1212 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1213 fancy plain text representation than the builtin converter is capable to
1214 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1218 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1219 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1220 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1222 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1223 if $features !@ +filter-html-tagsoup
1224 #set pipe-text/html='elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1225 set pipe-text/html='lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1226 # Display HTML as plain text instead
1227 #set pipe-text/html=@
1229 mimetype '@ application/mathml+xml mathml'
1230 wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1231 trap "rm -f \e"${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1232 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1233 mupdf "${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1237 Note: special care must be taken when using such commands as mail
1238 viruses may be distributed by this method: if messages of type
1239 .Ql application/x-sh
1240 or files with the extension
1242 were blindly filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1243 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system \*(UA is running on.
1244 For more on MIME, also in respect to sending of messages, see the
1246 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
1247 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
1252 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1255 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1258 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1260 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1265 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1266 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1267 currently defined mailing lists.
1272 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1273 in the header display.
1276 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1277 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1279 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1280 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1281 (are) matched sequentially.
1283 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1284 set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1285 wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1286 mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1291 .Va followup-to-honour
1293 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1294 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1300 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1301 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1303 .Dq mailing list specific
1308 is used to respond to a message with its
1309 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1313 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1314 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1315 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1316 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1317 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1318 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1320 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1321 address that is presented in the
1323 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1325 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1327 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1330 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1331 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1332 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1336 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
1337 .Ss "Resource files"
1339 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
1341 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa _AIL_EXTRA_R_"
1344 System wide initialization file.
1345 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
1349 command line options, or by setting the
1352 .Ev NAIL_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
1356 File giving initial commands.
1357 A different file can be chosen by setting the
1361 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
1363 command line option.
1365 .It Va NAIL_EXTRA_RC
1366 Can be used to define an optional startup file to be read after all
1367 other resource files.
1368 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
1370 implementations, for example.
1371 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
1373 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1377 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
1380 .Bl -bullet -compact
1382 A lines' leading whitespace is removed.
1384 Empty lines are ignored.
1386 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
1387 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
1389 by placing a reverse solidus character
1391 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
1392 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
1393 remains in the input.
1395 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
1397 then it is a comment-command \(en a real command! \(en and also ignored.
1398 This command is the only form of comment that is understood.
1402 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
1403 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
1404 More files with syntactically equal content can be
1406 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
1408 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1409 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
1410 es, it is really continued here.
1417 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1418 .Ss "Character sets"
1420 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1421 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1426 should give an overview); the \*(UA internal variable
1428 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly
1429 and will thus show up in the output of the commands
1435 However, a user supplied
1437 value is not overwritten by this detection mechanism: this
1439 must be used if the detection does not work properly,
1440 and it may be used to adjust the name of the locale character set.
1441 E.g., on BSD systems one may use a locale with the character set
1442 ISO8859-1, which is not a valid name for this character set; to be on
1443 the safe side, one may set
1445 to the correct name, which is ISO-8859-1.
1448 Note that changing the value does not mean much beside that,
1449 since several aspects of the real character set are implied by the
1450 locale environment of the system,
1451 and that stays unaffected by the content of an overwritten
1454 (This is mostly an issue when interactively using \*(UA, though.
1455 It is actually possible to send mail in a completely
1457 locale environment, an option that \*(UA's test-suite uses excessively.)
1460 If no character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into
1463 does not include the term
1467 will be the only supported character set,
1468 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1469 (over the wire an intermediate
1470 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
1472 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1473 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1474 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to the mentioned
1475 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./nail.h:CHARSET_*!)
1479 When reading messages, their text is converted into
1481 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1482 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1483 and replaced by proper substitution characters (unless the variable
1485 was set once \*(UA was started).
1487 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1488 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1491 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1492 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1493 appear to be binary data,
1494 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1495 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1496 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1497 Permissible values for character sets can be declared using the
1501 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1502 implicitly appended to the list of character-sets in
1506 When replying to a message and the variable
1507 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1508 is set then the character set of the message being replied to is tried
1510 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1511 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1512 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1513 please see there for more information.
1516 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1517 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1518 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1519 content of the part or attachment,
1520 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1524 In general, if the message
1525 .Dq Cannot convert from a to b
1526 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1527 selected (terminal) character set,
1528 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1529 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1531 locale and/or the variable
1535 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1536 locale on a UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1537 spectrum of characters is available.
1538 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1539 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1540 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1543 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1544 .Dq portable character set
1545 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1546 restricted subset named
1547 .Dq portable filename character set
1548 consisting of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1557 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1558 .Ss "Message states"
1560 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1561 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1563 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1565 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1567 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1568 When operating on the system
1570 or in primary mailboxes opened with the special prefix
1574 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the secondary
1576 mailbox may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1577 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1579 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1582 mail-user-agents, the default global
1588 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1590 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _reserved"
1592 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1593 Such messages are retained even in the primary system mailbox.
1596 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
1597 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
1598 Such messages are retained even in the primary system mailbox.
1601 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1621 commands may also cause the next message to be marked as read, depending
1627 command is used, messages that are in the primary system mailbox or in
1628 mailboxes which were opened with the special
1632 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in
1634 unless the internal variable
1639 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1645 can be used to access such messages.
1648 The message has been processed by a
1650 command and it will be retained in its current location.
1653 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1659 command is used, messages that are in the primary system mailbox or in
1660 mailboxes which were opened with the special
1664 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in
1666 when the internal variable
1672 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
1673 .Ss "Specifying messages"
1680 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
1681 of messages at once.
1684 deletes messages 1 and 2,
1687 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
1688 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
1692 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
1693 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
1696 The following special message names exist:
1699 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar _n_u"
1701 The current message, the so-called
1705 The message that was previously the current message.
1708 The parent message of the current message,
1709 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
1711 field or the last entry of the
1713 field of the current message.
1716 The next previous undeleted message,
1717 or the next previous deleted message for the
1720 In sorted/threaded mode,
1721 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1724 The next undeleted message,
1725 or the next deleted message for the
1728 In sorted/threaded mode,
1729 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1732 The first undeleted message,
1733 or the first deleted message for the
1736 In sorted/threaded mode,
1737 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1741 In sorted/threaded mode,
1742 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
1746 selects the message addressed with
1750 is any other message specification,
1751 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
1752 Otherwise it is identical to
1757 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
1762 All messages that were included in the message list for the previous
1766 An inclusive range of message numbers.
1767 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
1772 .Dq any substring matches
1775 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
1777 is set (and POSIX says
1778 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
1781 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
1782 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
1784 is completely ignored.
1785 For finer control and match boundaries use the
1789 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
1790 All messages that contain
1792 in the subject field (case ignored).
1799 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
1801 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
1804 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
1806 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
1808 support is available
1810 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
1812 (extended) regular expression characters is seen.
1814 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
1815 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
1818 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
1820 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
1822 In order to search for a string that includes a
1824 (commercial at) character the
1826 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
1827 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
1841 respectively and case-insensitively.
1846 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
1855 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
1856 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
1858 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
1859 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
1860 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
1861 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
1862 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
1863 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
1864 (abbreviation) with a tilde
1867 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
1870 All messages of state
1874 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
1876 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
1881 Old messages (any not in state
1907 Messages marked as draft.
1909 \*(OP Messages classified as spam.
1911 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
1917 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
1918 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders;
1919 \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
1920 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
1922 in their entirety if they contain white space or parentheses;
1923 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
1925 is recognized as an escape character.
1926 All string searches are case-insensitive.
1927 When the description indicates that the
1929 representation of an address field is used,
1930 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
1933 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1934 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
1939 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
1940 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
1944 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
1945 .It Ar ( criterion )
1946 All messages that satisfy the given
1948 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
1949 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
1951 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
1952 All messages that satisfy either
1957 To connect more than two criteria using
1959 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
1961 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
1965 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
1968 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
1969 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
1973 .It Ar ( not criterion )
1974 All messages that do not satisfy
1976 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1977 All messages that contain
1979 in the envelope representation of the
1982 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1983 All messages that contain
1985 in the envelope representation of the
1988 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1989 All messages that contain
1991 in the envelope representation of the
1994 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1995 All messages that contain
2000 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2001 All messages that contain
2003 in the envelope representation of the
2006 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2007 All messages that contain
2012 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2013 All messages that contain
2016 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2017 All messages that contain
2019 in their header or body.
2020 .It Ar ( larger size )
2021 All messages that are larger than
2024 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2025 All messages that are smaller than
2029 .It Ar ( before date )
2030 All messages that were received before
2032 which must be in the form
2036 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2038 is the name of the month \(en one of
2039 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2042 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2046 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2047 .It Ar ( since date )
2048 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2049 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2050 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2051 .It Ar ( senton date )
2052 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2053 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2054 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2056 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2057 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2058 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2059 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2063 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
2064 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
2066 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
2067 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
2068 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
2071 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
2072 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
2073 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
2075 is used by the IMAP protocol but not by POP3);
2080 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
2086 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
2089 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
2090 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
2091 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
2092 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
2093 a well-known notation.
2096 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
2097 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
2102 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
2109 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
2115 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
2118 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
2119 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
2120 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2121 must not be URL percent encoded.
2124 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
2125 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
2126 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
2127 .Ql smtp://our.house
2128 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
2129 .Va smtp-use-starttls
2130 \*(UA first looks for whether
2131 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
2132 is defined, then whether
2133 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
2134 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
2137 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
2138 necessary credential information of an account:
2144 has been given in the URL the variables
2148 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
2149 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
2150 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
2157 specific entry which provides a
2159 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
2162 It is possible to load encrypted
2167 If there is still no
2169 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
2170 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
2171 known to be a valid user on the current host.
2174 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
2175 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
2176 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
2182 has been given in the URL, then if the
2184 has been found through the \*(OPal
2186 that may have already provided the password, too.
2187 Otherwise the variable chain
2188 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
2189 is looked up and used if existent.
2191 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
2192 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
2196 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
2197 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
2198 but with a password).
2200 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
2201 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
2202 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
2207 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
2211 header field(s), which means that the values of
2212 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
2214 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
2215 will not be looked up using the
2219 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
2220 message that is being worked on.
2221 In unusual cases multiple and different
2225 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
2226 unusual cases become possible.
2227 The usual case is as short as:
2230 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
2231 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
2236 contains complete example configurations.
2239 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2240 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2242 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2244 libraries, either the
2246 or, alternatively, the
2248 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2250 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2251 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2252 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2253 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys, and which will
2254 automatically enter the so-called
2256 alternative screen shall the terminal support it.
2257 The internal variable
2259 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2260 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2261 setting the internal variable
2262 .Va termcap-disable ;
2264 will be queried regardless, even if the \*(OPal support for the
2265 libraries has not been enabled at configuration time.
2268 \*(OP The builtin \*(UA Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2269 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2271 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2272 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2274 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2276 .Va line-editor-disable .
2277 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2278 entries in the internal variable
2280 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2281 The MLE can support a little bit of
2287 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2288 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2289 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2291 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2292 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2296 .Va history-gabby-persist
2301 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2302 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2303 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2304 be generated by holding the
2306 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2310 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2311 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2312 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2314 to establish its builtin key bindings
2315 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2316 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2317 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2318 The following uses the
2320 ell-style quote notation that is documented in the introduction of
2322 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2323 generate a (unique) keycode:
2327 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql _M"
2329 Go to the start of the line
2330 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2333 Move the cursor backward one character
2334 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2337 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2338 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2341 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2344 Go to the end of the line
2345 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2348 Move the cursor forward one character
2349 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2352 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2353 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2354 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2355 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2356 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2359 Backspace: backward delete one character
2360 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2364 Horizontal tabulator:
2365 try to expand the word before the cursor, also supporting \*(UA
2368 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2370 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2374 commit the current line
2375 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2378 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2379 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2383 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2386 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2387 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2394 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2395 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2398 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2400 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2401 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2405 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2406 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2409 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2410 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2413 Paste the snarf buffer
2414 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2421 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2424 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2425 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2426 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2427 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2428 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2429 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2430 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2432 function immediately.
2435 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2437 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2440 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2441 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2444 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2445 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2448 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2449 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2450 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2451 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2452 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2453 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2455 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2456 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2457 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2472 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2474 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2484 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2488 ring the audible bell.
2492 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2493 .Ss "Coloured display"
2495 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2496 attributes by emitting ANSI / ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic rendition)
2498 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2499 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2500 environment variable
2502 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2506 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2508 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2509 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2510 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2515 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2516 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2517 support those sequences.
2518 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2519 environment it is often enough to simply set
2521 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2526 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2527 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2532 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2533 command family exists:
2535 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2538 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2539 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2540 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2543 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2544 if terminal && $features =@ +colour
2545 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2546 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red "from,subject"
2547 colour iso view-header fg=red
2549 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2550 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2551 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 subject,from
2552 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2553 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2557 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
2560 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
2563 Each command is typed on a line by itself,
2564 and may take arguments following the command word.
2565 Command names may be abbreviated, in which case the first command that
2566 matches the given prefix will be used.
2569 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
2570 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
2571 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
2572 \*(OPally the command
2576 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
2577 command matching the expanded argument, as in
2579 which should be a shorthand of
2581 Both commands support a more
2583 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command.
2586 For commands which take message lists as arguments, the next message
2587 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used shall no
2588 explicit message list have been specified.
2589 If there are no messages forward of the current message,
2590 the search proceeds backwards,
2591 and if there are no good messages at all,
2592 \*(UA shows an error message and aborts the command.
2593 \*(ID Non-message-list arguments can be quoted using the following methods:
2596 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
2598 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
2603 any white space, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
2604 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
2605 part of the argument.
2606 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
2608 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
2609 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
2615 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
2616 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
2620 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
2621 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
2626 Some commands which do not take message-list arguments can also be
2627 prefixed with the special keyword
2629 to choose \*(INible argument quoting rules, and some new commands only
2630 support the new rules (without that keyword) and are flagged \*(NQ.
2631 In the future \*(UA will (mostly) use
2633 compatible argument parsing:
2634 Non-message-list arguments can be quoted using the following shell-style
2635 mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes, double-quotes and
2636 dollar-single-quotes; any unquoted number sign
2638 that parses as a new token starts a comment that ends argument processing.
2639 The overall granularity of error reporting and diagnostics, also
2640 regarding function arguments and their content, will improve.
2644 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
2646 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
2647 with the escape character reverse solidus
2651 will cause variable expansion of the given name: \*(UA
2652 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2655 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
2656 enclosing the name is supported.
2659 Arguments which are enclosed in
2660 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
2661 retain their literal value.
2662 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
2665 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
2666 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
2667 is retained, with the exception of dollar
2669 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
2671 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
2673 which will escape any of the characters dollar
2675 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
2679 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
2681 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
2682 but has no special meaning otherwise.
2685 Arguments enclosed in
2686 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
2687 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
2688 expanded as follows:
2690 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
2696 an escape character.
2698 an escape character.
2710 emits a reverse solidus character.
2714 double quote (escaping is optional).
2716 eight-bit byte with the octal value
2718 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
2720 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
2722 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
2724 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
2725 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
2727 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
2729 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
2730 maximum codepoint to be ever supported as
2735 This escape is only supported in locales which support Unicode (see
2736 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
2737 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
2738 point is ASCII compatible or can be represented in the current locale.
2739 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
2743 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
2745 A mechanism that allows usage of the non-printable (ASCII and
2746 compatible) control codes 0 to 31: to create the printable
2747 representation of a control code the numeric value 64 is added, and the
2748 resulting ASCII character set code point is then printed, e.g., BEL is
2749 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
2750 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
2751 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
2753 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
2755 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO 10646, ISO C) alias
2756 representations, as shown above (e.g.,
2760 whenever such an alias exists \*(UA will use it for display purposes.
2761 The control code NUL
2763 ends argument processing without producing further output.
2765 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
2766 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
2768 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
2774 .Sy Compatibility notes:
2775 \*(ID Note these are new mechanisms which are not supported by all
2777 Round-tripping (feeding in things shown in list modes again) are not yet
2778 stable or possible at all.
2779 On new-style command lines it is wise to quote semicolon
2783 characters in order to ensure upward compatibility: the author would
2784 like to see things like
2785 .Ql ? echo $'trouble\etahead' | cat >> in_the_shell.txt
2787 .Ql ? top 2 5 10; type 3 22
2789 Before \*(UA will switch entirely to shell-style argument parsing there
2790 will be a transition phase where using
2792 will emit obsoletion warnings.
2794 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2795 echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
2796 echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
2797 echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
2801 In any event an unquoted reverse solidus at the end of a command line is
2802 discarded and the next line continues the command.
2803 \*(ID Note that line continuation is handled before the above parsing is
2804 applied, i.e., the parsers documented above will see merged lines.
2805 Filenames, where expected, are subsequently subjected to the following
2806 transformations, in sequence:
2809 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
2811 If the filename begins with an unquoted plus sign, and the
2813 variable is defined,
2814 the plus sign will be replaced by the value of the
2816 variable followed by a solidus.
2819 variable is unset or is set to null, the filename will be unchanged.
2822 Meta expansions are applied to the filename: a leading tilde
2824 character will be replaced by the expansion of
2826 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
2827 directory of the given user is used instead.
2832 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible; \*(UA
2833 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2836 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, and the usual
2837 escape mechanism has to be applied to prevent interpretation.
2838 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
2839 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
2841 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
2843 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
2844 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
2846 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
2850 The following commands are available:
2852 .Bl -tag -width ".Ic _ccount"
2859 ) command which follows.
2863 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
2865 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
2868 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
2869 on a line are not possible.
2873 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
2879 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
2880 a numeric argument n.
2884 Show the current message number (the
2889 Show a brief summary of commands.
2892 output is available.
2893 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
2894 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
2895 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
2896 synopsis, try, e.g.,
2901 and see how the output changes.
2911 Interprets the remainder of the word as a macro name and passes it
2916 is a shorter synonym for
2917 .Ql call Ar mymacro .
2921 (ac) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
2922 Accounts are special incarnations of
2924 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
2925 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
2926 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
2928 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
2933 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted via
2936 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
2937 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
2939 of that account will be activated (as via
2941 and a possibly installed
2944 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
2946 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2948 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
2949 set from='myname@myisp.example (My Name)'
2950 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
2956 (a) With no arguments, shows all currently-defined aliases.
2957 With one argument, shows that alias.
2958 With more than one argument,
2959 creates a new alias or appends to an existing one.
2961 can be used to delete aliases.
2965 (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses / names of the active user,
2966 members of which will be removed from recipient lists when replying to
2969 variable is not set).
2970 If arguments are given the set of alternate names is replaced by them,
2971 without arguments the current set is displayed.
2975 Takes a message list and marks each message as having been answered.
2976 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
2977 it just causes messages to be marked in the header summary,
2978 and makes them specially addressable.
2983 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
2984 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
2985 with freely configurable key bindings.
2986 With one argument all bindings for the given context are shown,
2987 specifying an asterisk
2989 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
2990 produced if either of
2995 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
2996 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
2997 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
2999 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3000 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3001 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, an at-sign
3003 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3004 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3005 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3008 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3009 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3010 This is not true for the shared binding
3012 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3013 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3014 The available contexts are the shared
3018 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3020 which applies to compose-mode only.
3024 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3025 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3026 \*(OPally a list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3028 also refer to the name of a terminal capability;
3029 several dozen names will be compiled into \*(UA and may be specified
3032 or, if existing, by their
3034 name, regardless of the actually used terminal control library.
3035 It is however possible to use any capability, as long as the name is
3036 resolvable by the control library or defined in the internal variable
3038 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3039 required to update or remove a binding.
3042 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3043 bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3044 bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3045 bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3046 bind default a,b,c rm -rf / @ # Another editable binding
3047 bind default :kf1 File %
3048 bind compose :kf1 ~e
3052 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3053 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3054 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3055 whitespace needs to be properly quoted:
3056 shell-style quoting is documented in the introduction of
3058 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3059 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3060 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3061 and using terminal capabilities does so if no terminal control support
3062 is (currently) available.
3065 The following terminal capability names are builtin and can be used in
3067 or (if available) the two-letter
3069 notation regardless of the actually used library.
3070 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3073 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3075 or the given terminal type;
3078 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3081 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3082 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3084 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3086 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3087 \(em shifted variant.
3088 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3089 Clear to end of line.
3090 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3092 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3094 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3095 \(em shifted variant.
3096 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3098 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3099 \(em shifted variant.
3100 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3102 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3104 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3106 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3107 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3108 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3109 \(em shifted variant.
3110 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3111 Right cursor (ditto).
3112 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3113 \(em shifted variant.
3114 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3115 Down cursor (ditto).
3117 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3118 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3121 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3122 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3124 Add one for each function key up to
3129 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3131 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3133 Add one for each function key up to
3141 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3143 For example, the delete key,
3145 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
3147 then a number is appended for the states
3159 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
3161 The same for the left cursor key,
3163 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
3166 Key bindings can be removed with the command
3168 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
3170 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
3171 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
3172 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
3175 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
3180 Calls a macro that has been created via
3185 (ch) Change the working directory to
3187 or the given argument.
3193 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
3194 Takes a message list and a file name and saves the certificates
3195 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
3196 human-readable and PEM format.
3197 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
3198 respective message senders by setting
3199 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
3204 (ch) Change the working directory to
3206 or the given argument.
3212 Only applicable to threaded mode.
3213 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
3214 in header summaries, unless they are in state
3220 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings for the type of colour given as the
3221 (case-insensitive) first argument, which must be one of
3223 for 256-colour terminals,
3228 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
3232 for monochrome terminals.
3233 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
3237 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
3238 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
3242 will iterate over all types in order).
3243 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, the third
3244 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
3245 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
3246 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
3247 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
3248 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
3250 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot, the
3251 following of which exist:
3254 Mappings prefixed with
3256 are used for the \*(OPal builtin Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
3257 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3258 and do not support preconditions.
3260 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3262 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
3263 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
3270 Mappings prefixed with
3272 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
3274 (the current message) and
3276 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
3277 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
3279 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3281 This mapping is used for the
3283 that can be created with the
3287 formats of the variable
3290 For the complete header summary line except the
3292 and the thread structure.
3294 For the thread structure which can be created with the
3296 format of the variable
3301 Mappings prefixed with
3303 are used when displaying messages.
3305 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3307 This mapping is used for so-called
3309 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
3312 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
3313 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
3314 available then if any of the
3316 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
3317 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
3319 For the introductional message info line.
3320 .It Cd view-partinfo
3321 For MIME part info lines.
3325 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
3326 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
3336 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
3337 attributes for a single mapping.
3340 foreground colour attribute:
3350 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
3351 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
3353 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
3355 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
3357 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
3359 216 colors in tuples of 6.
3361 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
3363 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3365 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3366 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3368 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3369 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3371 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3372 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3376 background colour attribute (see
3378 for possible values).
3382 Mappings may be removed with the command
3384 For a generic overview see the section
3385 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3390 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
3391 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
3392 otherwise identical to
3397 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
3398 otherwise identical to
3403 \*(NQ With no arguments, shows all currently-defined custom headers.
3404 With one argument, shows that custom header.
3405 With more than one argument, creates a new or replaces an existing
3406 custom header with the name given as the first argument, the content of
3407 which being defined by the concatenated remaining arguments.
3409 can be used to delete custom headers.
3410 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
3412 Defined custom headers will be injected into newly composed or forwarded
3415 .Dl customhdr OpenPGP id=12345678; url=http://www.YYY.ZZ
3419 may also be used to inject custom headers; it is covered by
3424 Show the name of the current working directory.
3428 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3430 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3434 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3436 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3440 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
3441 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined.
3442 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
3443 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3452 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
3456 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
3458 Note that interpretation of
3460 depends on how (i.e.,
3462 normal macro, folder hook, hook, account switch) the macro is invoked.
3463 Macros can be deleted via
3467 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
3468 Please be aware of that and possibly embed a version check in a resource
3473 (d) Marks the given message list as
3475 Deleted messages will neither be saved in
3477 nor will they be available for most other commands.
3489 Deletes the current message and displays the next message.
3490 If there is no next message, \*(UA says
3497 up or down by one message when given
3501 argument, respectively.
3505 Takes a message list and marks each given message as a draft.
3506 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
3507 it just causes messages to be marked in the header summary,
3508 and makes them specially addressable.
3512 (ec) Echoes its arguments after applying
3514 expansions and filename transformations, as documented for
3519 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
3521 at each message from the given list in turn.
3522 Modified contents are discarded unless the
3529 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3530 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
3532 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
3533 if it evaluates true.
3538 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3539 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
3543 commands was true, the
3549 (en) Marks the end of an
3550 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3551 conditional execution block.
3556 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
3557 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3558 and which are managed in the program
3560 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
3561 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
3562 internal variables via
3566 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
3567 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
3568 process environment where they normally are not, a
3570 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
3573 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB from TZ
3576 Afterwards changing such variables with
3578 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
3579 be inherited by newly created child processes.
3580 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
3581 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
3583 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
3584 the knowledge they ever have been
3587 Note this implies that
3589 may cause loss of links.
3594 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
3595 Additionally the subcommands
3599 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
3603 but (additionally) link the variable(s) with the program environment and
3604 thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
3605 respectively, the program environment.
3610 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
3611 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
3612 Optionally an error message ring queue is available which stores
3613 duplicates of any error message and notifies the user in interactive
3614 sessions whenever a new error has occurred.
3615 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
3616 replaces the eldest.
3619 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
3621 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
3623 will only clear all messages from the queue.
3627 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
3628 any saving of messages in
3630 as well as a possibly tracked line editor history file.
3636 but open the mailbox readonly.
3640 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
3641 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
3642 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
3643 the user has made and open a new mailbox.
3644 Some special conventions are recognized for the
3648 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".Ar %:__lespec"
3650 (number sign) means the previous file,
3652 (percent sign) means the invoking user's system mailbox, which either
3653 is the (itself expandable)
3655 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3657 if that is set, or a builtin compile-time default otherwise.
3659 means the primary system mailbox of
3661 (and never the value of
3663 regardless of its actual setting),
3665 (ampersand) means the invoking user's
3675 expands to the same value as
3677 but the file is handled as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3681 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3682 session will be moved to the
3684 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3687 If the name matches one of the strings defined with the command
3689 it is replaced by its long form and expanded.
3690 If the name ends with
3695 it is treated as being compressed with
3700 respectively, and transparently handled through an intermediate
3701 (un)compression step (using a temporary file) with the according
3702 facility, sufficient support provided.
3703 Likewise, if the named file does not exist, but a file with one of the
3704 mentioned compression extensions does, then the name is automatically
3705 expanded and the compressed file is used.
3707 Otherwise, if the name ends with an extension for which
3708 .Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION
3710 .Va file-hook-save-EXTENSION
3711 variables are set, then the given hooks will be used to load and save
3713 and \*(UA will work with an intermediate temporary file.
3715 MBOX files (flat file-based mailboxes) are generally locked during file
3716 operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent
3718 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
3721 and primary mailboxes will also be protected by so-called dotlock
3722 files, the traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
3726 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
3727 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
3728 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
3729 the dotlock file in the same directory
3730 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
3734 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
3739 then it is treated as a folder in
3741 format; \*(ID the variable
3743 can be used to control the format of yet non-existent folders.
3746 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
3747 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
3749 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification.
3750 The \*(OPally supported protocols are
3754 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport).
3757 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
3759 Also see the section
3760 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
3764 contains special characters, in particular
3768 they must be escaped in URL notation \(en the command
3770 can be used to show the necessary conversion.
3774 Takes a message list and marks the messages as
3776 ged for urgent/special attention.
3777 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
3778 it just causes messages to be highlighted in the header summary,
3779 and makes them specially addressable.
3788 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
3789 With an existing folder as an argument,
3790 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
3796 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
3797 recipient's address (instead of in
3804 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
3805 recipient's address (instead of in
3812 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
3817 .It Ic followupsender
3820 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
3836 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
3837 their message headers, exactly as via
3839 An alias of this command is
3842 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
3848 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
3849 recipient's address (instead of in
3854 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
3855 and forwards the message to him.
3856 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
3857 with the value of the
3859 variable preceding it.
3864 commands specify which header fields are included in the new message.
3865 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
3866 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
3867 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
3868 unless the internal variable
3874 Specifies which header fields are to be ignored with the command
3876 This command has no effect when the internal variable
3877 .Va forward-as-attachment
3882 Specifies which header fields are to be retained with the command
3887 This command has no effect when the internal variable
3888 .Va forward-as-attachment
3893 Define or list command aliases, so-called ghosts.
3894 Without arguments a list of all currently known aliases is shown.
3895 With one argument the expansion of the given alias is shown.
3896 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
3897 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
3898 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
3899 A ghost can be used everywhere a normal command can be used, but always
3900 takes precedence; any arguments that are given to the command alias are
3901 joined onto the alias content, and the resulting string forms the
3902 command line that is, in effect, executed.
3905 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3907 `ghost': no such alias: "xx"
3910 ghost xx "echo hello,"
3919 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
3922 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
3924 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
3925 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
3940 the list of history entries;
3943 argument selects and shows the respective history entry \(en
3946 to accept it, and the history entry will become the new history top.
3947 The default mode if no arguments are given is
3954 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
3959 Does not override the
3962 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
3964 command issued after
3966 will display the following message, not the current one.
3971 (i) Part of the nestable
3972 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3973 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
3974 the encapsulated block is executed.
3975 POSIX only supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
3980 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions; note that
3981 falsely specified conditions cause the execution of the entire
3982 conditional construct until the (matching) closing
3984 command to be suppressed.
3985 The syntax of the nestable
3987 conditional execution construct requires that each condition and syntax
3988 element is surrounded by whitespace.
3990 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3999 The (case-insensitive) condition
4001 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
4002 in interactive sessions.
4003 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
4004 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4005 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
4008 .Dq always execute .
4009 It is possible to check
4010 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4013 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
4014 value or another variable by using the
4016 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
4017 conditional trigger character;
4018 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
4020 The variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
4023 The available comparison operators are
4027 (less than or equal to),
4033 (greater than or equal to),
4037 (is substring of) and
4039 (is not substring of).
4040 The values of the left and right hand side are treated as strings and
4041 are compared 8-bit byte-wise, ignoring case according to the rules of
4042 the US-ASCII encoding (therefore, dependent on the active locale,
4043 possibly producing false results for strings in the locale encoding).
4044 Except for the substring checks the comparison will instead be performed
4045 arithmetically if both, the user given value as well as the variable
4046 content, can be parsed as numbers (integers).
4047 An unset variable is treated as the empty string.
4050 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
4056 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
4057 matched case-insensitively and according to the active
4059 locale, meaning that strings in the locale encoding should be matched
4063 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
4065 and the OR operator is
4067 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
4068 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
4070 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
4071 them in pairs of brackets
4072 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
4073 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
4077 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
4078 via unary operators: the unary operator
4080 will reverse the result.
4082 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4086 if $ttycharset == "UTF-8"
4087 echo *ttycharset* is set to UTF-8, case-insensitively
4091 echo These two variables are equal
4093 if $version-major >= 15
4094 echo Running a new version..
4095 if $features =@ +regex
4096 if $TERM =~ "^xterm\&.*"
4097 echo ..in an X terminal
4100 if [ [ true ] && [ [ ${debug} ] || [ $verbose ] ] ]
4103 if true && $debug || ${verbose}
4104 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
4106 if ! ! true && ! [ ! $debug && ! $verbose ]
4107 echo Unary operator support
4115 Without arguments the list of ignored header fields is shown,
4116 otherwise the given list of header fields is added to the ignore list:
4117 Header fields in the ignore list are not shown on the terminal when
4118 a message is displayed.
4119 To display a message in its entirety, use the commands
4130 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
4131 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
4132 in which command prefixes are searched.
4135 output is available.
4139 This command can be used to localize changes to variables, meaning that
4140 their state will be reverted to the former one once the covered scope
4142 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
4146 and is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
4147 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ) ;
4150 of an account is left once it is switched off again.
4151 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4152 define temporary_settings {
4167 enables change localization and calls
4169 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
4171 will still be reverted by
4173 \*(ID Once the outermost level, the one which enabled localization
4174 first, is left, but no earlier, all adjustments will be unrolled.
4175 \*(ID Likewise worth knowing, if in this example
4177 changes to a different
4179 which sets some variables that are yet covered by localizations, their
4180 scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
4182 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
4183 were defined in a local, private context.
4187 Reply to messages that come in via known
4190 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
4191 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
4192 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
4195 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
4196 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
4198 For example it will also implicitly generate a
4199 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
4200 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
4207 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4208 recipient's address (instead of in
4213 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
4214 or asks on standard input if none were given;
4215 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
4219 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to
4221 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
4224 \*(ID This command can only be used in a primary system mailbox (see
4229 Without any arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed.
4230 Otherwise each argument defines a complete MIME type specification of
4231 a type that shall be added (prepended) to the cache.
4232 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
4233 .Va mimetypes-load-control
4234 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
4235 Refer to the section on
4236 .Sx "The mime.types files"
4237 for more on MIME type specifications and this topic in general.
4238 MIME type unregistration and cache resets can be triggered with
4243 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists
4244 (and their attributes, if any) is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4245 produced if either of
4250 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4251 whitespace) will be added and henceforth be recognized as mailing lists.
4252 Mailing lists may be removed via the command
4255 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
4256 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
4262 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists which
4263 have a subscription attribute is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4264 produced if either of
4269 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
4270 newly creating them as necessary (as via
4272 Subscription attributes may be removed via the command
4281 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
4282 sender address of the first message (instead of in
4289 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
4296 but also displays ignored header fields and all MIME parts.
4304 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4305 standard output is a terminal.
4311 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
4313 has been given the content of the
4315 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
4318 then the cache will only be initialized and
4320 will remove its contents.
4321 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
4322 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
4323 to unlock further attempts.
4328 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
4330 .Sx "The .netrc file"
4331 documents the file format in detail.
4335 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
4337 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
4341 the headers of each new message are also shown.
4342 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
4350 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
4351 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
4365 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
4367 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
4373 but also displays ignored header fields and all MIME parts.
4381 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4382 standard output is a terminal.
4390 but also pipes ignored header fields and all parts of MIME
4391 .Ql multipart/alternative
4396 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
4397 and pipes the messages through the command.
4398 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
4405 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
4426 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
4429 preserving all messages marked with
4433 or never referenced in the system
4435 and removing all other messages from the primary system mailbox.
4436 If new mail has arrived during the session,
4438 .Dq You have new mail
4440 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line flag
4442 then the edit file is rewritten.
4443 A return to the shell is effected,
4444 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
4445 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
4459 Removes the named files or directories.
4460 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
4461 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
4462 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
4466 Takes the name of an existing folder
4467 and the name for the new folder
4468 and renames the first to the second one.
4469 Both folders must be of the same type.
4473 (R) Reply to originator.
4474 Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
4476 will exchange this command with
4478 Unless the internal variable
4480 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4484 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
4487 .Va followup-to-honour ,
4490 .Va recipients-in-cc
4491 influence response behaviour.
4494 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
4495 Unless the internal variable
4497 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4510 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
4517 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
4524 but does not add any header lines.
4525 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
4526 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
4530 Takes a list of messages and a user name
4531 and sends each message to the named user.
4533 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
4551 .It Ic respondsender
4557 (ret) Without arguments the list of retained header fields is shown,
4558 otherwise the given list of header fields is added to the retain list:
4559 Header fields in the retain list are shown on the terminal when
4560 a message is displayed, all other header fields are suppressed.
4561 To display a message in its entirety, use the commands
4570 takes precedence over the mentioned.
4576 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
4577 sender of the first message instead of (in
4579 and) taking a filename argument.
4583 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
4584 to the end of the file.
4585 If no filename is given, the
4588 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
4589 is echoed on the user's terminal.
4590 If editing a primary system mailbox the messages are marked for deletion.
4591 Filename interpretation as described for the
4593 command is performed.
4610 Header fields thus marked are filtered out when saving a message by
4612 or when automatically saving to
4614 This command should only be applied to header fields that do not contain
4615 information needed to decode the message,
4616 as MIME content fields do.
4628 Header fields thus marked are the only ones saved with a message when
4631 or when automatically saving to
4636 The use of this command is strongly discouraged since it may strip
4637 header fields that are needed to decode the message correctly.
4641 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
4642 all matching messages, as via
4644 This command is an alias of
4647 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4651 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
4655 (se) Without arguments this command shows all internal variables which
4656 are currently known to \*(UA (they have been set).
4657 A more verbose listing will be produced if either of
4661 are set, in which case variables may be preceded with a comment line
4662 that gives some context of what \*(UA knows about the given variable.
4664 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
4665 Arguments are of the form
4667 (no space before or after
4671 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
4672 Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
4673 statement to quote blanks or tabs, e.g.,
4675 .Dl set indentprefix='->'
4677 If an argument begins with
4681 the effect is the same as invoking the
4683 command with the remaining part of the variable
4684 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
4688 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
4689 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
4690 environment requires corresponding system support).
4691 Please use the command
4693 for further environmental control.
4698 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4704 (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
4708 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
4710 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4711 whitespace) are treated as pairs of shortcuts and their expansions,
4712 creating new or changing already existing shortcuts, as necessary.
4713 Shortcuts may be removed via the command
4715 The expansion strings should be in the syntax that has been described
4724 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
4725 message text is shown.
4729 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
4734 Shows the current sorting criterion when used without an argument.
4735 Otherwise creates a sorted representation of the current folder,
4738 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
4740 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
4744 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
4745 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
4747 variable, as in, e.g.,
4748 .Ql set autosort=thread .
4749 Possible sorting criterions are:
4751 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
4753 Sort the messages by their
4755 field, that is by the time they were sent.
4757 Sort messages by the value of their
4759 field, that is by the address of the sender.
4762 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
4764 Sort the messages by their size.
4766 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
4769 Sort the messages by their message status.
4771 Sort the messages by their subject.
4773 Create a threaded display.
4775 Sort messages by the value of their
4777 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
4780 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
4785 (so) The source command reads commands from the given file, which is
4786 subject to the usual filename expansions (see introductional words of
4788 If the given argument ends with a vertical bar
4790 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
4791 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
4792 Interpretation of commands read is stopped when an error is encountered.
4795 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
4796 .Va folder-hook Ns s
4799 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
4806 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
4807 this command will not generate an error if the given file argument
4808 cannot be opened successfully.
4812 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
4818 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
4820 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
4821 Unless otherwise noted the
4823 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
4831 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
4835 This also clears the
4837 flag of the messages in question.
4841 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
4842 .Va spam-interface ,
4843 without modifying the messages, but setting their
4845 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
4846 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
4847 Refer to the manual section
4849 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
4853 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
4859 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
4865 flag of the messages in question.
4874 Create a threaded representation of the current folder,
4875 i.\|e. indent messages that are replies to other messages in the header
4876 display and change the
4878 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in the
4880 Message numbers are the same as in unthreaded mode.
4884 a header summary in threaded order is also displayed.
4898 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
4900 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
4901 The only header fields that are displayed are
4908 will instead honour configured lists).
4909 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
4911 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
4916 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in
4918 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
4921 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
4927 but also displays out ignored header fields and all parts of MIME
4928 .Ql multipart/alternative
4933 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users'
4939 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
4943 are shown, the other are hidden except for their headers.
4944 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
4949 Delete all given accounts.
4950 An error message is shown if a given account is not defined.
4953 will discard all existing accounts.
4957 (una) Takes a list of names defined by alias commands
4958 and discards the remembered groups of users.
4961 will discard all existing aliases.
4965 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been answered.
4971 ing, specified by its context and input sequence, both of which may be
4972 specified as a wildcard (asterisk,
4976 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
4980 Only applicable to threaded mode.
4981 Takes a message list and makes the message and all replies to it visible
4982 in header summaries again.
4983 When a message becomes the current message,
4984 it is automatically made visible.
4985 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
4986 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
4992 mapping for the given colour type (see
4994 for a list of types) and mapping; if the optional precondition argument
4995 is used then only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
4998 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed).
5000 .Sx "Coloured display"
5001 for the general picture.
5005 Deletes the custom headers given as arguments.
5008 will remove all custom headers.
5012 Undefine all given macros.
5013 An error message is shown if a given macro is not defined.
5016 will discard all existing macros.
5020 (u) Takes a message list and marks each message as not being deleted.
5024 Takes a message list and
5030 Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
5035 Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields for the
5040 will remove all fields.
5044 Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields for the
5049 will remove all fields.
5053 Remove all the given command
5057 will remove all ghosts.
5061 Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields.
5064 will remove all fields.
5068 Delete all given MIME types, e.g.,
5069 .Ql unmimetype text/plain
5070 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5074 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5076 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5077 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5081 Forget about all the given mailing lists.
5084 will remove all lists.
5089 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
5090 Remove the subscription attribute from all given mailing lists.
5093 will clear the attribute from all lists which have it set.
5104 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
5108 Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields.
5111 will remove all fields.
5115 Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields for
5119 will remove all fields.
5123 Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields for
5127 will remove all fields.
5131 (uns) Takes a list of internal variable names and discards their
5132 remembered values; the reverse of
5139 Deletes the shortcut names given as arguments.
5142 will remove all shortcuts.
5146 Disable sorted or threaded mode
5152 return to normal message order and,
5156 displays a header summary.
5166 Perform URL percent codec operations, rather according to RFC 3986,
5167 on all given strings.
5168 This is character set agnostic and thus locale dependent, and it may
5169 decode bytes which are invalid in the current locale, unless the input
5170 solely consists of characters in the portable character set, see
5171 .Sx "Character sets" .
5172 The first argument specifies the operation:
5176 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
5180 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
5181 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
5183 and will neither accept hyphen
5187 as an initial character.
5191 Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
5193 Boolean variables cannot be edited.
5197 This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
5201 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
5205 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
5206 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
5207 verification will fail for it.
5208 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
5210 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
5211 within the certificate,
5212 and if the message content has been altered.
5224 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
5225 Modified contents are discarded unless the
5231 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
5232 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
5234 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
5235 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
5236 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
5237 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
5238 depends on the execution mode.
5239 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
5241 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
5242 the processed parts.
5243 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
5244 value, the same result as writing it to
5246 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
5248 character for the filename is supported.
5249 Other user input is expanded as usually for folders, e.g., tilde
5250 expansion is performed, and contents of the destination file are
5251 overwritten if the file previously existed.
5253 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
5254 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
5255 URL percent encoded (as via
5257 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
5258 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
5259 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
5260 a dot are appended after a number sign
5262 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
5272 \*(UA presents message headers in
5274 fuls as described under the
5277 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
5278 likewise if the argument is
5282 scrolls to the last,
5284 scrolls to the first, and
5289 A number argument prefixed by
5293 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
5294 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
5300 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
5309 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
5310 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
5312 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
5313 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
5314 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines.
5315 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
5317 it defaults to the tilde
5320 .Bl -tag -width ".Ic __ filename"
5323 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
5325 (If the escape character has been changed,
5326 that character must be doubled
5327 in order to send it at the beginning of a line.)
5330 .It Ic ~! Ar command
5331 Execute the indicated shell
5333 then return to the message.
5337 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
5340 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
5341 Execute the given \*(UA command.
5342 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
5346 Write a summary of command escapes.
5349 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
5354 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
5356 is executed using the shell.
5357 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
5360 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
5361 With no arguments, edit the attachment list interactively.
5362 If an attachment's file name is left empty,
5363 that attachment is deleted from the list.
5364 When the end of the attachment list is reached,
5365 \*(UA will ask for further attachments until an empty name is given.
5366 If a given file name solely consists of the number sign
5368 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
5369 the given message is attached as a MIME
5371 and the rest of this section does not apply.
5373 If character set conversion has been compiled into \*(UA, then this mode
5374 gives the user the option to specify input and output character sets,
5375 unless the file extension indicates binary content, in which case \*(UA
5376 asks whether this step shall be skipped for the attachment in question.
5377 If not skipped, then the charset that succeeds to represent the
5378 attachment data will be used in the
5380 MIME parameter of the mail message:
5382 .Bl -bullet -compact
5384 If input and output character sets are specified, then the conversion is
5385 performed on the fly.
5386 The user will be asked repeatedly until the desired conversion succeeds.
5388 If only an output character set is specified, then the input is assumed
5391 charset and will be converted to the given output charset on the fly.
5392 The user will be asked repeatedly until the desired conversion succeeds.
5394 If no character sets are specified at all then the algorithm that is
5395 documented in the section
5396 .Sx "Character sets"
5397 is applied, but directly and on the fly.
5398 The user will be asked repeatedly until the desired conversion succeeds.
5400 Finally, if an input-, but no output character set is specified, then no
5401 conversion is ever performed, but the
5403 MIME parameter value will still be set to the user input.
5405 The character set selection loop can be left by typing
5407 i.e., causing an interrupt.
5408 .\" \*(OU next sentence
5409 Note that before \*(UA version 15.0 this terminates the entire
5410 current attachment selection, not only the character set selection.
5413 Without character set conversion support, \*(UA will ask for the input
5414 character set only, and it will set the
5416 MIME parameter value to the given input, if any;
5417 if no user input is seen then the
5419 character set will be used for the parameter value instead.
5420 Note that the file extension check is not performed in this mode, since
5421 no conversion will take place anyway.
5423 Note that in non-interactive mode, for reproduceabilities sake, there
5424 will always be two questions for each attachment, regardless of whether
5425 character set conversion is available and what the file extension is.
5426 The first asks for the filename, and the second asks for the input
5427 character set to be passed through to the corresponding MIME parameter;
5428 no conversion will be tried if there is input to the latter question,
5429 otherwise the usual conversion algorithm, as above, is applied.
5430 For message attachments, the answer to the second question is completely
5435 arguments are specified for the
5437 command they are treated as a file list of
5439 -style quoted arguments, optionally also separated by commas, which are
5440 expanded and then appended to the existing list of message attachments.
5441 Message attachments can only be added via the first method.
5442 In this mode the (text) attachments are assumed to be in
5444 encoding, and will be evaluated as documented in the section
5445 .Sx "Character sets" .
5449 Inserts the string contained in the
5452 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
5453 The escape sequences tabulator
5461 Inserts the string contained in the
5464 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
5465 The escape sequences tabulator
5472 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
5473 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
5476 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
5477 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
5481 Read the file specified by the
5483 variable into the message.
5487 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
5488 After the editing session is finished,
5489 the user may continue appending text to the message.
5492 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
5493 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
5494 message headers and MIME parts.
5495 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
5498 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
5499 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
5500 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
5504 lists are used to modify the message headers.
5505 For MIME multipart messages,
5506 only the first displayable part is included.
5510 Edit the message header fields
5515 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
5516 The default values for these fields originate from the
5524 Edit the message header fields
5530 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
5533 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
5534 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message,
5535 adding a newline character at the end.
5536 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
5537 The escape sequences tabulator
5544 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
5545 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
5548 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
5551 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
5552 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
5555 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
5559 lists are used to modify the message headers.
5560 For MIME multipart messages,
5561 only the first displayable part is included.
5565 Display the message collected so far,
5566 prefaced by the message header fields
5567 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
5571 Abort the message being sent,
5572 copying it to the file specified by the
5579 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
5580 Read the named file into the message, indented by
5584 .It Ic ~r Ar filename
5585 Read the named file into the message.
5589 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
5592 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
5593 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
5596 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
5597 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
5601 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
5602 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
5606 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
5608 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
5609 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
5610 After the editor is quit,
5611 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
5614 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
5615 Write the message onto the named file.
5617 the message is appended to it.
5623 except that the message is not saved at all.
5626 .It Ic ~| Ar command
5627 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
5628 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
5629 retain the original text of the message.
5632 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
5637 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
5638 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5640 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
5644 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
5648 has the same effect as using
5654 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
5659 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
5661 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
5662 Both commands support a more
5665 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
5668 implicitly, others can be explicitly imported with the command
5670 and henceforth share the said properties.
5673 Two different kind of internal variables exist.
5674 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
5678 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
5679 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
5680 introduction of the section
5682 documents the supported quoting rules.
5684 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5685 wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
5686 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''
5687 varshow one two three four
5688 unset one two three four
5692 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
5693 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
5694 a special kind of string value, the
5695 .Dq boolean string ,
5696 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
5700 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
5706 for a false boolean and
5712 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
5714 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
5715 (case-insensitive) term
5719 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
5720 boolean as the default value.
5722 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
5723 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
5724 .Ss "Initial Settings"
5726 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
5732 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
5746 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
5748 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
5750 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
5758 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
5767 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
5769 variable \(en use command line options or
5771 to pass options through to a
5773 And the default global
5775 file (which is loaded unless the
5777 command line flag has been used or the
5778 .Ev NAIL_NO_SYSTEM_RC
5779 environment variable is set) bends those initial settings a bit, e.g.,
5780 it sets the variables
5785 to name a few, calls
5787 etc., and should thus be taken into account.
5790 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
5793 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va _utoprin_"
5795 .It Va -account-name
5796 \*(RO Is set to the active
5801 \*(RO The status of the last command.
5804 .It Va -folder-resolved
5805 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
5807 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
5810 .It Va -mailbox-display
5811 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
5813 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
5816 .It Va -mailbox-resolved
5817 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
5820 .It Va add-file-recipients
5821 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
5822 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
5823 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
5824 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
5828 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
5829 when comparing addresses.
5833 \*(BO Causes messages saved in
5835 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
5836 This should always be set.
5840 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
5841 If the user responds with simply a newline,
5842 no subject field will be sent.
5846 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
5850 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
5854 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
5855 shall the list be found empty at that time.
5856 An empty line finalizes the list.
5860 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
5861 (at the end of each message if
5865 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
5866 An empty line finalizes the list.
5870 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
5871 recipients (at the end of each message if
5875 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
5876 An empty line finalizes the list.
5880 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
5881 signed at the end of each message.
5884 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
5888 \*(BO Alternative name for
5895 .It Va attachment-ask-content-description , \
5896 attachment-ask-content-disposition , \
5897 attachment-ask-content-id , \
5898 attachment-ask-content-type
5899 \*(BO If set then the user will be prompted for some attachment
5900 information when editing the attachment list.
5901 It is advisable to not use these but for the first of the variables;
5902 even for that it has to be noted that the data is used
5908 A sequence of characters to display in the
5912 as shown in the display of
5914 each for one type of messages (see
5915 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
5916 with the default being
5919 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
5922 variable is set, in the following order:
5924 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
5946 start of a collapsed thread.
5948 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
5952 classified as possible spam.
5958 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
5959 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
5963 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
5964 message will be sent automatically.
5968 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
5975 \*(BO Causes the delete command to behave like
5977 thus, after deleting a message the next one will be typed automatically.
5981 \*(BO\*(OB Causes threaded mode (see the
5983 command) to be entered automatically when a folder is opened.
5985 .Ql autosort=thread .
5989 Causes sorted mode (see the
5991 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
5992 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
5993 .Ql set autosort=thread .
5997 \*(BO Enables the substitution of
5999 by the contents of the last command line in shell escapes.
6002 .It Va batch-exit-on-error
6003 \*(BO If the batch mode has been enabled via the
6005 command line option, then this variable will be consulted whenever \*(UA
6006 completes one operation (returns to the command prompt); if it is set
6007 then \*(UA will terminate if the last operation generated an error.
6011 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
6012 input, for example for function and other special keys.
6013 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
6014 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
6015 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
6016 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
6017 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
6023 \*(BO Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
6025 command, and thus complements the standard variable
6027 which controls header summary display on program startup.
6028 It is only meaningful if
6034 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
6035 has the same affect as setting
6037 and all other variables prefixed with
6039 it also changes the behaviour of
6041 (which does not exist in BSD).
6045 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
6046 summary to traditional BSD style.
6050 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
6055 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
6061 field to appear immediately after the
6063 field in message headers and with the
6065 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
6069 The value that should appear in the
6073 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
6075 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
6076 US-ASCII compatible.
6080 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
6081 member of the variable
6083 This defaults to UTF-8.
6084 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
6085 the only supported character set is
6087 Refer to the section
6088 .Sx "Character sets"
6089 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
6092 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
6093 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
6095 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
6097 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
6098 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
6099 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
6101 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
6102 otherwise the (final) value of
6104 is used for this purpose.
6106 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
6107 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
6108 of a MIME message part that uses the
6110 character set is forcefully treated as text.
6114 The default value for the
6119 .It Va colour-disable
6120 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
6121 Also see the section
6122 .Sx "Coloured display" .
6126 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
6128 Note that pagers may need special flags, e.g.,
6136 in order to support colours.
6137 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
6138 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
6140 (see there for more).
6144 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
6145 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
6146 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
6150 can be forced by setting this to the value
6152 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
6153 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
6161 \*(OB A variable counterpart of the
6163 command (see there for documentation), interpreted as a comma-separated
6164 list of custom headers to be injected, to include commas in the header
6165 bodies escape them with reverse solidus, e.g.:
6167 .Dl set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
6173 the message date, if any is to be displayed according to the format of
6175 is by default taken from the
6177 line of the message.
6178 If this variable is set the date as given in the
6180 header field is used instead, converted to local time.
6181 To control the display format of the date assign a valid
6186 format should not be used, because \*(UA does not take embedded newlines
6187 into account when calculating how many lines fit onto the screen.)
6189 .Va datefield-markout-older .
6192 .It Va datefield-markout-older
6193 This variable, when set in addition to
6197 messages (concept is rather comparable to the
6199 option of the POSIX utility
6201 The content interpretation is identical to
6206 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
6207 actual delivery of messages and also implies
6213 .It Va disposition-notification-send
6215 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
6216 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
6220 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
6222 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
6223 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
6224 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
6226 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
6227 .\"for a specific account.
6231 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
6233 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive) compose mode
6234 will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the normal end-of-file
6243 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
6244 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as system
6245 mailboxes (see the command
6247 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
6248 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
6249 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
6250 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
6251 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
6252 fatal unless this variable is set.
6256 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
6257 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
6259 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6263 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
6267 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
6268 its header is included in the editable text.
6278 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
6282 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
6283 .Dq \&No mail for user
6284 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
6285 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or nonexistent
6286 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
6293 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
6294 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
6295 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
6298 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
6301 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
6302 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
6303 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
6304 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
6305 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
6306 .It Ql quoted-printable
6308 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
6309 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
6310 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
6311 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
6312 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
6313 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
6314 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
6316 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
6317 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
6319 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
6320 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
6321 to four bytes of output.
6322 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
6328 If defined, the first character of the value of this variable
6329 gives the character to use in place of
6332 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
6336 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
6337 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
6338 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
6339 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
6340 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
6342 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
6343 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
6347 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
6349 (note right now this is actually like setting
6350 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ) .
6352 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
6355 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
6356 send error instead of only filtering them out.
6357 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
6358 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
6360 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen
6364 addresses all possible address specifications,
6368 command pipeline targets,
6370 plain user names and (MTA) aliases (\*(OB
6372 may be used as an alternative syntax to
6377 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
6378 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
6379 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
6380 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
6384 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
6388 Unless this variable is set additional
6390 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
6391 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
6393 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
6394 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
6396 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
6397 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
6398 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
6400 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
6401 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
6408 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus-sign
6410 if the feature is available, and a minus-sign
6413 The output of the command
6415 will include this information.
6419 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
6420 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
6421 included in the header of a message
6422 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
6423 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
6424 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
6427 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
6429 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
6430 are not affected by the current setting of
6435 .It Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION , file-hook-save-EXTENSION
6436 It is possible to install file hooks which will be used by the
6438 command in order to be able to transparently handle (through an
6439 intermediate temporary file) files with specific
6441 s: the variable values can include shell snippets and are expected to
6442 write data to standard output / read data from standard input,
6444 \*(ID The variables may not be changed while there is a mailbox
6446 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6447 set file-hook-load-xy='echo >&2 XY-LOAD; gzip -cd' \e
6448 file-hook-save-xy='echo >&2 XY-SAVE; gzip -c' \e
6449 record=+null-sent.xy
6454 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
6455 file names that begin with the plus-sign
6457 will be expanded by prefixing them with the value of this variable.
6458 The same special syntax conventions as documented for the
6460 command may be used; if the non-empty value does not start with a solidus
6464 will be prefixed automatically.
6465 If unset or the empty string any
6467 prefixing file names will remain unexpanded.
6471 This variable can be set to the name of a
6473 macro which will be called whenever a
6476 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
6477 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
6478 only include newly arrived messages then.
6480 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
6481 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
6484 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
6485 Please be aware of that and possibly embed a version check in a resource
6489 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
6494 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
6495 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
6496 However, if the mailbox resides under
6500 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
6504 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
6505 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
6507 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
6508 first, but then followed by
6509 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
6513 \*(BO Controls whether a
6514 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
6515 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
6517 .Va followup-to-honour
6519 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
6524 .It Va followup-to-honour
6526 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
6527 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
6531 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
6541 .It Va forward-as-attachment
6542 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
6545 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
6546 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
6548 attachments with all of their parts included.
6552 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
6554 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
6555 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
6556 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
6559 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
6563 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
6564 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
6566 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
6569 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
6573 contains more than one address,
6576 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
6580 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
6581 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
6582 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
6583 and comments, names etc. are retained.
6587 The string to put before the text of a message with the
6591 .Va forward-as-attachment
6594 .Dq -------- Original Message --------
6595 if unset; No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
6599 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
6600 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
6601 the current folder; enabled by default.
6602 The command line option
6608 complements this and controls header summary display on folder changes.
6613 A format string to use for the summary of
6615 similar to the ones used for
6618 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent character
6620 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
6621 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
6622 Valid format specifiers are:
6625 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
6627 A plain percent character.
6630 a space character but for the current message
6632 for which it expands to
6636 a space character but for the current message
6638 for which it expands to
6641 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
6644 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
6646 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
6650 The date when the message was received, or the date found in the
6654 variable is set (optionally to a date display format string).
6656 The indenting level in threaded mode.
6658 The address of the message sender.
6660 The message thread tree structure.
6661 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
6663 The number of lines of the message, if available.
6667 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
6669 Message subject (if any).
6671 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
6673 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
6674 subscribed mailing list \(en see
6679 The position in threaded/sorted order.
6683 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
6685 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
6696 .It Va headline-bidi
6697 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
6698 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
6699 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
6700 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
6701 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
6702 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
6704 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
6705 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
6706 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
6708 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
6709 fields that may occur when displaying
6711 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
6713 with special Unicode control sequences;
6714 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
6716 no value (or any value other than
6721 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
6722 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
6723 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
6725 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
6727 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
6729 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
6730 sequences onto the line).
6735 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
6736 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
6740 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
6741 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
6744 .It Va history-gabby
6745 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
6748 .It Va history-gabby-persist
6749 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
6751 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
6752 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
6753 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
6759 \*(OP If a line editor is available this value restricts the
6760 amount of history entries that are saved into a set and valid
6762 A value of less than 0 disables this feature;
6763 note that loading and incorporation of
6765 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
6766 If unset or 0, a default value will be used.
6767 Dependent on the available line editor this will also define the
6768 number of history entries in memory;
6769 it is also editor-specific whether runtime updates of this value will
6774 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
6776 and it is set by default.
6780 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
6781 the value obtained from
6790 Note that when SMTP transport is not used (via
6792 then it is normally the responsibility of the MTA to create these
6793 fields, \*(IN in conjunction with SMTP however
6795 also influences the results:
6796 you should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
6805 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
6806 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
6808 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
6810 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
6811 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
6815 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
6816 messages; instead echo them as
6818 characters and discard the current line.
6822 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
6823 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
6824 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
6825 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
6826 explicitly using one of the commands
6830 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
6833 on a line by itself or by using the
6835 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
6837 overrides a setting of
6842 If this is set to a non-empty string it will be used for expansions of
6847 The value supports a subset of filename expansions itself.
6855 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6858 option for indenting messages,
6859 in place of the normal tabulator character
6861 which is the default.
6862 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
6866 \*(BO If set, an empty mailbox file is not removed.
6867 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
6868 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
6869 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
6870 Note this only applies to local regular (MBOX) files, other mailbox
6871 types will never be removed.
6874 .It Va keep-content-length
6875 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing
6877 mailbox files \*(UA can be told to keep the
6881 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
6882 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
6883 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
6884 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
6885 work with with same mailbox files.
6886 Note that, if this is not set but
6887 .Va writebackedited ,
6888 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
6889 fields already marks the message as being modified.
6893 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
6894 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
6895 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
6898 .It Va line-editor-disable
6899 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
6900 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
6904 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
6905 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
6909 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
6910 it is marked as having been answered.
6911 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
6912 it just causes messages to be marked in the header summary,
6913 and makes them specially addressable.
6917 \*(BO Internal development variable.
6920 .It Va message-id-disable
6921 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
6923 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
6925 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
6926 (According to RFC 5321 your SMTP server is not required to add this
6927 field by itself, so you should ensure that it accepts messages without a
6931 .It Va message-inject-head
6932 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
6933 The escape sequences tabulator
6940 .It Va message-inject-tail
6941 A string to put at the end of each new message.
6942 The escape sequences tabulator
6950 \*(BO Usually, when an
6952 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
6953 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
6958 option to be passed through to the
6960 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
6961 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
6965 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
6966 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
6967 in order to classify the
6970 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
6973 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
6974 a computation rather similar to what the
6976 command produces when used with the
6980 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
6981 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
6982 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
6987 .Ql application/octet-stream :
6988 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
6990 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
6991 interpret the contents of the part.
6993 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
6994 text data at first glance (by a
6998 file extension), then the original
7000 will not be overwritten.
7003 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
7004 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
7005 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
7006 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
7007 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
7008 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
7009 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
7010 contains topic subjects.)
7013 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
7016 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
7017 Some MUAs however do not use
7019 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but simply specify
7020 .Ql application/octet-stream ,
7021 even for plain text attachments like
7023 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to classify such MIME
7024 message parts on its own, if possible, for example via a possibly
7025 existing attachment filename.
7026 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
7027 actually a carrier of bits.
7028 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
7029 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7030 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
7031 Value should be set to 14
7034 .Bl -bullet -compact
7036 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
7038 content-type will be carried along with the message and be used for
7040 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
7041 is responsible for the MIME part, shall that question arise;
7042 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
7043 overridden content-type by showing a plus-sign
7046 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
7047 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
7048 overriding the parts given MIME type.
7050 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
7051 .Ql application/octet-stream
7052 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
7057 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
7058 Can be used to control which of the
7060 databases are loaded by \*(UA, as furtherly described in the section
7061 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
7064 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
7066 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
7068 controls loading of the system wide
7069 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
7070 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
7072 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
7073 Incorporation of the \*(UA-builtin MIME types cannot be suppressed,
7074 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
7077 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
7078 value string contains an equals sign
7080 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
7083 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
7084 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
7085 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
7086 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
7087 the MIME type cache).
7092 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
7093 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
7095 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
7097 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7100 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
7101 The default has been chosen at compie time.
7102 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
7103 run asynchronously, and without supervision, unless either the
7108 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
7115 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
7117 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
7120 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
7123 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
7126 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
7131 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
7132 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
7133 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
7134 (which will also disable passing
7138 (for not treating a line with only a dot
7140 character as the end of input),
7148 variable is set); in conjunction with the
7150 command line option \*(UA will also pass
7156 \*(OP \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
7157 defined SMTP smarthost, the access URL of which has to be assigned to
7159 To use this mode it is helpful to read
7160 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
7161 It may be necessary to set the
7163 variable in order to use a specific combination of
7168 with some mail providers.
7171 .Bl -bullet -compact
7173 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
7174 server port 25 and requires setting the
7175 .Va smtp-use-starttls
7176 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
7177 Assign a value like \*(IN
7178 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7180 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
7181 to choose this protocol.
7183 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
7184 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
7185 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
7186 be supported by your hosts network service database
7187 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
7190 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
7191 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
7192 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7194 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
7195 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
7200 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
7201 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
7202 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
7203 .Va smtp-use-starttls
7204 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
7205 Assign a value like \*(IN
7206 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7208 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
7213 .It Va mta-arguments
7214 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
7216 can be given via this variable, the content of which will be split up in
7217 a vector of arguments, to be joined onto other possible MTA options:
7219 .Dl set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"'
7222 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
7223 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
7224 standard command line options to a file-based
7226 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
7230 Many systems use a so-called
7232 environment to ensure compatibility with
7234 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
7236 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
7237 actually executed when calling the file-based
7239 will treat its contents as that name.
7244 .It Va NAIL_EXTRA_RC
7245 The name of an optional startup file to be read last.
7246 This variable has an effect only if it is set in any of the
7247 .Sx "Resource files" ,
7248 it is not imported from the environment.
7249 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
7254 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
7255 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
7257 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
7258 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
7262 .Sx "The .netrc file"
7263 documents the file format.
7275 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
7277 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
7278 This can be used to, e.g., store
7282 .Dl set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
7286 If this variable has the value
7288 newly created local folders will be in Maildir format.
7292 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
7293 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
7294 If this variable is set to the special value
7296 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
7297 timestamp changes are detected.
7301 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
7302 \*(ID Macro hooks which will be executed before compose mode is
7303 entered, and after composing has been finished, respectively.
7304 Please note that this interface is very likely to change in v15, and
7305 should therefore possibly even be seen as experimental.
7307 are by default enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be
7308 forgotten after the message has been sent.
7309 The following variables will be set temporarily during execution of the
7312 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va compose_subject"
7315 .It Va compose-sender
7317 .It Va compose-to , compose-cc , compose-bcc
7318 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
7319 .It Va compose-subject
7325 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
7328 and the sender-based filenames for the
7332 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
7334 variable rather than to the current directory,
7335 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
7339 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
7341 is followed by a formfeed character
7345 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
7346 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
7347 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
7348 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
7349 the authentication method requires a password.
7350 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
7351 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
7353 .It Va password-USER@HOST
7354 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
7355 Set the password for
7359 If no such variable is defined for a host,
7360 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
7361 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
7362 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
7366 \*(BO Send messages to the
7368 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
7372 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
7373 When a MIME message part of type
7375 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
7376 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
7380 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
7381 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
7382 will henceforth display XML
7384 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
7387 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
7388 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
7389 \(em corresponding flag strings are shown in parenthesis below.)
7394 can in fact be used to adjust usage and behaviour of a following shell
7395 command specification by appending trigger characters to it, e.g., the
7396 following hypothetical command specification could be used:
7397 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7398 set pipe-X/Y='@*!++=@vim ${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
7402 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
7404 Simply by using the special
7406 prefix the MIME type (shell command) handler will only be invoked to
7407 display or convert the MIME part if the message is addressed directly
7408 and alone by itself.
7409 Use this trigger to disable this and always invoke the handler
7410 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-always ) .
7413 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
7414 but only when it will be displayed
7415 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-noquote ) .
7418 The command will be run asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA,
7419 which may be a handy way to display a, e.g., PDF file while also
7420 continuing to read the mail message
7421 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-async ) .
7422 Asynchronous execution implies
7426 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
7427 temporarily release the terminal to it
7428 .Pf ( Cd needsterminal ) .
7429 This flag is mutual exclusive with
7431 will only be used in interactive mode and implies
7435 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
7436 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
7437 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
7438 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ) .
7439 If this trigger is given twice then the file will be unlinked
7440 automatically by \*(UA when the command loop is entered again at latest
7441 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink ) .
7442 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
7445 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
7446 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
7447 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
7448 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
7449 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
7450 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
7455 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
7456 another at-sign to forcefully terminate interpretation of remaining
7458 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
7462 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
7463 the environment of the shell command:
7466 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
7469 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
7472 .It Ev NAIL_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
7474 .Va mime-counter-evidence
7475 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
7476 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
7477 .Ev \&\&NAIL_CONTENT
7481 .It Ev NAIL_FILENAME
7482 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
7485 .It Ev NAIL_FILENAME_GENERATED
7489 .It Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
7490 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
7491 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
7496 The temporary directory that \*(UA uses.
7497 Usually identical to
7499 but guaranteed to be set and usable by child processes;
7500 to ensure the latter condition for
7502 also, it will be set.
7507 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
7508 This is identical to
7509 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
7512 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
7513 names a file extension, e.g.,
7515 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
7518 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
7519 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
7520 The only possible value as of now is
7522 which is thus the default.
7525 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
7526 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
7527 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
7528 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
7529 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
7531 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
7532 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
7534 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
7535 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
7536 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
7537 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
7538 but practical experience may vary.
7539 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
7543 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
7546 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
7547 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
7549 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
7553 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
7554 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
7556 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
7559 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
7560 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
7561 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
7563 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
7564 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
7565 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
7567 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
7571 .It Va print-alternatives
7572 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
7573 .Ql multipart/alternative
7574 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
7576 other parts are normally discarded.
7577 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
7578 just as if the surrounding part was of type
7579 .Ql multipart/mixed .
7583 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
7584 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is shell-expanded using
7585 dollar-single-quote expansion mode (see
7587 and it is an error if the prompt expands to more than a single token.
7588 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
7589 status information, for example
7593 .Va -mailbox-display .
7594 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
7595 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
7596 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
7598 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
7600 .Ql set noprompt ) .
7604 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
7611 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
7615 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
7616 prefixed by the value of the variable
7618 Normally, a heading consisting of
7619 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
7620 is put before the quotation.
7625 variable, this heading is omitted.
7628 is assigned, the headers selected by the
7629 .Ic ignore Ns / Ns Ic retain
7630 commands are put above the message body,
7633 acts like an automatic
7635 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7639 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
7640 parts are included, making
7642 act like an automatic
7645 .Va quote-as-attachment .
7648 .It Va quote-as-attachment
7649 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
7651 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
7652 Note this works regardless of the setting of
7657 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
7659 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
7660 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
7662 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
7663 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
7664 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
7666 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
7667 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
7668 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
7670 plus some additional pad.
7671 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
7674 .It Va recipients-in-cc
7675 \*(BO On group replies, specify only the sender of the original mail in
7677 and mention the other recipients in the secondary
7679 By default all recipients of the original mail will be addressed via
7684 If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all outgoing
7686 If not defined, then outgoing mail is not saved.
7687 When saving to this folder fails the message is not sent,
7688 but instead saved to
7692 .It Va record-resent
7693 \*(BO If both this variable and the
7700 commands save messages to the
7702 folder as it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
7705 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
7706 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
7707 character set of the original message for replies.
7708 If this fails, the mechanism described in
7709 .Sx "Character sets"
7710 is evaluated as usual.
7713 .It Va reply_strings
7714 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
7715 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
7718 reply message indicators \(en builtin are
7720 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
7725 A list of addresses to put into the
7727 field of the message header.
7728 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
7733 .It Va reply-to-honour
7736 header is honoured when replying to a message via
7740 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
7744 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
7745 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
7747 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
7749 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
7753 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
7755 upon interrupt or delivery error.
7759 The number of lines that represents a
7768 line display and scrolling via
7770 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
7771 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
7772 terminal, the more will be shown.
7773 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
7774 environment variables
7782 .It Va searchheaders
7783 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
7785 to all messages containing the substring
7789 The string search is case insensitive.
7793 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
7794 outgoing internet mail.
7795 The value of the variable
7797 is automatically appended to this list of character-sets.
7798 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
7799 the only supported charset is
7802 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
7803 and refer to the section
7804 .Sx "Character sets"
7805 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
7808 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
7809 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
7811 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
7813 had been set to the value of the variable
7815 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
7816 character set of the current locale (given that
7818 has not been set manually), i.e., without converting it to the
7820 fallback character set.
7821 Thus, mail message text will be in ISO-8859-1 encoding when send from
7822 within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8 encoding when send from within
7824 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
7825 the only supported character set is
7830 An address that is put into the
7832 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
7833 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
7834 This field should normally not be used unless the
7836 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
7839 address is handled as if it were in the
7845 \*(OB Predecessor of
7849 .It Va sendmail-arguments
7850 \*(OB Predecessor of
7854 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
7855 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
7856 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
7859 .It Va sendmail-progname
7860 \*(OB Predecessor of
7865 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
7867 (including the builtin SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
7869 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
7870 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
7871 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
7875 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
7876 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
7880 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
7881 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
7885 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
7886 summary if the message was sent by the user.
7890 The string to expand
7893 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
7897 The string to expand
7900 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
7904 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
7905 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
7906 and to the first part of each multipart message.
7907 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
7911 .It Va skipemptybody
7912 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
7913 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
7919 \*(OP Specifies a directory with CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
7920 Enhanced Mail) format for verification of S/MIME signed messages.
7923 .It Va smime-ca-file
7924 \*(OP Specifies a file with CA certificates in PEM format for
7925 verification of S/MIME signed messages.
7928 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
7929 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
7930 messages (for the specified account).
7931 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
7934 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
7942 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
7944 is not available) and
7948 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
7949 library that \*(UA uses.
7950 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
7951 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
7952 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
7953 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
7956 .It Va smime-crl-dir
7957 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
7958 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
7961 .It Va smime-crl-file
7962 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
7963 verifying S/MIME messages.
7966 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
7967 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
7968 encrypted before sending.
7969 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
7970 contains a certificate in PEM format.
7972 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
7973 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
7974 individually encrypted message;
7975 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
7977 .Va smime-force-encryption
7979 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
7984 .It Va smime-force-encryption
7985 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
7988 .It Va smime-no-default-ca
7989 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load default CA locations when verifying S/MIME
7994 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
7995 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
7996 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
7997 a valid certificate,
7998 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
7999 header and that the message content has not been altered.
8000 It does not change the message text,
8001 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
8003 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
8005 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
8007 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
8008 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
8009 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
8010 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
8011 user's private key as well as his certificate.
8015 is always derived from the value of
8017 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8019 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
8020 (certificate) is expected; the command
8022 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
8023 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
8024 gives some details).
8025 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
8027 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
8032 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
8034 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
8035 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
8036 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
8038 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
8039 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
8040 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
8041 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
8042 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
8045 This is most useful for long certificate chains if it is desired to aid
8046 the receiving parties verification process.
8047 Note that top level certificates may also be included in the chain but
8048 do not play a role for verification.
8050 .Va smime-sign-cert .
8051 Remember that for this
8053 refers to the variable
8055 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8058 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
8059 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
8060 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
8061 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
8063 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
8071 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
8072 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
8073 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
8074 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
8075 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
8076 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
8077 Remember that for this
8079 refers to the variable
8081 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8086 \*(OB\*(OP To use the builtin SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
8088 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
8090 is used in preference of
8094 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
8095 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
8097 authentication method, possible values are
8103 as well as the \*(OPal methods
8109 method does not need any user credentials,
8111 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
8119 .Va smtp-auth-password
8121 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
8126 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
8127 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
8130 .It Va smtp-auth-password
8131 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
8132 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
8133 .Va smtp-auth-password
8135 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
8137 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
8139 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
8141 .Va smtp-auth-password
8142 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
8145 .It Va smtp-auth-user
8146 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
8147 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
8150 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
8152 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
8154 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
8157 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
8161 .It Va smtp-hostname
8162 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
8164 to derive the necessary
8166 information in order to issue a
8173 can be used to use the
8175 from the SMTP account
8182 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
8184 or the local hostname as a last resort).
8185 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
8186 a provider other than which (in
8188 is about to send the message.
8189 Setting this variable also influences the generated
8192 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
8193 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
8194 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
8196 command to make an SMTP
8198 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
8202 .It Va spam-interface
8203 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
8205 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
8206 Please refer to the manual section
8208 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
8209 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
8211 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
8217 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
8219 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
8220 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
8221 knowledge to parse the program's output.
8224 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
8229 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
8230 using a configuration file for that), the variable
8232 can be used as in, e.g.,
8233 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
8234 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
8236 Note that this interface does not inspect the
8238 flag of a message for the command
8242 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
8243 This interface is meant for programs like
8245 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
8246 status for at least the command
8249 meaning a message is spam,
8253 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
8254 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
8255 can be intercepted as necessary.
8257 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
8260 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
8263 contains examples for some programs.
8264 The process environment of the hooks will have the variables
8265 .Ev NAIL_TMPDIR , TMPDIR
8267 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_GENERATED
8269 Note that spam score support for
8271 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
8273 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
8280 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
8282 .Va spam-interface .
8283 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
8286 .It Va spamc-command
8287 \*(OP The path to the
8291 .Va spam-interface .
8292 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
8294 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
8295 executable had been found during compilation.
8298 .It Va spamc-arguments
8299 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
8302 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
8303 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
8304 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
8308 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
8310 .Va spam-interface .
8311 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
8320 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
8321 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
8322 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
8324 .Va spam-interface .
8327 contains examples for some programs.
8330 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
8331 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
8334 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPtional
8335 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
8336 be used to overcome this restriction.
8337 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
8338 must be followed by a semicolon
8340 and an extended regular expression.
8341 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
8343 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
8344 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
8348 \*(OP Specifies a directory with CA certificates in PEM (Pricacy
8349 Enhanced Mail) for verification of of SSL/TLS server certificates.
8351 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
8352 for more information.
8356 \*(OP Specifies a file with CA certificates in PEM format for
8357 verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
8359 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
8360 for more information.
8363 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
8364 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client
8365 certificate required by some servers.
8366 This is a direct interface to the
8370 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
8372 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
8373 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
8374 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
8375 This is a direct interface to the
8379 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
8381 for more information.
8382 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
8384 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
8385 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
8386 supports \(en the manual section
8387 .Sx "An example configuration"
8388 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
8391 .It Va ssl-config-file
8392 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
8393 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
8394 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
8396 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
8397 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
8398 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
8399 The application name will always be passed as
8404 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
8405 verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
8409 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
8410 to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
8413 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
8414 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for the private key of
8415 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
8416 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
8417 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
8418 This is a direct interface to the
8422 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
8425 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
8426 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
8428 instead: if both values are set,
8430 will take precedence!
8431 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
8433 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
8435 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
8437 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
8439 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
8442 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
8447 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
8448 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
8451 .It Va ssl-no-default-ca
8452 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load default CA locations to verify SSL/TLS server
8456 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
8457 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
8458 This is a direct interface to the
8462 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
8463 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
8464 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
8470 as well as the special value
8472 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
8473 ignores any whitespace.
8476 plus prefix will enable a protocol, a
8478 minus prefix will disable it, so that
8480 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
8482 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
8483 supported and which protocols are used if
8485 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
8487 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
8489 may be worthwile, see
8490 .Sx "An example configuration" .
8494 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
8496 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
8499 .It Va ssl-rand-file
8500 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
8501 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
8502 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
8503 filename expansion failed, then
8504 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
8505 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
8507 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
8508 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
8509 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
8510 This variable is only used if
8512 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
8515 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
8516 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
8517 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation.
8518 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
8520 (fail and close connection immediately),
8522 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
8524 (show a warning and continue),
8526 (do not perform validation).
8532 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
8537 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
8538 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
8539 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
8540 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
8541 to track down the originating mail user agent.
8546 suppression does not occur.
8551 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
8556 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
8557 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
8559 Note that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and
8560 can thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
8563 String capabilities form
8565 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
8566 Numerics have to be notated as
8568 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
8569 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
8570 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
8571 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
8572 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
8573 for one notations like
8576 .Ql control-LETTER ,
8577 and for clarification purposes
8579 can be used to specify
8581 (the control notation
8583 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
8584 the standard CSI sequence);
8585 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
8588 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
8589 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
8591 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8592 set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
8596 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
8597 operation of the builtin line editor or \*(UA in general:
8600 .Bl -tag -compact -width yay
8602 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
8604 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
8605 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
8606 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
8609 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
8613 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen
8615 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
8616 To disable that, set (at least) one to the empty string.
8618 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
8622 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
8623 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
8624 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
8625 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
8627 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
8631 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
8633 clear the screen and home cursor.
8634 (Will be simulated via
8639 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
8644 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
8646 clear to the end of line.
8647 (Will be simulated via
8649 plus repetitions of space characters.)
8651 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
8652 .Cd column_address :
8653 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
8654 (Will be simulated via
8660 .Cd carriage_return :
8661 move to the first column in the current row.
8662 The default builtin fallback is
8665 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
8667 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
8668 The default builtin fallback is
8671 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
8673 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
8674 The default builtin fallback is
8676 which is used by most terminals.
8684 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
8688 .It Va termcap-disable
8689 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
8690 If set only some generic fallback builtins and possibly the content of
8692 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
8694 that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
8695 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
8699 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
8702 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
8705 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for right
8708 height; (shifting bitwise is like dividing algorithmically, but since
8709 it takes away bits the value decreases pretty fast).
8713 \*(BO If set then the
8715 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
8719 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
8720 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
8721 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
8722 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
8726 Refer to the section
8727 .Sx "Character sets"
8728 for the complete picture about character sets.
8731 .It Va typescript-mode
8732 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
8733 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
8736 .Va colour-disable ,
8737 .Va line-editor-disable
8738 and (before startup completed only)
8739 .Va termcap-disable .
8740 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
8744 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
8748 but this variable can be used to override that:
8749 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting,
8750 otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to the new value.
8751 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
8754 .It Va user-HOST , user
8755 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
8756 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
8758 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
8762 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
8763 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
8764 how they are handled.
8765 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
8766 doing things, respectively.
8770 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
8772 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
8773 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
8774 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
8775 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
8776 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
8779 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
8785 .It Va version , version-major , version-minor , version-update
8786 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
8787 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
8788 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
8789 The output of the command
8791 will include this information.
8794 .It Va writebackedited
8795 If this variable is set messages modified using the
8799 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
8800 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
8801 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
8802 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
8803 performed, and proper RFC 4155
8805 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
8809 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
8812 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
8816 .Dq environment variable
8817 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
8818 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
8819 commonly found in there.
8820 The process environment is inherited from the
8822 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
8823 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
8824 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
8825 from \*(UA's point of view.
8826 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
8830 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
8831 newly created child processes).
8834 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
8835 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
8837 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
8838 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
8839 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
8841 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
8843 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
8845 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8846 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
8848 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
8851 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev _AILR_"
8854 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
8856 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
8857 processes and the MLE (see
8858 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8859 in interactive mode thereafter.
8863 The name of the (mailbox)
8865 to use for saving aborted messages if
8867 is set; this defaults to
8874 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
8879 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
8883 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8884 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
8888 The user's home directory.
8889 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
8896 .It Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_COLLATE , LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES
8900 .Sx "Character sets" .
8904 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
8905 or window size in lines.
8906 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
8907 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
8911 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
8913 command when operating on local mailboxes.
8916 (path search through
8921 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
8922 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
8923 name to any newly created child process.
8927 Is used as the user's primary system mailbox, unless
8931 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
8935 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
8936 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
8937 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
8938 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
8939 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
8940 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
8941 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
8945 Is used as a startup file instead of
8948 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
8949 either this variable should be set to
8953 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
8954 reading their configuration files.
8955 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
8959 The name of the user's mbox file.
8960 A logical subset of the special conventions that are documented for the
8962 command and the internal variable
8965 The fallback default is
8970 Traditionally this secondary mailbox is used as the file to save
8971 messages from the primary system mailbox that have been read.
8973 .Sx "Message states" .
8976 .It Ev NAIL_NO_SYSTEM_RC
8977 If this variable is set then reading of
8979 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
8980 had been started up with the option
8982 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
8986 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
8992 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
8996 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
8997 The default paginator is
8999 (path search through
9002 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
9004 then a non-existing environment variable
9011 dependent on whether terminal control support is available and whether
9012 that supports full (alternative) screen mode or not (also see
9013 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ) .
9017 will optionally be set to
9024 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
9025 looking for commands, e.g.,
9026 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
9030 The shell to use for the commands
9035 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9036 and when starting subprocesses.
9037 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
9040 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
9041 If set, this specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch
9042 (1970-01-01) to be used in place of the current time.
9043 This is for the sake of reproduceability of tests, to be used during
9044 development or by software packagers.
9048 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
9049 For extended colour and font control please refer to
9050 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
9051 and for terminal management in general to
9052 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
9056 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
9059 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
9065 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
9066 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
9070 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
9074 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
9082 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa _etc/mime.type_"
9084 File giving initial commands.
9087 System wide initialization file.
9091 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
9092 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
9093 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
9097 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
9098 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
9099 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
9102 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
9103 Personal MIME types, see
9104 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9107 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
9108 System wide MIME types, see
9109 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9113 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
9115 file \(en the section
9116 .Sx "The .netrc file"
9117 documents the file format.
9120 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
9121 .Ss "The mime.types files"
9123 When sending messages \*(UA tries to determine the content type of all
9125 When displaying message content or attachments \*(UA uses the content
9126 type to decide whether it can directly display data or whether it needs
9127 to deal with content handlers.
9128 It learns about M(ultipurpose) I(nternet) M(ail) E(xtensions) types and
9129 how to treat them by reading
9131 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
9132 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
9135 can also be used to deal with MIME types.)
9137 files have the following syntax:
9140 .Dl type/subtype extension [extension ...]
9145 are strings describing the file contents, and one or multiple
9147 s, separated by whitespace, name the part of a filename starting after
9148 the last dot (of interest).
9149 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
9151 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
9153 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in specially
9154 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
9155 .Va mimetypes-load-control
9156 and prepends an optional
9160 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
9163 The following type markers are supported:
9166 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
9168 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
9173 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
9174 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
9175 the content as plain text instead.
9179 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
9180 handler to be defined.
9185 for sending messages:
9187 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
9188 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
9189 For reading etc. messages:
9190 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
9191 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
9193 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
9194 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
9195 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
9196 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
9199 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
9200 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
9203 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
9204 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports.
9205 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
9206 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
9207 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
9208 etc. MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that includes
9209 multiple possible locations of
9213 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
9214 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
9215 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
9216 the list of MIME type handler directives.
9220 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
9221 Comment lines start with a number sign
9223 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
9224 Empty lines are also ignored.
9225 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
9227 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
9228 follow lines if newline characters are
9230 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
9232 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
9233 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
9237 entries consist of a number of semicolon
9239 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
9241 character can be used to escape any following character including
9242 semicolon and itself.
9243 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
9244 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
9245 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
9248 The first field defines the MIME
9250 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
9251 escaping is possible in this field).
9252 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
9254 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
9256 would match any audio type.
9257 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
9259 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
9266 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
9267 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
9270 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
9271 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
9274 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
9275 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
9277 In any case any given
9279 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
9280 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
9282 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
9283 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
9284 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
9286 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
9287 flags had been set; see below for more.
9290 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
9291 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
9292 naming the field followed by an equals sign
9294 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
9296 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
9297 Optional fields include the following:
9300 .Bl -tag -width textualnewlines
9302 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
9309 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
9311 header field to be applied to the composed data.
9315 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
9320 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
9325 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
9326 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
9327 this mailcap entry applies.
9328 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
9329 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
9331 .It Cd needsterminal
9332 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
9333 an interactive terminal.
9334 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
9335 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
9336 ignored; this flag implies
9337 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
9339 .It Cd copiousoutput
9340 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
9342 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
9343 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9344 It is mutually exclusive with
9347 .Cd x-mailx-always .
9349 .It Cd textualnewlines
9350 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
9353 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
9354 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
9358 This field gives a file name format, in which
9360 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
9361 will be used as the filename denoted by
9362 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
9363 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
9364 have a name ending in
9367 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
9368 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
9369 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
9370 characters, the underscore and dot only.
9373 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
9374 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
9375 This field is not used by \*(UA.
9378 A textual description that describes this type of data.
9380 .It Cd x-mailx-always
9381 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
9383 command shall be executed even if multiple messages will be displayed
9385 Normally messages which require external viewers that produce output
9386 which does not integrate into \*(UA's visual display (i.e., do not have
9388 set) have to be addressed directly and individually.
9389 (To avoid cases where, e.g., a thousand PDF viewer instances are spawned
9392 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
9393 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
9395 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
9396 then their use will be considered.
9397 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
9400 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
9401 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
9404 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
9405 (as it would be by default).
9407 .It Cd x-mailx-async
9408 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
9410 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
9411 Cannot be used in conjunction with
9414 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
9415 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
9417 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
9418 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
9419 .Dq running under the X Window System .
9421 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
9422 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
9423 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
9424 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
9425 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
9429 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
9430 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
9431 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
9433 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
9434 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
9435 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
9437 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
9441 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
9442 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
9443 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
9444 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
9445 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
9447 format, or without also setting
9450 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
9452 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
9455 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
9457 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
9459 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
9464 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
9465 entry fields, prefixed by
9467 Flag fields apply to the entire
9469 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
9470 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
9471 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
9472 one does not provide enough information.
9475 command needs to specify the
9479 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
9483 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
9485 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9486 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
9487 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
9491 In fields any occurrence of the format string
9493 will be replaced by the
9496 Named parameters from the
9498 field may be placed in the command execution line using
9500 followed by the parameter name and a closing
9503 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
9504 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
9506 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9508 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
9511 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
9512 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
9514 # Executed shell command
9515 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
9519 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
9520 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
9521 shown in this example (as of today).
9522 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
9526 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
9528 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
9529 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
9530 in additional user-provided quotes:
9532 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9534 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
9536 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
9540 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
9541 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
9543 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
9545 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
9546 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
9547 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
9552 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
9553 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
9556 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
9557 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
9558 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
9561 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
9562 .Ss "The .netrc file"
9566 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
9567 The default location in the user's
9569 directory may be overridden by the
9571 environment variable.
9572 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
9573 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
9574 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
9575 of that file format, shall their
9577 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
9580 .Bl -bullet -compact
9582 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
9583 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
9585 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
9586 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
9588 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
9590 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
9592 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
9593 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
9594 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
9596 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
9597 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
9598 whitespace, with a number sign
9600 then the rest of the line is ignored.
9602 Whereas other programs may require that the
9604 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
9610 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
9614 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
9619 At runtime the command
9621 can be used to control \*(UA's
9625 .Bl -tag -width password
9626 .It Cd machine Ar name
9627 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
9629 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
9634 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
9637 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
9638 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
9640 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9641 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
9642 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
9643 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
9649 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
9653 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
9654 Note that in the example neither
9655 .Ql pop3.example.com
9657 .Ql smtp.example.com
9658 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
9659 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
9664 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
9665 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
9666 and it must be the last first-class token.
9668 .It Cd login Ar name
9669 The user name on the remote machine.
9671 .It Cd password Ar string
9672 The user's password on the remote machine.
9674 .It Cd account Ar string
9675 Supply an additional account password.
9676 This is merely for FTP purposes.
9678 .It Cd macdef Ar name
9680 A macro is defined with the specified
9682 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
9683 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
9686 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
9687 defined following the
9689 they are intended to be used with.)
9692 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
9693 This is merely for FTP purposes.
9700 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
9703 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
9704 .Ss "An example configuration"
9706 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9707 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
9710 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
9711 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
9712 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
9714 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
9715 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
9716 set ssl-no-default-ca
9718 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
9719 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
9720 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
9721 # such explicit exceptions, then
9722 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
9724 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
9725 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
9726 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
9727 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
9728 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
9729 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
9730 # ALL:!aNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
9732 # Request strict transport security checks!
9733 set ssl-verify=strict
9735 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
9736 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
9738 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
9739 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
9740 set reply-in-same-charset
9742 # When replying to or forwarding a message the comment and name
9743 # parts of email addresses are removed unless this variable is set
9746 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
9747 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
9748 # exit status of the MTA (including the builtin SMTP one)!
9751 # Only use builtin MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
9752 set mimetypes-load-control
9754 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
9756 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
9757 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
9758 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox record=+sent.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt
9760 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
9761 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
9763 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
9764 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
9766 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
9767 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
9768 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
9769 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
9770 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
9773 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
9775 colour-pager crt= \e
9776 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
9777 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
9778 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
9779 prompt='[\e${-account-name} \e${-mailbox-display}]? ' \e
9780 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
9783 # When `t'yping messages, show only these headers
9784 # (use `T'ype for all headers and `S'how for raw message)
9785 retain date from to cc subject
9787 # Some mailing lists
9788 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
9789 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
9791 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
9793 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
9794 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
9795 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
9798 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
9799 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
9800 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
9801 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
9802 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
9803 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
9805 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
9806 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
9807 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
9808 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
9811 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
9812 wysh ghost lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
9813 wysh ghost llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
9814 wysh ghost ls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFrS'
9815 wysh ghost lS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFS'
9816 wysh ghost lla '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlr'
9817 wysh ghost llA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFl'
9818 wysh ghost la '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFr'
9819 wysh ghost lA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aF'
9820 wysh ghost ll '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFltr'
9821 wysh ghost lL '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlt'
9822 wysh ghost l '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFtr'
9823 wysh ghost L '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFt'
9825 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
9826 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
9828 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
9829 < "${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
9830 -v TMPFILE="${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
9832 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/{\e
9835 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
9836 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
9837 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
9841 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
9842 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
9852 !printf 'Key IDs to gpg --recv-keys: ';\e
9854 gpg --recv-keys ${keyids};
9860 When storing passwords in
9862 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
9863 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
9866 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
9868 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
9869 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
9871 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9873 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
9874 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
9876 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
9877 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
9879 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
9880 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
9881 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
9882 ghost xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
9891 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9892 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
9896 This configuration should now work just fine:
9899 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -vv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
9902 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
9903 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
9905 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
9906 message signing and message encryption.
9907 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
9908 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
9909 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
9910 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
9911 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
9912 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
9916 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
9917 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
9918 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
9919 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
9921 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
9922 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
9924 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
9925 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
9929 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
9930 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
9931 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
9932 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
9934 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
9936 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
9937 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
9939 .Va smime-no-default-ca
9940 to avoid using the default certificate and point
9944 to a trusted pool of certificates.
9945 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
9946 certificate has been retrieved with.
9949 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message exchange is
9950 your personal certificate, including a private key.
9951 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
9952 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
9953 encrypt messages for you,
9954 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
9955 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
9956 The private key must be kept secret.
9957 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
9958 public key, and to sign messages.
9961 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
9962 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
9963 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
9965 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
9966 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
9967 community for free; their root certificate
9968 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
9969 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
9970 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
9971 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
9974 or as a vivid member of the
9976 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
9977 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
9980 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
9981 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
9982 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
9983 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
9984 entries of the web interface.
9985 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
9986 .Dq client certificate ,
9987 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
9988 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
9992 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
9993 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
9994 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
9997 .Dl openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
10000 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
10002 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
10003 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
10004 .Dq advanced options
10005 to see the corresponding text field).
10006 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
10007 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
10008 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
10009 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
10010 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
10015 In order to use your new S/MIME setup you will have to create
10016 a combined private key/public key (certificate) file:
10019 .Dl cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
10022 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
10023 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
10024 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
10025 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
10027 is of interest for verification only):
10029 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10030 set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
10031 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
10032 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
10037 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
10038 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
10039 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do the same,
10042 command to check the validity of the certificate.
10045 Variables of interest for S/MIME signing:
10047 .Va smime-ca-file ,
10048 .Va smime-crl-dir ,
10049 .Va smime-crl-file ,
10050 .Va smime-no-default-ca ,
10052 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
10053 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
10055 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
10058 After it has been verified save the certificate via
10060 and tell \*(UA that it should use it for encryption for further
10061 communication with that somebody:
10063 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10065 set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
10066 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
10070 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
10073 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
10076 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted messages
10078 If you do, anybody who has access to your mail folders can read them,
10079 but if you do not, you might be unable to read them yourself later if
10080 you happen to lose your private key.
10083 command saves messages in decrypted form, while the
10087 commands leave them encrypted.
10090 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to message
10091 subjects or other header fields yet.
10092 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
10093 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
10094 When sending signed messages,
10095 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
10099 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
10100 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
10102 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
10103 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
10104 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
10105 declared invalid after they have been issued.
10106 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
10108 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
10109 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
10110 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
10111 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
10112 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
10113 invalidated certificates.
10114 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
10115 the Internet, so you have to retrieve them by some external mechanism.
10118 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
10119 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
10122 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
10125 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
10126 (and no other files) must be created.
10131 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
10132 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
10133 to verify a certificate.
10136 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
10137 .Ss "Handling spam"
10139 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
10140 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
10141 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
10143 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
10144 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
10146 state can be prompted: the
10150 message specifications will address respective messages and their
10152 entries will be used when displaying the
10154 in the header display.
10159 rates the given messages and sets their
10162 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
10163 the header display by including the
10173 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
10174 the given messages as
10178 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
10180 of messages; it adheres to their current
10182 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
10187 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
10189 message flag, without any interface interaction.
10198 requires a running instance of the
10200 server in order to function, started with the option
10202 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
10204 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10205 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
10206 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
10207 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
10211 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
10213 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10214 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
10215 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
10216 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
10218 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
10219 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
10220 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
10224 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
10226 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
10229 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10230 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
10231 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
10232 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
10233 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
10234 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
10235 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
10236 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
10240 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
10241 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
10242 perform the local spam check last:
10244 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10245 define spamdelhook {
10247 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
10248 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
10249 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
10250 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
10251 move :S +maybe-spam
10254 move :S +maybe-spam
10256 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
10260 See also the documentation for the variables
10261 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
10262 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
10263 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
10266 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
10274 In general it is a good idea to turn on
10280 twice) if something does not work well.
10281 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
10282 problems' solution.
10284 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
10285 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
10287 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
10288 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
10290 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
10291 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
10293 You may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
10297 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
10300 return what you would expect?
10301 Does this local hostname has a domain suffix?
10302 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
10306 .\" .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away" {{{
10307 .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away"
10309 When this happens even with
10311 set, then this most likely indicates a problem with the creation of
10312 so-called dotlock files: setting
10313 .Va dotlock-ignore-error
10314 should overcome this situation.
10315 This only avoids symptoms, it does not address the problem, though.
10316 Since the output is cleared away \*(UA has support for
10317 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
10318 and switches to the
10320 which causes the output clearance: by doing
10321 .Ql set termcap='smcup='
10322 this mode can be suppressed, and by setting
10324 (twice) the actual problem should be reported.
10327 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
10328 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
10330 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
10332 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
10333 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
10334 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
10337 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
10338 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
10339 her- and himself with the locally installed
10341 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
10342 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
10343 local cache this query has to be performed whenever \*(UA is invoked
10344 from the command line (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
10347 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
10348 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
10349 .Dq less secure app
10350 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
10351 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
10356 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
10359 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
10361 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
10363 use that special password instead of your real Google account password in
10364 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
10365 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
10369 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
10370 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
10372 It can happen that the terminal library (see
10373 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
10376 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
10377 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
10378 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
10379 The verbose listing of
10381 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
10384 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
10386 in conjunction with the
10388 flag if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
10389 by keypresses, and use the variable
10391 to make \*(UA aware of them.
10392 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
10393 an example showing the shifted home key:
10395 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10398 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
10403 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
10412 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
10422 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
10431 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
10436 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
10439 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
10440 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
10441 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
10444 command already appeared in First Edition
10448 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
10449 Electronic mail was there from the start.
10450 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
10451 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
10452 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
10453 freeloaders, or whatever.
10454 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
10455 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
10456 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
10462 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
10465 distribution until 1995.
10466 Mail has then seen further development in open source
10468 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
10470 Basing upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
10471 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
10472 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
10473 This man page is derived from
10474 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
10475 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
10481 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
10482 .An "Edward Wang" ,
10483 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
10484 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
10485 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
10486 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq Mt s-nail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
10488 .Mt s-mailx@sdaoden.eu ) .
10491 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
10494 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
10498 is often problematic: many library functions cannot deal with the
10500 that this software (still) performs.
10503 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
10504 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
10505 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
10510 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
10511 that is capable of message queuing.
10517 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
10518 claims that there are no messages to display, you need to perform
10519 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
10521 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
10522 occasionally (this is may and very).
10526 in the source repository lists future directions.