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 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
229 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
234 Send a blind carbon copy to
237 May be used multiple times.
239 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
243 Send carbon copies to the given receiver.
244 May be used multiple times.
249 the internal variable
251 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
252 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
258 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
259 This command line flag is \*(OB.
263 Just check if mail is present (in the specified or system
265 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
266 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
267 specification can be added with the option
272 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
273 first recipient's address (instead of in
278 Read in the contents of the user's
280 (or the specified file) for processing;
281 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
285 Some special conventions are recognized for the optional
287 argument which are documented for the
292 is not a argument to the flag
294 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
298 that starts with a hyphen, prefix it with a (relative) path, as in
299 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
303 Display a summary of the
305 of all messages in the specified mailbox or system
308 A configurable summary view is available via the
314 Show a short usage summary.
315 Because of widespread use a
317 argument will have the same effect.
323 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
326 .It Fl L Ar spec-list
327 Display a summary of all
329 of only those messages in the specified mailbox or the system
335 .Sx "Specifying messages"
342 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
343 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
349 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
350 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
355 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
359 and use it as the main message body.
360 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
361 .Va message-inject-head ,
364 .Va message-inject-tail .
370 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
372 and use it as the main message body.
373 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
374 .Va message-inject-head ,
377 .Va message-inject-tail .
385 and thus inhibit initial display of message headers when reading mail or
386 editing a mail folder.
390 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
395 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
396 .Sx "Resource files" .
400 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
401 contents of the specified
403 which may be standard input
405 only in non-interactive context.
411 Any folder opened will be in read-only mode.
414 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
417 is a valid address then it specifies the envelope sender address to be
418 passed to a file-based
420 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) as
422 when a message is send.
425 include a user name, then the address components will be separated and
426 the name part will be passed to file-based
432 will also be assigned to the
435 .Ql -Sfrom=from-addr ) ,
436 therefore affecting possible SMTP
438 data transfer; note this assignment does not cause value fixation.
440 If instead an empty string is passed as
442 then the content of the variable
444 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the
447 Note that \*(UA by default, without
449 that is, neither passes
453 flags to a file-based MTA by itself.
456 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
460 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
464 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
468 may be overwritten from within resource files,
469 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
474 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
475 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
476 normalized to space (SP) characters.
480 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
481 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
486 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
487 specified on the command line.
488 If a message subject is specified via
490 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
506 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
507 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
508 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
510 Any other (also custom) header field is passed through entirely
511 unchanged, and in conjunction with the option
513 it is possible to embed
514 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
520 Initially read the primary system mailbox of
522 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
532 will also show the list of
534 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
539 ting the internal variable
541 enables display of some informational context messages.
542 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
546 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
548 to the list of commands to be executed (as a unit, just as via
550 before normal operation starts.
554 .Va batch-exit-on-error ;
555 the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode when
556 reading startup files is actively prohibited.
561 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
562 even if not in interactive mode.
563 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
564 text before sending the message:
565 .Bd -literal -offset indent
566 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.'; \e
567 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
568 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -Sttycharset=UTF-8 -d~ bob@exam.ple
574 In batch mode the full set of commands is available, just like in
575 interactive mode, standard input is made line buffered, and diverse
576 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
577 are adjusted for batch necessities, e.g., it
593 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
594 is enabled in compose mode.
595 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
596 .Bd -literal -offset indent
597 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' | \e
598 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d# -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
603 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
606 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
607 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
611 In the above list of supported command line options,
615 are implemented by means of
617 ting the respective internal variable, as via
620 .Op Ar mta-option ...
622 arguments that are given at the end of the command line after a
624 separator will be passed through to a file-based
626 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for an entire (interactive) session
627 \(en if the setting of
629 allows their recognition; no such constraints apply to the variable
633 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
636 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
638 Mail, a successor of the Research
641 .Dq was there from the start
646 Mail reference manual begins with the following words:
648 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
649 Mail provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
651 It divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows the
652 user to deal with them in any order.
653 In addition, it provides a set of
655 -like commands for manipulating messages and sending mail.
656 Mail offers the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
657 of outgoing messages, as well as providing the ability to define and
658 send to names which address groups of users.
662 \*(UA is thus the user side of the
664 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
665 traditionally taken by
667 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
672 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
676 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
678 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
679 using it is a smooth experience.
682 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
683 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
684 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety, however, e.g., it
689 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to
691 that would otherwise occur (see
692 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
695 to not remove empty system (MBOX) mailbox files in order not to mangle
696 file permissions when files eventually get recreated; be aware that
697 \*(UA will (try to) remove all empty (MBOX) mailbox files unless this
698 variable is set in case
700 .Pf ( Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
701 mode has been enabled.
702 The file mode creation mask is explicitly managed via
708 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
713 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
715 to allow editing of headers as well as
717 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
719 to include the message that is being responded to when
724 contains some more complete configuration examples.
727 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
728 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
730 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a builtin
732 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
733 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
734 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
738 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
740 .Bd -literal -offset indent
741 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
742 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode first
743 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d -vv -Ssendwait \e
744 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple -. \e
745 '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
747 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d -vv -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait \e
748 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
749 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
755 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
756 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
757 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
759 special \(en these are so-called
760 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
761 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
762 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
764 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
766 allows editing of the most important message headers and
768 gives an overview of available command escapes.
772 at the beginning of an empty line leaves compose mode and causes the
773 message to be sent, whereas typing
776 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
782 Messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the variable
784 is set, therefore send errors are not recognizable until then.
790 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
791 can be used to alter default behavior; e.g.,
796 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
798 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content,
800 will cause the user to be prompted actively for carbon-copy recipients
803 will allow leaving compose mode by writing a line consisting solely of
809 hook macros may be set to automatically adjust some settings dependent
810 on receiver, sender or subject contexts.
813 Especially for using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
815 it is often necessary to set
817 and saving a copy of sent messages in a
819 may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox file targets some special
820 syntax conventions are recognized (see the
822 command for more on that).
825 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
826 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
829 contains example configurations for sending messages via some of the
830 well-known public mail providers and also gives a compact overview on
831 how to setup a secure SSL/TLS environment).
836 sandbox dry-run tests first will prove correctness.
840 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
841 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
842 account credentials, the
844 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
847 goes into the details of character encoding and how to use them for
848 representing messages and MIME part contents by specifying them in
850 and reading the section
851 .Sx "The mime.types files"
852 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
853 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
854 Over the wire an intermediate, configurable
855 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
856 may be applied to the raw message part data.
859 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
864 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
865 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
868 is not set then only network addresses (see
870 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
871 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
874 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
875 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
879 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
880 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
882 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
884 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
885 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
887 or the character sequence dot solidus
889 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
890 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen
892 Any other name which contains an at sign
894 character is treated as a network address;
895 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
897 character specifies a mailbox name;
898 Any other name which contains a solidus
900 character but no exclamation mark
904 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
905 What remains is treated as a network address.
907 .Bd -literal -offset indent
908 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
909 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
910 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
911 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave \e
912 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr -s test \e
917 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
919 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
921 and have it go to a group of people.
922 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
923 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
927 and are often tracked in a file
933 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
934 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
938 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
941 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
943 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
944 environment, ideally with the command line options
946 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
948 to specify variables:
950 .Bd -literal -offset indent
951 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
952 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
953 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr \e
954 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
955 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
956 -s 'subject' -a attachment_file \e
957 -. "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>" rec2@exam.ple \e
962 As shown, scripts can
964 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
967 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
969 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
970 can be sent by calling the
972 command with a list of recipient addresses \(em the semantics are
973 completely identical to non-interactive message sending:
975 .Bd -literal -offset indent
976 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
977 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
978 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
979 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
980 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
984 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
985 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
987 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
989 When used like that the user's system
993 for an in-depth description of the different mailbox types that exist)
994 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed.
995 The visual style of this summary of
997 can be adjusted through the variable
999 and the possible sorting criterion via
1005 can be performed with the command
1007 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1008 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1017 will give a listing of all available commands and
1019 will give a summary of some common ones.
1020 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1023 and see the actual expansion of
1025 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1026 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1027 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1028 possible to define overwrites with the
1031 These commands can also produce a more
1036 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1037 messages; the current message \(en the
1039 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1040 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1042 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1047 ful of header summaries containing the
1051 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1055 Message content can be displayed on the users' terminal with the
1059 If instead the command
1061 is used, only the first
1063 of a message will be shown.
1064 By default the current message
1066 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1067 a fancy message specification (see
1068 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1071 will display all unread messages,
1076 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1078 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1082 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1085 (a more substantial alias of the standard command
1087 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1088 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1091 .Dl from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1094 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1096 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1097 applications by using the command
1099 e.g., to restrict display to a very restricted set:
1100 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain add Ar \:from to cc subject .
1101 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1102 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1108 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1110 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1112 (generally speaking).
1113 Note that historically the global
1115 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1119 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1120 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1121 aims at making user experience with the many
1124 When reading the system
1130 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1132 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a primary one) then messages which
1133 have been read will be moved to a secondary mailbox, the user's
1135 file, automatically when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1136 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1137 .Sx "Message states" )
1138 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1139 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1144 After examining a message the user can also
1148 to the sender and all recipients or
1150 exclusively to the sender(s).
1151 Messages can also be
1153 ed (shorter alias is
1155 Note that when replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses
1156 will be stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1159 Deletion causes \*(UA to forget about the message;
1160 This is not irreversible, though, one can
1162 the message by giving its number,
1163 or the \*(UA session can be ended by giving the
1168 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1170 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1171 automatic moving of read messages to
1173 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1177 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1180 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1181 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1183 Messages which are HTML-only get more and more common and of course many
1184 messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME attachments.
1185 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter to deal
1186 with HTML messages (see
1187 .Sx "The mime.types files" ) ,
1188 it normally cannot deal with any of these itself, but instead programs
1189 need to become registered to deal with specific MIME types or file
1191 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input
1192 in order to enable \*(UA to display the content on the terminal,
1193 or display the content themselves, for example in a graphical window.
1196 To install an external handler program for a specific MIME type set an
1198 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1199 variable; to instead define a handler for a specific file extension set
1202 variable \(en these handlers take precedence.
1203 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1204 RFC 1524; this mechanism, documented in the section
1205 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
1206 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1207 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1208 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1209 A last source for handlers may be the MIME type definition itself, if
1210 the \*(UA specific type-marker extension was used when defining the type
1213 (Many of the builtin MIME types do so by default.)
1217 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1218 can be set to improve dealing with faulty MIME part declarations as are
1219 often seen in real-life messages.
1220 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1221 fancy plain text representation than the builtin converter is capable to
1222 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1226 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1227 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1228 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1230 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1231 if $features !@ +filter-html-tagsoup
1232 #set pipe-text/html='elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1233 set pipe-text/html='lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1234 # Display HTML as plain text instead
1235 #set pipe-text/html=@
1237 mimetype '@ application/mathml+xml mathml'
1238 wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1239 trap "rm -f \e"${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1240 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1241 mupdf "${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1245 Note: special care must be taken when using such commands as mail
1246 viruses may be distributed by this method: if messages of type
1247 .Ql application/x-sh
1248 or files with the extension
1250 were blindly filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1251 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system \*(UA is running on.
1252 For more on MIME, also in respect to sending of messages, see the
1254 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
1255 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
1260 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1263 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1266 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1268 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1273 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1274 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1275 currently defined mailing lists.
1280 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1281 in the header display.
1284 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1285 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1287 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1288 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1289 (are) matched sequentially.
1291 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1292 set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1293 wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1294 mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1299 .Va followup-to-honour
1301 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1302 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1308 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1309 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1311 .Dq mailing list specific
1316 is used to respond to a message with its
1317 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1321 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1322 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1323 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1324 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1325 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1326 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1328 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1329 address that is presented in the
1331 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1333 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1335 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1338 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1339 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1340 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1344 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
1345 .Ss "Resource files"
1347 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
1349 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa _AIL_EXTRA_R_"
1352 System wide initialization file.
1353 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
1357 command line options, or by setting the
1360 .Ev NAIL_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
1364 File giving initial commands.
1365 A different file can be chosen by setting the
1369 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
1371 command line option.
1373 .It Va NAIL_EXTRA_RC
1374 Can be used to define an optional startup file to be read after all
1375 other resource files.
1376 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
1378 implementations, for example.
1379 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
1381 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1385 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
1388 .Bl -bullet -compact
1390 A lines' leading whitespace is removed.
1392 Empty lines are ignored.
1394 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
1395 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
1397 by placing a reverse solidus character
1399 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
1400 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
1401 remains in the input.
1403 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
1405 then it is a comment-command \(en a real command! \(en and also ignored.
1406 This command is the only form of comment that is understood.
1410 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
1411 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
1412 More files with syntactically equal content can be
1414 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
1416 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1417 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
1418 es, it is really continued here.
1425 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1426 .Ss "Character sets"
1428 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1429 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1434 should give an overview); the \*(UA internal variable
1436 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly
1437 and will thus show up in the output of the commands
1443 However, a user supplied
1445 value is not overwritten by this detection mechanism: this
1447 must be used if the detection does not work properly,
1448 and it may be used to adjust the name of the locale character set.
1449 E.g., on BSD systems one may use a locale with the character set
1450 ISO8859-1, which is not a valid name for this character set; to be on
1451 the safe side, one may set
1453 to the correct name, which is ISO-8859-1.
1456 Note that changing the value does not mean much beside that,
1457 since several aspects of the real character set are implied by the
1458 locale environment of the system,
1459 and that stays unaffected by the content of an overwritten
1462 (This is mostly an issue when interactively using \*(UA, though.
1463 It is actually possible to send mail in a completely
1465 locale environment, an option that \*(UA's test-suite uses excessively.)
1468 If no character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into
1471 does not include the term
1475 will be the only supported character set,
1476 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1477 (over the wire an intermediate
1478 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
1480 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1481 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1482 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to the mentioned
1483 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./nail.h:CHARSET_*!)
1487 When reading messages, their text is converted into
1489 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1490 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1491 and replaced by proper substitution characters (unless the variable
1493 was set once \*(UA was started).
1495 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1496 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1499 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1500 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1501 appear to be binary data,
1502 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1503 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1504 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1505 Permissible values for character sets can be declared using the
1509 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1510 implicitly appended to the list of character-sets in
1514 When replying to a message and the variable
1515 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1516 is set then the character set of the message being replied to is tried
1518 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1519 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1520 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1521 please see there for more information.
1524 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1525 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1526 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1527 content of the part or attachment,
1528 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1532 In general, if the message
1533 .Dq Cannot convert from a to b
1534 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1535 selected (terminal) character set,
1536 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1537 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1539 locale and/or the variable
1543 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1544 locale on a UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1545 spectrum of characters is available.
1546 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1547 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1548 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1551 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1552 .Dq portable character set
1553 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1554 restricted subset named
1555 .Dq portable filename character set
1556 consisting of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1565 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1566 .Ss "Message states"
1568 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1569 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1571 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1573 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1575 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1576 When operating on the system
1578 or in primary mailboxes opened with the special prefix
1582 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the secondary
1584 mailbox may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1585 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1587 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1590 mail-user-agents, the default global
1596 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1598 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _reserved"
1600 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1601 Such messages are retained even in the primary system mailbox.
1604 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
1605 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
1606 Such messages are retained even in the primary system mailbox.
1609 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1629 commands may also cause the next message to be marked as read, depending
1635 command is used, messages that are in the primary system mailbox or in
1636 mailboxes which were opened with the special
1640 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in
1642 unless the internal variable
1647 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1653 can be used to access such messages.
1656 The message has been processed by a
1658 command and it will be retained in its current location.
1661 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1667 command is used, messages that are in the primary system mailbox or in
1668 mailboxes which were opened with the special
1672 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in
1674 when the internal variable
1680 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
1681 .Ss "Specifying messages"
1688 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
1689 of messages at once.
1692 deletes messages 1 and 2,
1695 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
1696 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
1700 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
1701 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
1704 The following special message names exist:
1707 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar _n_u"
1709 The current message, the so-called
1713 The message that was previously the current message.
1716 The parent message of the current message,
1717 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
1719 field or the last entry of the
1721 field of the current message.
1724 The next previous undeleted message,
1725 or the next previous deleted message for the
1728 In sorted/threaded mode,
1729 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1732 The next undeleted message,
1733 or the next deleted message for the
1736 In sorted/threaded mode,
1737 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1740 The first undeleted message,
1741 or the first deleted message for the
1744 In sorted/threaded mode,
1745 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1749 In sorted/threaded mode,
1750 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
1754 selects the message addressed with
1758 is any other message specification,
1759 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
1760 Otherwise it is identical to
1765 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
1770 All messages that were included in the message list for the previous
1774 An inclusive range of message numbers.
1775 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
1780 .Dq any substring matches
1783 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
1785 is set (and POSIX says
1786 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
1789 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
1790 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
1792 is completely ignored.
1793 For finer control and match boundaries use the
1797 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
1798 All messages that contain
1800 in the subject field (case ignored).
1807 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
1809 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
1812 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
1814 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
1816 support is available
1818 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
1820 (extended) regular expression characters is seen.
1822 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
1823 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
1826 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
1828 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
1830 In order to search for a string that includes a
1832 (commercial at) character the
1834 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
1835 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
1849 respectively and case-insensitively.
1854 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
1863 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
1864 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
1866 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
1867 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
1868 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
1869 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
1870 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
1871 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
1872 (abbreviation) with a tilde
1875 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
1878 All messages of state
1882 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
1884 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
1889 Old messages (any not in state
1915 Messages marked as draft.
1917 \*(OP Messages classified as spam.
1919 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
1925 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
1926 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders;
1927 \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
1928 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
1930 in their entirety if they contain white space or parentheses;
1931 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
1933 is recognized as an escape character.
1934 All string searches are case-insensitive.
1935 When the description indicates that the
1937 representation of an address field is used,
1938 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
1941 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1942 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
1947 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
1948 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
1952 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
1953 .It Ar ( criterion )
1954 All messages that satisfy the given
1956 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
1957 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
1959 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
1960 All messages that satisfy either
1965 To connect more than two criteria using
1967 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
1969 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
1973 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
1976 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
1977 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
1981 .It Ar ( not criterion )
1982 All messages that do not satisfy
1984 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1985 All messages that contain
1987 in the envelope representation of the
1990 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1991 All messages that contain
1993 in the envelope representation of the
1996 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
1997 All messages that contain
1999 in the envelope representation of the
2002 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2003 All messages that contain
2008 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2009 All messages that contain
2011 in the envelope representation of the
2014 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2015 All messages that contain
2020 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2021 All messages that contain
2024 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2025 All messages that contain
2027 in their header or body.
2028 .It Ar ( larger size )
2029 All messages that are larger than
2032 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2033 All messages that are smaller than
2037 .It Ar ( before date )
2038 All messages that were received before
2040 which must be in the form
2044 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2046 is the name of the month \(en one of
2047 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2050 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2054 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2055 .It Ar ( since date )
2056 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2057 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2058 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2059 .It Ar ( senton date )
2060 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2061 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2062 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2064 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2065 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2066 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2067 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2071 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
2072 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
2074 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
2075 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
2076 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
2079 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
2080 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
2081 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
2083 is used by the IMAP protocol but not by POP3);
2088 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
2094 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
2097 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
2098 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
2099 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
2100 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
2101 a well-known notation.
2104 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
2105 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
2110 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
2117 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
2123 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
2126 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
2127 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
2128 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2129 must not be URL percent encoded.
2132 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
2133 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
2134 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
2135 .Ql smtp://our.house
2136 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
2137 .Va smtp-use-starttls
2138 \*(UA first looks for whether
2139 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
2140 is defined, then whether
2141 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
2142 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
2145 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
2146 necessary credential information of an account:
2152 has been given in the URL the variables
2156 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
2157 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
2158 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
2165 specific entry which provides a
2167 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
2170 It is possible to load encrypted
2175 If there is still no
2177 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
2178 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
2179 known to be a valid user on the current host.
2182 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
2183 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
2184 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
2190 has been given in the URL, then if the
2192 has been found through the \*(OPal
2194 that may have already provided the password, too.
2195 Otherwise the variable chain
2196 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
2197 is looked up and used if existent.
2199 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
2200 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
2204 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
2205 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
2206 but with a password).
2208 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
2209 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
2210 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
2215 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
2219 header field(s), which means that the values of
2220 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
2222 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
2223 will not be looked up using the
2227 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
2228 message that is being worked on.
2229 In unusual cases multiple and different
2233 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
2234 unusual cases become possible.
2235 The usual case is as short as:
2238 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
2239 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
2244 contains complete example configurations.
2247 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2248 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2250 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2252 libraries, either the
2254 or, alternatively, the
2256 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2258 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2259 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2260 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2261 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys, and which will
2262 automatically enter the so-called
2264 alternative screen shall the terminal support it.
2265 The internal variable
2267 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2268 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2269 setting the internal variable
2270 .Va termcap-disable ;
2272 will be queried regardless, even if the \*(OPal support for the
2273 libraries has not been enabled at configuration time.
2276 \*(OP The builtin \*(UA Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2277 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2279 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2280 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2282 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2284 .Va line-editor-disable .
2285 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2286 entries in the internal variable
2288 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2289 The MLE can support a little bit of
2295 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2296 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2297 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2299 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2300 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2304 .Va history-gabby-persist
2309 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2310 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2311 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2312 be generated by holding the
2314 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2318 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2319 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2320 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2322 to establish its builtin key bindings
2323 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2324 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2325 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2326 The following uses the
2328 ell-style quote notation that is documented in the introduction of
2330 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2331 generate a (unique) keycode:
2335 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql _M"
2337 Go to the start of the line
2338 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2341 Move the cursor backward one character
2342 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2345 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2346 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2349 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2352 Go to the end of the line
2353 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2356 Move the cursor forward one character
2357 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2360 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2361 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2362 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2363 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2364 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2367 Backspace: backward delete one character
2368 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2372 Horizontal tabulator:
2373 try to expand the word before the cursor, also supporting \*(UA
2376 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2378 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2382 commit the current line
2383 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2386 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2387 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2391 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2394 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2395 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2398 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2402 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2403 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2406 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2408 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2409 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2413 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2414 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2417 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2418 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2421 Paste the snarf buffer
2422 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2429 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2432 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2433 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2434 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2435 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2436 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2437 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2438 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2440 function immediately.
2443 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2445 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2448 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2449 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2452 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2453 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2456 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2457 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2458 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2459 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2460 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2461 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2463 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2464 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2465 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2468 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2472 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2476 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2480 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2482 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2492 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2496 ring the audible bell.
2500 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2501 .Ss "Coloured display"
2503 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2504 attributes by emitting ANSI / ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic rendition)
2506 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2507 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2508 environment variable
2510 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2514 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2516 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2517 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2518 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2523 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2524 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2525 support those sequences.
2526 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2527 environment it is often enough to simply set
2529 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2534 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2535 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2540 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2541 command family exists:
2543 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2546 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2547 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2548 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2551 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2552 if terminal && $features =@ +colour
2553 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2554 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red "from,subject"
2555 colour iso view-header fg=red
2557 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2558 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2559 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 subject,from
2560 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2561 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2565 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
2568 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
2571 Each command is typed on a line by itself,
2572 and may take arguments following the command word.
2573 Command names may be abbreviated, in which case the first command that
2574 matches the given prefix will be used.
2577 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
2578 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
2579 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
2580 \*(OPally the command
2584 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
2585 command matching the expanded argument, as in
2587 which should be a shorthand of
2589 Both commands support a more
2591 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command.
2594 For commands which take message lists as arguments, the next message
2595 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used shall no
2596 explicit message list have been specified.
2597 If there are no messages forward of the current message,
2598 the search proceeds backwards,
2599 and if there are no good messages at all,
2600 \*(UA shows an error message and aborts the command.
2601 \*(ID Non-message-list arguments can be quoted using the following methods:
2604 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
2606 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
2611 any white space, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
2612 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
2613 part of the argument.
2614 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
2616 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
2617 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
2623 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
2624 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
2628 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
2629 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
2634 Some commands which do not take message-list arguments can also be
2635 prefixed with the special keyword
2637 to choose \*(INible argument quoting rules, and some new commands only
2638 support the new rules (without that keyword) and are flagged \*(NQ.
2639 In the future \*(UA will (mostly) use
2641 compatible argument parsing:
2642 Non-message-list arguments can be quoted using the following shell-style
2643 mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes, double-quotes and
2644 dollar-single-quotes; any unquoted number sign
2646 that parses as a new token starts a comment that ends argument processing.
2647 The overall granularity of error reporting and diagnostics, also
2648 regarding function arguments and their content, will improve.
2652 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
2654 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
2655 with the escape character reverse solidus
2659 will cause variable expansion of the given name: \*(UA
2660 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2663 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
2664 enclosing the name is supported.
2667 Arguments which are enclosed in
2668 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
2669 retain their literal value.
2670 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
2673 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
2674 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
2675 is retained, with the exception of dollar
2677 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
2679 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
2681 which will escape any of the characters dollar
2683 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
2687 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
2689 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
2690 but has no special meaning otherwise.
2693 Arguments enclosed in
2694 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
2695 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
2696 expanded as follows:
2698 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
2704 an escape character.
2706 an escape character.
2718 emits a reverse solidus character.
2722 double quote (escaping is optional).
2724 eight-bit byte with the octal value
2726 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
2728 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
2730 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
2732 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
2733 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
2735 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
2737 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
2738 maximum codepoint to be ever supported as
2743 This escape is only supported in locales which support Unicode (see
2744 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
2745 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
2746 point is ASCII compatible or can be represented in the current locale.
2747 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
2751 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
2753 A mechanism that allows usage of the non-printable (ASCII and
2754 compatible) control codes 0 to 31: to create the printable
2755 representation of a control code the numeric value 64 is added, and the
2756 resulting ASCII character set code point is then printed, e.g., BEL is
2757 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
2758 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
2759 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
2761 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
2763 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO 10646, ISO C) alias
2764 representations, as shown above (e.g.,
2768 whenever such an alias exists \*(UA will use it for display purposes.
2769 The control code NUL
2771 ends argument processing without producing further output.
2773 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
2774 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
2776 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
2782 .Sy Compatibility notes:
2783 \*(ID Note these are new mechanisms which are not supported by all
2785 Round-tripping (feeding in things shown in list modes again) are not yet
2786 stable or possible at all.
2787 On new-style command lines it is wise to quote semicolon
2791 characters in order to ensure upward compatibility: the author would
2792 like to see things like
2793 .Ql ? echo $'trouble\etahead' | cat >> in_the_shell.txt
2795 .Ql ? top 2 5 10; type 3 22
2797 Before \*(UA will switch entirely to shell-style argument parsing there
2798 will be a transition phase where using
2800 will emit obsoletion warnings.
2802 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2803 echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
2804 echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
2805 echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
2809 In any event an unquoted reverse solidus at the end of a command line is
2810 discarded and the next line continues the command.
2811 \*(ID Note that line continuation is handled before the above parsing is
2812 applied, i.e., the parsers documented above will see merged lines.
2813 Filenames, where expected, are subsequently subjected to the following
2814 transformations, in sequence:
2817 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
2819 If the filename begins with an unquoted plus sign, and the
2821 variable is defined,
2822 the plus sign will be replaced by the value of the
2824 variable followed by a solidus.
2827 variable is unset or is set to null, the filename will be unchanged.
2830 Meta expansions are applied to the filename: a leading tilde
2832 character will be replaced by the expansion of
2834 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
2835 directory of the given user is used instead.
2840 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible; \*(UA
2841 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2844 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, and the usual
2845 escape mechanism has to be applied to prevent interpretation.
2846 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
2847 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
2849 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
2851 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
2852 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
2854 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
2858 The following commands are available:
2860 .Bl -tag -width ".Ic _ccount"
2867 ) command which follows.
2871 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
2873 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
2876 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
2877 on a line are not possible.
2881 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
2887 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
2888 a numeric argument n.
2892 Show the current message number (the
2897 Show a brief summary of commands.
2900 output is available.
2901 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
2902 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
2903 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
2904 synopsis, try, e.g.,
2909 and see how the output changes.
2919 Interprets the remainder of the word as a macro name and passes it
2924 is a shorter synonym for
2925 .Ql call Ar mymacro .
2929 (ac) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
2930 Accounts are special incarnations of
2932 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
2933 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
2934 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
2936 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
2941 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted via
2944 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
2945 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
2947 of that account will be activated (as via
2949 and a possibly installed
2952 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
2954 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2956 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
2957 set from='myname@myisp.example (My Name)'
2958 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
2964 (a) With no arguments, shows all currently-defined aliases.
2965 With one argument, shows that alias.
2966 With more than one argument,
2967 creates a new alias or appends to an existing one.
2969 can be used to delete aliases.
2973 (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses / names of the active user,
2974 members of which will be removed from recipient lists when replying to
2977 variable is not set).
2978 If arguments are given the set of alternate names is replaced by them,
2979 without arguments the current set is displayed.
2983 Takes a message list and marks each message as having been answered.
2984 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
2985 it just causes messages to be marked in the header summary,
2986 and makes them specially addressable.
2991 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
2992 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
2993 with freely configurable key bindings.
2994 With one argument all bindings for the given context are shown,
2995 specifying an asterisk
2997 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
2998 produced if either of
3003 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3004 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3005 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3007 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3008 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3009 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, an at-sign
3011 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3012 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3013 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3016 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3017 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3018 This is not true for the shared binding
3020 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3021 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3022 The available contexts are the shared
3026 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3028 which applies to compose-mode only.
3032 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3033 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3034 \*(OPally a list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3036 also refer to the name of a terminal capability;
3037 several dozen names will be compiled into \*(UA and may be specified
3040 or, if existing, by their
3042 name, regardless of the actually used terminal control library.
3043 It is however possible to use any capability, as long as the name is
3044 resolvable by the control library or defined in the internal variable
3046 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3047 required to update or remove a binding.
3050 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3051 bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3052 bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3053 bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3054 bind default a,b,c rm -rf / @ # Another editable binding
3055 bind default :kf1 File %
3056 bind compose :kf1 ~e
3060 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3061 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3062 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3063 whitespace needs to be properly quoted:
3064 shell-style quoting is documented in the introduction of
3066 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3067 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3068 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3069 and using terminal capabilities does so if no terminal control support
3070 is (currently) available.
3073 The following terminal capability names are builtin and can be used in
3075 or (if available) the two-letter
3077 notation regardless of the actually used library.
3078 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3081 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3083 or the given terminal type;
3086 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3089 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3090 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3092 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3094 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3095 \(em shifted variant.
3096 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3097 Clear to end of line.
3098 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3100 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3102 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3103 \(em shifted variant.
3104 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3106 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3107 \(em shifted variant.
3108 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3110 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3112 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3114 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3115 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3116 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3117 \(em shifted variant.
3118 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3119 Right cursor (ditto).
3120 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3121 \(em shifted variant.
3122 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3123 Down cursor (ditto).
3125 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3126 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3129 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3130 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3132 Add one for each function key up to
3137 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3139 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3141 Add one for each function key up to
3149 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3151 For example, the delete key,
3153 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
3155 then a number is appended for the states
3167 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
3169 The same for the left cursor key,
3171 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
3174 Key bindings can be removed with the command
3176 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
3178 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
3179 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
3180 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
3183 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
3188 Calls a macro that has been created via
3193 (ch) Change the working directory to
3195 or the given argument.
3201 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
3202 Takes a message list and a file name and saves the certificates
3203 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
3204 human-readable and PEM format.
3205 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
3206 respective message senders by setting
3207 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
3212 (ch) Change the working directory to
3214 or the given argument.
3220 Only applicable to threaded mode.
3221 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
3222 in header summaries, unless they are in state
3228 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
3229 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3230 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
3231 which must be one of
3233 for 256-colour terminals,
3238 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
3242 for monochrome terminals.
3243 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
3247 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
3248 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
3252 will show the mappings of all types).
3253 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
3254 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
3255 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
3256 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
3257 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
3258 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
3260 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
3261 .Sx "Coloured display"
3262 for some examples), the following of which exist:
3265 Mappings prefixed with
3267 are used for the \*(OPal builtin Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
3268 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3269 and do not support preconditions.
3271 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3273 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
3274 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
3281 Mappings prefixed with
3283 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
3285 (the current message) and
3287 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
3288 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
3290 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3292 This mapping is used for the
3294 that can be created with the
3298 formats of the variable
3301 For the complete header summary line except the
3303 and the thread structure.
3305 For the thread structure which can be created with the
3307 format of the variable
3312 Mappings prefixed with
3314 are used when displaying messages.
3316 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3318 This mapping is used for so-called
3320 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
3323 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
3324 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
3325 available then if any of the
3327 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
3328 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
3330 For the introductional message info line.
3331 .It Ar view-partinfo
3332 For MIME part info lines.
3336 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
3337 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
3347 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
3348 attributes for a single mapping.
3351 foreground colour attribute:
3361 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
3362 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
3364 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
3366 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
3368 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
3370 216 colors in tuples of 6.
3372 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
3374 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3376 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3377 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3379 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3380 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3382 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3383 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3387 background colour attribute (see
3389 for possible values).
3393 Mappings may be removed with the command
3395 For a generic overview see the section
3396 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3401 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
3402 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
3403 otherwise identical to
3408 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
3409 otherwise identical to
3414 \*(NQ With no arguments, shows all currently-defined custom headers.
3415 With one argument, shows that custom header.
3416 With more than one argument, creates a new or an additional custom
3417 header with the name given as the first argument, the content of
3418 which being defined by the concatenated remaining arguments.
3420 can be used to delete custom headers.
3421 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
3423 Defined custom headers will be injected into newly composed or forwarded
3426 .Dl customhdr OpenPGP id=12345678; url=http://www.YYY.ZZ
3430 may also be used to inject custom headers; it is covered by
3435 Show the name of the current working directory.
3439 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3441 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3445 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3447 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3451 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
3452 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined.
3453 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
3454 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3463 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
3467 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
3469 Note that interpretation of
3471 depends on how (i.e.,
3473 normal macro, folder hook, hook, account switch) the macro is invoked.
3474 Macros can be deleted via
3478 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
3479 Please be aware of that and possibly embed a version check in a resource
3484 (d) Marks the given message list as
3486 Deleted messages will neither be saved in
3488 nor will they be available for most other commands.
3494 Superseded by the multiplexer
3500 Deletes the current message and displays the next message.
3501 If there is no next message, \*(UA says
3508 up or down by one message when given
3512 argument, respectively.
3516 Takes a message list and marks each given message as a draft.
3517 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
3518 it just causes messages to be marked in the header summary,
3519 and makes them specially addressable.
3523 (ec) Echoes its arguments after applying
3525 expansions and filename transformations, as documented for
3530 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
3532 at each message from the given list in turn.
3533 Modified contents are discarded unless the
3540 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3541 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
3543 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
3544 if it evaluates true.
3549 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3550 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
3554 commands was true, the
3560 (en) Marks the end of an
3561 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
3562 conditional execution block.
3567 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
3568 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3569 and which are managed in the program
3571 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
3572 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
3573 internal variables via
3577 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
3578 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
3579 process environment where they normally are not, a
3581 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
3584 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB from TZ
3587 Afterwards changing such variables with
3589 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
3590 be inherited by newly created child processes.
3591 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
3592 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
3594 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
3595 the knowledge they ever have been
3598 Note this implies that
3600 may cause loss of links.
3605 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
3606 Additionally the subcommands
3610 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
3614 but (additionally) link the variable(s) with the program environment and
3615 thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
3616 respectively, the program environment.
3621 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
3622 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
3623 Optionally an error message ring queue is available which stores
3624 duplicates of any error message and notifies the user in interactive
3625 sessions whenever a new error has occurred.
3626 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
3627 replaces the eldest.
3630 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
3632 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
3634 will only clear all messages from the queue.
3638 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
3639 any saving of messages in
3641 as well as a possibly tracked line editor history file.
3647 but open the mailbox readonly.
3651 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
3652 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
3653 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
3654 the user has made and open a new mailbox.
3655 Some special conventions are recognized for the
3659 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".Ar %:__lespec"
3661 (number sign) means the previous file,
3663 (percent sign) means the invoking user's system mailbox, which either
3664 is the (itself expandable)
3666 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3668 if that is set, or a builtin compile-time default otherwise.
3670 means the primary system mailbox of
3672 (and never the value of
3674 regardless of its actual setting),
3676 (ampersand) means the invoking user's
3686 expands to the same value as
3688 but the file is handled as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3692 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3693 session will be moved to the
3695 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3698 If the name matches one of the strings defined with the command
3700 it is replaced by its long form and expanded.
3701 If the name ends with
3706 it is treated as being compressed with
3711 respectively, and transparently handled through an intermediate
3712 (un)compression step (using a temporary file) with the according
3713 facility, sufficient support provided.
3714 Likewise, if the named file does not exist, but a file with one of the
3715 mentioned compression extensions does, then the name is automatically
3716 expanded and the compressed file is used.
3718 Otherwise, if the name ends with an extension for which
3719 .Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION
3721 .Va file-hook-save-EXTENSION
3722 variables are set, then the given hooks will be used to load and save
3724 and \*(UA will work with an intermediate temporary file.
3726 MBOX files (flat file-based mailboxes) are generally locked during file
3727 operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent
3729 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
3732 and primary mailboxes will also be protected by so-called dotlock
3733 files, the traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
3737 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
3738 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
3739 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
3740 the dotlock file in the same directory
3741 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
3745 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
3750 then it is treated as a folder in
3752 format; \*(ID the variable
3754 can be used to control the format of yet non-existent folders.
3757 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
3758 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
3760 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification.
3761 The \*(OPally supported protocols are
3765 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport).
3768 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
3770 Also see the section
3771 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
3775 contains special characters, in particular
3779 they must be escaped in URL notation \(en the command
3781 can be used to show the necessary conversion.
3785 Takes a message list and marks the messages as
3787 ged for urgent/special attention.
3788 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
3789 it just causes messages to be highlighted in the header summary,
3790 and makes them specially addressable.
3799 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
3800 With an existing folder as an argument,
3801 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
3807 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
3808 recipient's address (instead of in
3815 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
3816 recipient's address (instead of in
3823 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
3828 .It Ic followupsender
3831 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
3847 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
3848 their message headers, exactly as via
3850 An alias of this command is
3853 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
3859 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
3860 recipient's address (instead of in
3865 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
3866 and forwards the message to him.
3867 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
3868 with the value of the
3870 variable preceding it.
3871 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
3873 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
3875 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
3876 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
3877 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
3878 unless the internal variable
3884 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
3889 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
3894 Define or list command aliases, so-called ghosts.
3895 Without arguments a list of all currently known aliases is shown.
3896 With one argument the expansion of the given alias is shown.
3897 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
3898 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
3899 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
3900 A ghost can be used everywhere a normal command can be used, but always
3901 takes precedence; any arguments that are given to the command alias are
3902 joined onto the alias content, and the resulting string forms the
3903 command line that is, in effect, executed.
3906 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3908 `ghost': no such alias: "xx"
3911 ghost xx "echo hello,"
3921 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to establish white- and blacklisting
3922 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
3923 Without any arguments the entire set of known contexts and their current
3924 settings is displayed.
3925 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
3926 command applies, one of (case-insensitively)
3928 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
3931 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
3937 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
3938 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
3940 for stripping down messages when
3942 ing message (has no effect if
3943 .Va forward-as-attachment
3946 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
3950 The current settings of the given context are displayed if only the
3951 first argument is given.
3952 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
3953 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
3957 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
3958 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
3960 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
3964 With four or more arguments the third denotes the action to be applied,
3969 for addition of fields, and
3973 for removal of fields from the given type of the given context.
3974 The fourth, and any following arguments are expected to specify the
3975 fields of desire, or \*(OPally, regular expression matches ought to
3977 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
3979 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields, or
3980 remove all fields in one operation, respectively.
3985 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
3988 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
3990 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
3991 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
4006 the list of history entries;
4009 argument selects and shows the respective history entry \(en
4012 to accept it, and the history entry will become the new history top.
4013 The default mode if no arguments are given is
4020 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
4025 Does not override the
4028 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
4030 command issued after
4032 will display the following message, not the current one.
4037 (i) Part of the nestable
4038 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4039 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
4040 the encapsulated block is executed.
4041 POSIX only supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
4046 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions; note that
4047 falsely specified conditions cause the execution of the entire
4048 conditional construct until the (matching) closing
4050 command to be suppressed.
4051 The syntax of the nestable
4053 conditional execution construct requires that each condition and syntax
4054 element is surrounded by whitespace.
4056 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4065 The (case-insensitive) condition
4067 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
4068 in interactive sessions.
4069 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
4070 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4071 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
4074 .Dq always execute .
4075 It is possible to check
4076 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4079 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
4080 value or another variable by using the
4082 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
4083 conditional trigger character;
4084 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
4086 The variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
4089 The available comparison operators are
4093 (less than or equal to),
4099 (greater than or equal to),
4103 (is substring of) and
4105 (is not substring of).
4106 The values of the left and right hand side are treated as strings and
4107 are compared 8-bit byte-wise, ignoring case according to the rules of
4108 the US-ASCII encoding (therefore, dependent on the active locale,
4109 possibly producing false results for strings in the locale encoding).
4110 Except for the substring checks the comparison will instead be performed
4111 arithmetically if both, the user given value as well as the variable
4112 content, can be parsed as numbers (integers).
4113 An unset variable is treated as the empty string.
4116 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
4122 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
4123 matched case-insensitively and according to the active
4125 locale, meaning that strings in the locale encoding should be matched
4129 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
4131 and the OR operator is
4133 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
4134 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
4136 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
4137 them in pairs of brackets
4138 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
4139 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
4143 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
4144 via unary operators: the unary operator
4146 will reverse the result.
4148 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4152 if $ttycharset == "UTF-8"
4153 echo *ttycharset* is set to UTF-8, case-insensitively
4157 echo These two variables are equal
4159 if $version-major >= 15
4160 echo Running a new version..
4161 if $features =@ +regex
4162 if $TERM =~ "^xterm\&.*"
4163 echo ..in an X terminal
4166 if [ [ true ] && [ [ ${debug} ] || [ $verbose ] ] ]
4169 if true && $debug || ${verbose}
4170 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
4172 if ! ! true && ! [ ! $debug && ! $verbose ]
4173 echo Unary operator support
4183 Superseded by the multiplexer
4188 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
4189 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
4190 in which command prefixes are searched.
4193 output is available.
4197 This command can be used to localize changes to variables, meaning that
4198 their state will be reverted to the former one once the covered scope
4200 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
4204 and is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
4205 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ) ;
4208 of an account is left once it is switched off again.
4209 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4210 define temporary_settings {
4225 enables change localization and calls
4227 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
4229 will still be reverted by
4231 \*(ID Once the outermost level, the one which enabled localization
4232 first, is left, but no earlier, all adjustments will be unrolled.
4233 \*(ID Likewise worth knowing, if in this example
4235 changes to a different
4237 which sets some variables that are yet covered by localizations, their
4238 scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
4240 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
4241 were defined in a local, private context.
4245 Reply to messages that come in via known
4248 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
4249 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
4250 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
4253 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
4254 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
4256 For example it will also implicitly generate a
4257 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
4258 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
4265 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4266 recipient's address (instead of in
4271 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
4272 or asks on standard input if none were given;
4273 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
4277 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to
4279 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
4282 \*(ID This command can only be used in a primary system mailbox (see
4287 Without any arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed.
4288 Otherwise each argument defines a complete MIME type specification of
4289 a type that shall be added (prepended) to the cache.
4290 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
4291 .Va mimetypes-load-control
4292 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
4293 Refer to the section on
4294 .Sx "The mime.types files"
4295 for more on MIME type specifications and this topic in general.
4296 MIME type unregistration and cache resets can be triggered with
4301 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists
4302 (and their attributes, if any) is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4303 produced if either of
4308 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4309 whitespace) will be added and henceforth be recognized as mailing lists.
4310 Mailing lists may be removed via the command
4313 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
4314 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
4320 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists which
4321 have a subscription attribute is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4322 produced if either of
4327 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
4328 newly creating them as necessary (as via
4330 Subscription attributes may be removed via the command
4339 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
4340 sender address of the first message (instead of in
4347 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
4354 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4356 selection, and all MIME parts.
4364 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4365 standard output is a terminal.
4371 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
4373 has been given the content of the
4375 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
4378 then the cache will only be initialized and
4380 will remove its contents.
4381 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
4382 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
4383 to unlock further attempts.
4388 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
4390 .Sx "The .netrc file"
4391 documents the file format in detail.
4395 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
4397 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
4401 the headers of each new message are also shown.
4402 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
4410 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
4411 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
4425 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
4427 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
4433 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4435 selection, and all MIME parts.
4443 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4444 standard output is a terminal.
4452 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
4454 selection, and all parts of MIME
4455 .Ql multipart/alternative
4460 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
4461 and pipes the messages through the command.
4462 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
4469 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
4490 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
4493 preserving all messages marked with
4497 or never referenced in the system
4499 and removing all other messages from the primary system mailbox.
4500 If new mail has arrived during the session,
4502 .Dq You have new mail
4504 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line flag
4506 then the edit file is rewritten.
4507 A return to the shell is effected,
4508 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
4509 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
4523 Removes the named files or directories.
4524 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
4525 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
4526 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
4530 Takes the name of an existing folder
4531 and the name for the new folder
4532 and renames the first to the second one.
4533 Both folders must be of the same type.
4537 (R) Reply to originator.
4538 Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
4540 will exchange this command with
4542 Unless the internal variable
4544 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4548 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
4551 .Va followup-to-honour ,
4554 .Va recipients-in-cc
4555 influence response behaviour.
4558 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
4559 Unless the internal variable
4561 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4574 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
4581 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
4588 but does not add any header lines.
4589 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
4590 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
4594 Takes a list of messages and a user name
4595 and sends each message to the named user.
4597 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
4615 .It Ic respondsender
4621 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
4628 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
4629 sender of the first message instead of (in
4631 and) taking a filename argument.
4635 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
4636 to the end of the file.
4637 If no filename is given, the
4640 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
4641 is echoed on the user's terminal.
4642 If editing a primary system mailbox the messages are marked for deletion.
4643 Filename interpretation as described for the
4645 command is performed.
4649 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4654 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4659 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4664 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
4665 all matching messages, as via
4667 This command is an alias of
4670 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4674 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
4678 (se) Without arguments this command shows all internal variables which
4679 are currently known to \*(UA (they have been set).
4680 A more verbose listing will be produced if either of
4684 are set, in which case variables may be preceded with a comment line
4685 that gives some context of what \*(UA knows about the given variable.
4687 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
4688 Arguments are of the form
4690 (no space before or after
4694 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
4695 Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
4696 statement to quote blanks or tabs, e.g.,
4698 .Dl set indentprefix='->'
4700 If an argument begins with
4704 the effect is the same as invoking the
4706 command with the remaining part of the variable
4707 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
4711 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
4712 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
4713 environment requires corresponding system support).
4714 Please use the command
4716 for further environmental control.
4721 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4727 (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
4731 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
4733 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4734 whitespace) are treated as pairs of shortcuts and their expansions,
4735 creating new or changing already existing shortcuts, as necessary.
4736 Shortcuts may be removed via the command
4738 The expansion strings should be in the syntax that has been described
4747 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
4748 message text is shown.
4752 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
4757 Shows the current sorting criterion when used without an argument.
4758 Otherwise creates a sorted representation of the current folder,
4761 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
4763 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
4767 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
4768 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
4770 variable, as in, e.g.,
4771 .Ql set autosort=thread .
4772 Possible sorting criterions are:
4774 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
4776 Sort the messages by their
4778 field, that is by the time they were sent.
4780 Sort messages by the value of their
4782 field, that is by the address of the sender.
4785 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
4787 Sort the messages by their size.
4789 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
4792 Sort the messages by their message status.
4794 Sort the messages by their subject.
4796 Create a threaded display.
4798 Sort messages by the value of their
4800 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
4803 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
4808 (so) The source command reads commands from the given file, which is
4809 subject to the usual filename expansions (see introductional words of
4811 If the given argument ends with a vertical bar
4813 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
4814 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
4815 Interpretation of commands read is stopped when an error is encountered.
4818 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
4819 .Va folder-hook Ns s
4822 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
4829 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
4830 this command will not generate an error if the given file argument
4831 cannot be opened successfully.
4835 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
4841 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
4843 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
4844 Unless otherwise noted the
4846 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
4854 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
4858 This also clears the
4860 flag of the messages in question.
4864 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
4865 .Va spam-interface ,
4866 without modifying the messages, but setting their
4868 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
4869 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
4870 Refer to the manual section
4872 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
4876 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
4882 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
4888 flag of the messages in question.
4897 Create a threaded representation of the current folder,
4898 i.\|e. indent messages that are replies to other messages in the header
4899 display and change the
4901 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in the
4903 Message numbers are the same as in unthreaded mode.
4907 a header summary in threaded order is also displayed.
4916 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
4920 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
4922 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
4923 Unless a special selection has been established for the
4927 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
4938 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
4940 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
4945 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in
4947 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
4950 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
4956 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4958 selection, and all parts of MIME
4959 .Ql multipart/alternative
4964 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users'
4968 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
4972 are shown, the other are hidden except for their headers.
4973 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
4978 Delete all given accounts.
4979 An error message is shown if a given account is not defined.
4982 will discard all existing accounts.
4986 (una) Takes a list of names defined by alias commands
4987 and discards the remembered groups of users.
4990 will discard all existing aliases.
4994 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been answered.
5000 ing, specified by its context and input sequence, both of which may be
5001 specified as a wildcard (asterisk,
5005 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
5009 Only applicable to threaded mode.
5010 Takes a message list and makes the message and all replies to it visible
5011 in header summaries again.
5012 When a message becomes the current message,
5013 it is automatically made visible.
5014 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
5015 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
5021 mapping for the given colour type (see
5023 for a list of types) and mapping; if the optional precondition argument
5024 is used then only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
5027 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed).
5029 .Sx "Coloured display"
5030 for the general picture.
5034 Deletes the custom headers given as arguments.
5035 It is not possible to delete a specific body of a custom header with
5036 multiple bodies (i.e., multiple instances of the same header).
5039 will remove all custom headers.
5043 Undefine all given macros.
5044 An error message is shown if a given macro is not defined.
5047 will discard all existing macros.
5051 (u) Takes a message list and marks each message as not being deleted.
5055 Takes a message list and
5061 Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
5066 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5071 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5076 Remove all the given command
5080 will remove all ghosts.
5084 Superseded by the multiplexer
5089 Delete all given MIME types, e.g.,
5090 .Ql unmimetype text/plain
5091 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5095 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5097 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5098 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5102 Forget about all the given mailing lists.
5105 will remove all lists.
5110 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
5111 Remove the subscription attribute from all given mailing lists.
5114 will clear the attribute from all lists which have it set.
5125 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
5129 Superseded by the multiplexer
5134 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5139 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5144 (uns) Takes a list of internal variable names and discards their
5145 remembered values; the reverse of
5152 Deletes the shortcut names given as arguments.
5155 will remove all shortcuts.
5159 Disable sorted or threaded mode
5165 return to normal message order and,
5169 displays a header summary.
5179 Perform URL percent codec operations, rather according to RFC 3986,
5180 on all given strings.
5181 This is character set agnostic and thus locale dependent, and it may
5182 decode bytes which are invalid in the current locale, unless the input
5183 solely consists of characters in the portable character set, see
5184 .Sx "Character sets" .
5185 The first argument specifies the operation:
5189 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
5193 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
5194 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
5196 and will neither accept hyphen
5200 as an initial character.
5204 Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
5206 Boolean variables cannot be edited.
5210 This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
5214 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
5218 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
5219 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
5220 verification will fail for it.
5221 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
5223 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
5224 within the certificate,
5225 and if the message content has been altered.
5237 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
5238 Modified contents are discarded unless the
5244 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
5245 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
5247 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
5248 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
5249 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
5250 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
5251 depends on the execution mode.
5252 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
5254 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
5255 the processed parts.
5256 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
5257 value, the same result as writing it to
5259 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
5261 character for the filename is supported.
5262 Other user input is expanded as usually for folders, e.g., tilde
5263 expansion is performed, and contents of the destination file are
5264 overwritten if the file previously existed.
5266 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
5267 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
5268 URL percent encoded (as via
5270 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
5271 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
5272 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
5273 a dot are appended after a number sign
5275 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
5285 \*(UA presents message headers in
5287 fuls as described under the
5290 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
5291 likewise if the argument is
5295 scrolls to the last,
5297 scrolls to the first, and
5302 A number argument prefixed by
5306 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
5307 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
5313 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
5322 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
5323 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
5325 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
5326 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
5327 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines.
5328 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
5330 it defaults to the tilde
5333 .Bl -tag -width ".Ic __ filename"
5336 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
5338 (If the escape character has been changed,
5339 that character must be doubled
5340 in order to send it at the beginning of a line.)
5343 .It Ic ~! Ar command
5344 Execute the indicated shell
5346 then return to the message.
5350 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
5353 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
5354 Execute the given \*(UA command.
5355 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
5359 Write a summary of command escapes.
5362 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
5367 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
5369 is executed using the shell.
5370 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
5373 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
5374 With no arguments, edit the attachment list interactively.
5375 If an attachment's file name is left empty,
5376 that attachment is deleted from the list.
5377 When the end of the attachment list is reached,
5378 \*(UA will ask for further attachments until an empty name is given.
5379 If a given file name solely consists of the number sign
5381 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
5382 the given message is attached as a MIME
5384 and the rest of this section does not apply.
5386 If character set conversion has been compiled into \*(UA, then this mode
5387 gives the user the option to specify input and output character sets,
5388 unless the file extension indicates binary content, in which case \*(UA
5389 asks whether this step shall be skipped for the attachment in question.
5390 If not skipped, then the charset that succeeds to represent the
5391 attachment data will be used in the
5393 MIME parameter of the mail message:
5395 .Bl -bullet -compact
5397 If input and output character sets are specified, then the conversion is
5398 performed on the fly.
5399 The user will be asked repeatedly until the desired conversion succeeds.
5401 If only an output character set is specified, then the input is assumed
5404 charset and will be converted to the given output charset on the fly.
5405 The user will be asked repeatedly until the desired conversion succeeds.
5407 If no character sets are specified at all then the algorithm that is
5408 documented in the section
5409 .Sx "Character sets"
5410 is applied, but directly and on the fly.
5411 The user will be asked repeatedly until the desired conversion succeeds.
5413 Finally, if an input-, but no output character set is specified, then no
5414 conversion is ever performed, but the
5416 MIME parameter value will still be set to the user input.
5418 The character set selection loop can be left by typing
5420 i.e., causing an interrupt.
5421 .\" \*(OU next sentence
5422 Note that before \*(UA version 15.0 this terminates the entire
5423 current attachment selection, not only the character set selection.
5426 Without character set conversion support, \*(UA will ask for the input
5427 character set only, and it will set the
5429 MIME parameter value to the given input, if any;
5430 if no user input is seen then the
5432 character set will be used for the parameter value instead.
5433 Note that the file extension check is not performed in this mode, since
5434 no conversion will take place anyway.
5436 Note that in non-interactive mode, for reproduceabilities sake, there
5437 will always be two questions for each attachment, regardless of whether
5438 character set conversion is available and what the file extension is.
5439 The first asks for the filename, and the second asks for the input
5440 character set to be passed through to the corresponding MIME parameter;
5441 no conversion will be tried if there is input to the latter question,
5442 otherwise the usual conversion algorithm, as above, is applied.
5443 For message attachments, the answer to the second question is completely
5448 arguments are specified for the
5450 command they are treated as a file list of
5452 -style quoted arguments, optionally also separated by commas, which are
5453 expanded and then appended to the existing list of message attachments.
5454 Message attachments can only be added via the first method.
5455 In this mode the (text) attachments are assumed to be in
5457 encoding, and will be evaluated as documented in the section
5458 .Sx "Character sets" .
5462 Inserts the string contained in the
5465 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
5466 The escape sequences tabulator
5474 Inserts the string contained in the
5477 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
5478 The escape sequences tabulator
5485 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
5486 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
5489 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
5490 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
5494 Read the file specified by the
5496 variable into the message.
5500 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
5501 After the editing session is finished,
5502 the user may continue appending text to the message.
5505 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
5506 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
5507 message headers and MIME parts.
5508 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
5511 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
5512 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
5513 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
5514 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
5516 white- and blacklist selection of
5518 For MIME multipart messages,
5519 only the first displayable part is included.
5523 Edit the message header fields
5528 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
5529 The default values for these fields originate from the
5537 Edit the message header fields
5543 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
5546 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
5547 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message,
5548 adding a newline character at the end.
5549 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
5550 The escape sequences tabulator
5557 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
5558 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
5561 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
5564 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
5565 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
5568 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
5569 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
5571 white- and blacklist selection of
5573 For MIME multipart messages,
5574 only the first displayable part is included.
5578 Display the message collected so far,
5579 prefaced by the message header fields
5580 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
5584 Abort the message being sent,
5585 copying it to the file specified by the
5592 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
5593 Read the named file into the message, indented by
5597 .It Ic ~r Ar filename
5598 Read the named file into the message.
5602 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
5603 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
5604 normalized to space (SP) characters.
5607 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
5608 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
5611 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
5612 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
5616 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
5617 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
5621 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
5623 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
5624 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
5625 After the editor is quit,
5626 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
5629 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
5630 Write the message onto the named file.
5632 the message is appended to it.
5638 except that the message is not saved at all.
5641 .It Ic ~| Ar command
5642 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
5643 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
5644 retain the original text of the message.
5647 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
5652 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
5653 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5655 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
5659 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
5663 has the same effect as using
5669 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
5674 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
5676 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
5677 Both commands support a more
5680 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
5683 implicitly, others can be explicitly imported with the command
5685 and henceforth share the said properties.
5688 Two different kind of internal variables exist.
5689 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
5693 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
5694 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
5695 introduction of the section
5697 documents the supported quoting rules.
5699 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5700 wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
5701 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''
5702 varshow one two three four
5703 unset one two three four
5707 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
5708 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
5709 a special kind of string value, the
5710 .Dq boolean string ,
5711 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
5715 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
5721 for a false boolean and
5727 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
5729 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
5730 (case-insensitive) term
5734 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
5735 boolean as the default value.
5737 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
5738 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
5739 .Ss "Initial Settings"
5741 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
5747 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
5761 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
5763 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
5765 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
5773 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
5782 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
5784 variable \(en use command line options or
5786 to pass options through to a
5788 And the default global
5790 file (which is loaded unless the
5792 command line flag has been used or the
5793 .Ev NAIL_NO_SYSTEM_RC
5794 environment variable is set) bends those initial settings a bit, e.g.,
5795 it sets the variables
5800 to name a few, establishes a default
5802 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
5805 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
5808 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va _utoprin_"
5810 .It Va -account-name
5811 \*(RO Is set to the active
5816 \*(RO The status of the last command.
5819 .It Va -folder-resolved
5820 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
5822 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
5825 .It Va -mailbox-display
5826 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
5828 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
5831 .It Va -mailbox-resolved
5832 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
5835 .It Va add-file-recipients
5836 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
5837 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
5838 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
5839 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
5843 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
5844 when comparing addresses.
5848 \*(BO Causes messages saved in
5850 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
5851 This should always be set.
5855 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
5856 If the user responds with simply a newline,
5857 no subject field will be sent.
5861 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
5865 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
5869 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
5870 shall the list be found empty at that time.
5871 An empty line finalizes the list.
5875 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
5876 (at the end of each message if
5880 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
5881 An empty line finalizes the list.
5885 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
5886 recipients (at the end of each message if
5890 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
5891 An empty line finalizes the list.
5895 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
5896 signed at the end of each message.
5899 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
5903 \*(BO Alternative name for
5910 .It Va attachment-ask-content-description , \
5911 attachment-ask-content-disposition , \
5912 attachment-ask-content-id , \
5913 attachment-ask-content-type
5914 \*(BO If set then the user will be prompted for some attachment
5915 information when editing the attachment list.
5916 It is advisable to not use these but for the first of the variables;
5917 even for that it has to be noted that the data is used
5923 A sequence of characters to display in the
5927 as shown in the display of
5929 each for one type of messages (see
5930 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
5931 with the default being
5934 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
5937 variable is set, in the following order:
5939 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
5961 start of a collapsed thread.
5963 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
5967 classified as possible spam.
5973 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
5974 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
5978 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
5979 message will be sent automatically.
5983 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
5990 \*(BO Causes the delete command to behave like
5992 thus, after deleting a message the next one will be typed automatically.
5996 \*(BO\*(OB Causes threaded mode (see the
5998 command) to be entered automatically when a folder is opened.
6000 .Ql autosort=thread .
6004 Causes sorted mode (see the
6006 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
6007 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
6008 .Ql set autosort=thread .
6012 \*(BO Enables the substitution of
6014 by the contents of the last command line in shell escapes.
6017 .It Va batch-exit-on-error
6018 \*(BO If the batch mode has been enabled via the
6020 command line option, then this variable will be consulted whenever \*(UA
6021 completes one operation (returns to the command prompt); if it is set
6022 then \*(UA will terminate if the last operation generated an error.
6026 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
6027 input, for example for function and other special keys.
6028 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
6029 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
6030 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
6031 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
6032 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
6038 \*(BO Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
6040 command, and thus complements the standard variable
6042 which controls header summary display on program startup.
6043 It is only meaningful if
6049 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
6050 has the same affect as setting
6052 and all other variables prefixed with
6054 it also changes the behaviour of
6056 (which does not exist in BSD).
6060 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
6061 summary to traditional BSD style.
6065 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
6070 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
6076 field to appear immediately after the
6078 field in message headers and with the
6080 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
6084 The value that should appear in the
6088 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
6090 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
6091 US-ASCII compatible.
6095 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
6096 member of the variable
6098 This defaults to UTF-8.
6099 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
6100 the only supported character set is
6102 Refer to the section
6103 .Sx "Character sets"
6104 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
6107 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
6108 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
6110 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
6112 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
6113 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
6114 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
6116 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
6117 otherwise the (final) value of
6119 is used for this purpose.
6121 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
6122 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
6123 of a MIME message part that uses the
6125 character set is forcefully treated as text.
6129 The default value for the
6134 .It Va colour-disable
6135 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
6136 Also see the section
6137 .Sx "Coloured display" .
6141 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
6143 Note that pagers may need special flags, e.g.,
6151 in order to support colours.
6152 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
6153 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
6155 (see there for more).
6159 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
6160 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
6161 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
6165 can be forced by setting this to the value
6167 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
6168 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
6176 \*(OB A variable counterpart of the
6178 command (see there for documentation), interpreted as a comma-separated
6179 list of custom headers to be injected, to include commas in the header
6180 bodies escape them with reverse solidus, e.g.:
6182 .Dl set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
6188 the message date, if any is to be displayed according to the format of
6190 is by default taken from the
6192 line of the message.
6193 If this variable is set the date as given in the
6195 header field is used instead, converted to local time.
6196 To control the display format of the date assign a valid
6201 format should not be used, because \*(UA does not take embedded newlines
6202 into account when calculating how many lines fit onto the screen.)
6204 .Va datefield-markout-older .
6207 .It Va datefield-markout-older
6208 This variable, when set in addition to
6212 messages (concept is rather comparable to the
6214 option of the POSIX utility
6216 The content interpretation is identical to
6221 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
6222 actual delivery of messages and also implies
6228 .It Va disposition-notification-send
6230 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
6231 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
6235 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
6237 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
6238 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
6239 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
6241 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
6242 .\"for a specific account.
6246 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
6248 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive) compose mode
6249 will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the normal end-of-file
6258 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
6259 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as system
6260 mailboxes (see the command
6262 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
6263 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
6264 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
6265 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
6266 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
6267 fatal unless this variable is set.
6271 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
6272 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
6274 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6278 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
6282 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
6283 its header is included in the editable text.
6293 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
6297 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
6298 .Dq \&No mail for user
6299 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
6300 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or nonexistent
6301 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
6308 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
6309 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
6310 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
6313 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
6316 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
6317 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
6318 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
6319 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
6320 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
6321 .It Ql quoted-printable
6323 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
6324 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
6325 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
6326 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
6327 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
6328 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
6329 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
6331 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
6332 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
6334 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
6335 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
6336 to four bytes of output.
6337 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
6343 If defined, the first character of the value of this variable
6344 gives the character to use in place of
6347 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
6351 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
6352 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
6353 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
6354 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
6355 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
6357 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
6358 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
6362 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
6364 (note right now this is actually like setting
6365 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ) .
6367 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
6370 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
6371 send error instead of only filtering them out.
6372 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
6373 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
6375 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen
6379 addresses all possible address specifications,
6383 command pipeline targets,
6385 plain user names and (MTA) aliases (\*(OB
6387 may be used as an alternative syntax to
6392 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
6393 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
6394 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
6395 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
6399 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
6403 Unless this variable is set additional
6405 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
6406 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
6408 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
6409 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
6411 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
6412 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
6413 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
6415 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
6416 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
6423 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus-sign
6425 if the feature is available, and a minus-sign
6428 The output of the command
6430 will include this information.
6434 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
6435 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
6436 included in the header of a message
6437 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
6438 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
6439 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
6442 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
6444 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
6445 are not affected by the current setting of
6450 .It Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION , file-hook-save-EXTENSION
6451 It is possible to install file hooks which will be used by the
6453 command in order to be able to transparently handle (through an
6454 intermediate temporary file) files with specific
6456 s: the variable values can include shell snippets and are expected to
6457 write data to standard output / read data from standard input,
6459 \*(ID The variables may not be changed while there is a mailbox
6461 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6462 set file-hook-load-xy='echo >&2 XY-LOAD; gzip -cd' \e
6463 file-hook-save-xy='echo >&2 XY-SAVE; gzip -c' \e
6464 record=+null-sent.xy
6469 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
6470 file names that begin with the plus-sign
6472 will be expanded by prefixing them with the value of this variable.
6473 The same special syntax conventions as documented for the
6475 command may be used; if the non-empty value does not start with a solidus
6479 will be prefixed automatically.
6480 If unset or the empty string any
6482 prefixing file names will remain unexpanded.
6486 This variable can be set to the name of a
6488 macro which will be called whenever a
6491 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
6492 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
6493 only include newly arrived messages then.
6495 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
6496 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
6499 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
6500 Please be aware of that and possibly embed a version check in a resource
6504 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
6509 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
6510 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
6511 However, if the mailbox resides under
6515 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
6519 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
6520 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
6522 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
6523 first, but then followed by
6524 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
6528 \*(BO Controls whether a
6529 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
6530 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
6532 .Va followup-to-honour
6534 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
6539 .It Va followup-to-honour
6541 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
6542 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
6546 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
6556 .It Va forward-as-attachment
6557 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
6560 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
6561 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
6563 attachments with all of their parts included.
6567 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
6569 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
6570 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
6571 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
6574 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
6578 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
6579 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
6581 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
6584 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
6588 contains more than one address,
6591 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
6595 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
6596 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
6597 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
6598 and comments, names etc. are retained.
6602 The string to put before the text of a message with the
6606 .Va forward-as-attachment
6609 .Dq -------- Original Message --------
6610 if unset; No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
6614 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
6615 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
6616 the current folder; enabled by default.
6617 The command line option
6623 complements this and controls header summary display on folder changes.
6628 A format string to use for the summary of
6630 similar to the ones used for
6633 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent character
6635 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
6636 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
6637 Valid format specifiers are:
6640 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
6642 A plain percent character.
6645 a space character but for the current message
6647 for which it expands to
6651 a space character but for the current message
6653 for which it expands to
6656 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
6659 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
6661 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
6665 The date when the message was received, or the date found in the
6669 variable is set (optionally to a date display format string).
6671 The indenting level in threaded mode.
6673 The address of the message sender.
6675 The message thread tree structure.
6676 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
6678 The number of lines of the message, if available.
6682 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
6684 Message subject (if any).
6686 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
6688 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
6689 subscribed mailing list \(en see
6694 The position in threaded/sorted order.
6698 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
6700 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
6711 .It Va headline-bidi
6712 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
6713 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
6714 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
6715 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
6716 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
6717 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
6719 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
6720 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
6721 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
6723 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
6724 fields that may occur when displaying
6726 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
6728 with special Unicode control sequences;
6729 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
6731 no value (or any value other than
6736 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
6737 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
6738 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
6740 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
6742 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
6744 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
6745 sequences onto the line).
6750 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
6751 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
6755 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
6756 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
6759 .It Va history-gabby
6760 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
6763 .It Va history-gabby-persist
6764 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
6766 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
6767 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
6768 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
6774 \*(OP If a line editor is available this value restricts the
6775 amount of history entries that are saved into a set and valid
6777 A value of less than 0 disables this feature;
6778 note that loading and incorporation of
6780 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
6781 If unset or 0, a default value will be used.
6782 Dependent on the available line editor this will also define the
6783 number of history entries in memory;
6784 it is also editor-specific whether runtime updates of this value will
6789 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
6791 and it is set by default.
6795 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
6796 the value obtained from
6805 Note that when SMTP transport is not used (via
6807 then it is normally the responsibility of the MTA to create these
6808 fields, \*(IN in conjunction with SMTP however
6810 also influences the results:
6811 you should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
6820 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
6821 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
6823 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
6825 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
6826 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
6830 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
6831 messages; instead echo them as
6833 characters and discard the current line.
6837 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
6838 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
6839 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
6840 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
6841 explicitly using one of the commands
6845 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
6848 on a line by itself or by using the
6850 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
6852 overrides a setting of
6857 If this is set to a non-empty string it will be used for expansions of
6862 The value supports a subset of filename expansions itself.
6870 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6873 option for indenting messages,
6874 in place of the normal tabulator character
6876 which is the default.
6877 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
6881 \*(BO If set, an empty system (MBOX) mailbox file is not removed.
6882 Note that, in conjunction with
6885 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
6886 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
6887 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
6888 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
6889 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
6890 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
6891 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
6894 .It Va keep-content-length
6895 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing
6897 mailbox files \*(UA can be told to keep the
6901 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
6902 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
6903 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
6904 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
6905 work with with same mailbox files.
6906 Note that, if this is not set but
6907 .Va writebackedited ,
6908 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
6909 fields already marks the message as being modified.
6913 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
6914 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
6915 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
6918 .It Va line-editor-disable
6919 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
6920 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
6924 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
6925 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
6929 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
6930 it is marked as having been answered.
6931 This mark has no technical meaning in the mail system;
6932 it just causes messages to be marked in the header summary,
6933 and makes them specially addressable.
6937 \*(BO Internal development variable.
6940 .It Va message-id-disable
6941 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
6943 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
6945 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
6946 (According to RFC 5321 your SMTP server is not required to add this
6947 field by itself, so you should ensure that it accepts messages without a
6951 .It Va message-inject-head
6952 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
6953 The escape sequences tabulator
6960 .It Va message-inject-tail
6961 A string to put at the end of each new message.
6962 The escape sequences tabulator
6970 \*(BO Usually, when an
6972 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
6973 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
6978 option to be passed through to the
6980 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
6981 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
6985 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
6986 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
6987 in order to classify the
6990 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
6993 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
6994 a computation rather similar to what the
6996 command produces when used with the
7000 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
7001 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
7002 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
7007 .Ql application/octet-stream :
7008 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
7010 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
7011 interpret the contents of the part.
7013 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
7014 text data at first glance (by a
7018 file extension), then the original
7020 will not be overwritten.
7023 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
7024 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
7025 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
7026 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
7027 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
7028 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
7029 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
7030 contains topic subjects.)
7033 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
7036 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
7037 Some MUAs however do not use
7039 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but simply specify
7040 .Ql application/octet-stream ,
7041 even for plain text attachments like
7043 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to classify such MIME
7044 message parts on its own, if possible, for example via a possibly
7045 existing attachment filename.
7046 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
7047 actually a carrier of bits.
7048 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
7049 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7050 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
7051 Value should be set to 14
7054 .Bl -bullet -compact
7056 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
7058 content-type will be carried along with the message and be used for
7060 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
7061 is responsible for the MIME part, shall that question arise;
7062 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
7063 overridden content-type by showing a plus-sign
7066 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
7067 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
7068 overriding the parts given MIME type.
7070 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
7071 .Ql application/octet-stream
7072 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
7077 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
7078 Can be used to control which of the
7080 databases are loaded by \*(UA, as furtherly described in the section
7081 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
7084 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
7086 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
7088 controls loading of the system wide
7089 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
7090 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
7092 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
7093 Incorporation of the \*(UA-builtin MIME types cannot be suppressed,
7094 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
7097 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
7098 value string contains an equals sign
7100 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
7103 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
7104 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
7105 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
7106 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
7107 the MIME type cache).
7112 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
7113 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
7115 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
7117 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7120 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
7121 The default has been chosen at compie time.
7122 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
7123 run asynchronously, and without supervision, unless either the
7128 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
7135 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
7137 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
7140 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
7143 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
7146 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
7151 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
7152 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
7153 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
7154 (which will also disable passing
7158 (for not treating a line with only a dot
7160 character as the end of input),
7168 variable is set); in conjunction with the
7170 command line option \*(UA will also pass
7176 \*(OP \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
7177 defined SMTP smarthost, the access URL of which has to be assigned to
7179 To use this mode it is helpful to read
7180 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
7181 It may be necessary to set the
7183 variable in order to use a specific combination of
7188 with some mail providers.
7191 .Bl -bullet -compact
7193 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
7194 server port 25 and requires setting the
7195 .Va smtp-use-starttls
7196 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
7197 Assign a value like \*(IN
7198 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7200 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
7201 to choose this protocol.
7203 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
7204 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
7205 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
7206 be supported by your hosts network service database
7207 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
7210 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
7211 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
7212 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7214 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
7215 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
7220 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
7221 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
7222 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
7223 .Va smtp-use-starttls
7224 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
7225 Assign a value like \*(IN
7226 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
7228 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
7233 .It Va mta-arguments
7234 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
7236 can be given via this variable, the content of which will be split up in
7237 a vector of arguments, to be joined onto other possible MTA options:
7239 .Dl set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"'
7242 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
7243 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
7244 standard command line options to a file-based
7246 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
7250 Many systems use a so-called
7252 environment to ensure compatibility with
7254 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
7256 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
7257 actually executed when calling the file-based
7259 will treat its contents as that name.
7264 .It Va NAIL_EXTRA_RC
7265 The name of an optional startup file to be read last.
7266 This variable has an effect only if it is set in any of the
7267 .Sx "Resource files" ,
7268 it is not imported from the environment.
7269 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
7274 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
7275 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
7277 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
7278 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
7282 .Sx "The .netrc file"
7283 documents the file format.
7295 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
7297 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
7298 This can be used to, e.g., store
7302 .Dl set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
7306 If this variable has the value
7308 newly created local folders will be in Maildir format.
7312 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
7313 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
7314 If this variable is set to the special value
7316 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
7317 timestamp changes are detected.
7321 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
7322 \*(ID Macro hooks which will be executed before compose mode is
7323 entered, and after composing has been finished, respectively.
7324 Please note that this interface is very likely to change in v15, and
7325 should therefore possibly even be seen as experimental.
7327 are by default enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be
7328 forgotten after the message has been sent.
7329 The following variables will be set temporarily during execution of the
7332 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va compose_subject"
7335 .It Va compose-sender
7337 .It Va compose-to , compose-cc , compose-bcc
7338 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
7339 .It Va compose-subject
7345 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
7348 and the sender-based filenames for the
7352 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
7354 variable rather than to the current directory,
7355 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
7359 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
7361 is followed by a formfeed character
7365 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
7366 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
7367 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
7368 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
7369 the authentication method requires a password.
7370 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
7371 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
7373 .It Va password-USER@HOST
7374 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
7375 Set the password for
7379 If no such variable is defined for a host,
7380 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
7381 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
7382 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
7386 \*(BO Send messages to the
7388 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
7392 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
7393 When a MIME message part of type
7395 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
7396 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
7400 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
7401 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
7402 will henceforth display XML
7404 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
7407 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
7408 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
7409 \(em corresponding flag strings are shown in parenthesis below.)
7414 can in fact be used to adjust usage and behaviour of a following shell
7415 command specification by appending trigger characters to it, e.g., the
7416 following hypothetical command specification could be used:
7417 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7418 set pipe-X/Y='@*!++=@vim ${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
7422 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
7424 Simply by using the special
7426 prefix the MIME type (shell command) handler will only be invoked to
7427 display or convert the MIME part if the message is addressed directly
7428 and alone by itself.
7429 Use this trigger to disable this and always invoke the handler
7430 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-always ) .
7433 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
7434 but only when it will be displayed
7435 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-noquote ) .
7438 The command will be run asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA,
7439 which may be a handy way to display a, e.g., PDF file while also
7440 continuing to read the mail message
7441 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-async ) .
7442 Asynchronous execution implies
7446 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
7447 temporarily release the terminal to it
7448 .Pf ( Cd needsterminal ) .
7449 This flag is mutual exclusive with
7451 will only be used in interactive mode and implies
7455 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
7456 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
7457 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
7458 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ) .
7459 If this trigger is given twice then the file will be unlinked
7460 automatically by \*(UA when the command loop is entered again at latest
7461 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink ) .
7462 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
7465 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
7466 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
7467 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
7468 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
7469 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
7470 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
7475 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
7476 another at-sign to forcefully terminate interpretation of remaining
7478 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
7482 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
7483 the environment of the shell command:
7486 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
7489 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
7492 .It Ev NAIL_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
7494 .Va mime-counter-evidence
7495 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
7496 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
7497 .Ev \&\&NAIL_CONTENT
7501 .It Ev NAIL_FILENAME
7502 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
7505 .It Ev NAIL_FILENAME_GENERATED
7509 .It Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
7510 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
7511 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
7516 The temporary directory that \*(UA uses.
7517 Usually identical to
7519 but guaranteed to be set and usable by child processes;
7520 to ensure the latter condition for
7522 also, it will be set.
7527 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
7528 This is identical to
7529 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
7532 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
7533 names a file extension, e.g.,
7535 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
7538 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
7539 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
7540 The only possible value as of now is
7542 which is thus the default.
7545 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
7546 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
7547 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
7548 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
7549 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
7551 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
7552 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
7554 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
7555 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
7556 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
7557 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
7558 but practical experience may vary.
7559 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
7563 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
7566 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
7567 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
7569 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
7573 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
7574 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
7576 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
7579 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
7580 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
7581 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
7583 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
7584 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
7585 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
7587 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
7592 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
7593 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
7594 It will be set implicitly before the
7595 .Sx "Resource files"
7596 are loaded if the environment variable
7598 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
7602 .It Va print-alternatives
7603 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
7604 .Ql multipart/alternative
7605 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
7607 other parts are normally discarded.
7608 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
7609 just as if the surrounding part was of type
7610 .Ql multipart/mixed .
7614 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
7615 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is shell-expanded using
7616 dollar-single-quote expansion mode (see
7618 and it is an error if the prompt expands to more than a single token.
7619 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
7620 status information, for example
7624 .Va -mailbox-display .
7625 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
7626 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
7627 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
7629 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
7631 .Ql set noprompt ) .
7635 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
7642 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
7646 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
7647 prefixed by the value of the variable
7649 Normally, a heading consisting of
7650 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
7651 is put before the quotation.
7656 variable, this heading is omitted.
7659 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
7662 selection are put above the message body,
7665 acts like an automatic
7667 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7671 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
7672 parts are included, making
7674 act like an automatic
7677 .Va quote-as-attachment .
7680 .It Va quote-as-attachment
7681 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
7683 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
7684 Note this works regardless of the setting of
7689 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
7691 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
7692 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
7694 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
7695 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
7696 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
7698 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
7699 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
7700 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
7702 plus some additional pad.
7703 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
7706 .It Va recipients-in-cc
7707 \*(BO On group replies, specify only the sender of the original mail in
7709 and mention the other recipients in the secondary
7711 By default all recipients of the original mail will be addressed via
7716 If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all outgoing
7718 If not defined, then outgoing mail is not saved.
7719 When saving to this folder fails the message is not sent,
7720 but instead saved to
7724 .It Va record-resent
7725 \*(BO If both this variable and the
7732 commands save messages to the
7734 folder as it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
7737 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
7738 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
7739 character set of the original message for replies.
7740 If this fails, the mechanism described in
7741 .Sx "Character sets"
7742 is evaluated as usual.
7745 .It Va reply_strings
7746 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
7747 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
7750 reply message indicators \(en builtin are
7752 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
7757 A list of addresses to put into the
7759 field of the message header.
7760 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
7765 .It Va reply-to-honour
7768 header is honoured when replying to a message via
7772 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
7776 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
7777 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
7779 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
7781 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
7785 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
7787 upon interrupt or delivery error.
7791 The number of lines that represents a
7800 line display and scrolling via
7802 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
7803 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
7804 terminal, the more will be shown.
7805 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
7806 environment variables
7814 .It Va searchheaders
7815 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
7817 to all messages containing the substring
7821 The string search is case insensitive.
7825 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
7826 outgoing internet mail.
7827 The value of the variable
7829 is automatically appended to this list of character-sets.
7830 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
7831 the only supported charset is
7834 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
7835 and refer to the section
7836 .Sx "Character sets"
7837 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
7840 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
7841 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
7843 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
7845 had been set to the value of the variable
7847 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
7848 character set of the current locale (given that
7850 has not been set manually), i.e., without converting it to the
7852 fallback character set.
7853 Thus, mail message text will be in ISO-8859-1 encoding when send from
7854 within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8 encoding when send from within
7856 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
7857 the only supported character set is
7862 An address that is put into the
7864 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
7865 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
7866 This field should normally not be used unless the
7868 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
7871 address is handled as if it were in the
7877 \*(OB Predecessor of
7881 .It Va sendmail-arguments
7882 \*(OB Predecessor of
7886 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
7887 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
7888 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
7891 .It Va sendmail-progname
7892 \*(OB Predecessor of
7897 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
7899 (including the builtin SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
7901 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
7902 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
7903 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
7907 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
7908 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
7912 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
7913 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
7917 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
7918 summary if the message was sent by the user.
7922 The string to expand
7925 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
7929 The string to expand
7932 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
7936 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
7937 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
7938 and to the first part of each multipart message.
7939 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
7943 .It Va skipemptybody
7944 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
7945 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
7951 \*(OP Specifies a directory with CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
7952 Enhanced Mail) format for verification of S/MIME signed messages.
7955 .It Va smime-ca-file
7956 \*(OP Specifies a file with CA certificates in PEM format for
7957 verification of S/MIME signed messages.
7960 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
7961 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
7962 messages (for the specified account).
7963 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
7966 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
7974 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
7976 is not available) and
7980 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
7981 library that \*(UA uses.
7982 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
7983 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
7984 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
7985 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
7988 .It Va smime-crl-dir
7989 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
7990 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
7993 .It Va smime-crl-file
7994 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
7995 verifying S/MIME messages.
7998 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
7999 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
8000 encrypted before sending.
8001 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
8002 contains a certificate in PEM format.
8004 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
8005 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
8006 individually encrypted message;
8007 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
8009 .Va smime-force-encryption
8011 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
8016 .It Va smime-force-encryption
8017 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
8020 .It Va smime-no-default-ca
8021 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load default CA locations when verifying S/MIME
8026 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
8027 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
8028 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
8029 a valid certificate,
8030 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
8031 header and that the message content has not been altered.
8032 It does not change the message text,
8033 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
8035 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
8037 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
8039 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
8040 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
8041 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
8042 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
8043 user's private key as well as his certificate.
8047 is always derived from the value of
8049 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8051 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
8052 (certificate) is expected; the command
8054 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
8055 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
8056 gives some details).
8057 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
8059 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
8064 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
8066 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
8067 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
8068 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
8070 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
8071 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
8072 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
8073 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
8074 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
8077 This is most useful for long certificate chains if it is desired to aid
8078 the receiving parties verification process.
8079 Note that top level certificates may also be included in the chain but
8080 do not play a role for verification.
8082 .Va smime-sign-cert .
8083 Remember that for this
8085 refers to the variable
8087 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8090 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
8091 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
8092 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
8093 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
8095 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
8103 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
8104 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
8105 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
8106 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
8107 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
8108 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
8109 Remember that for this
8111 refers to the variable
8113 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8118 \*(OB\*(OP To use the builtin SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
8120 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
8122 is used in preference of
8126 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
8127 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
8129 authentication method, possible values are
8135 as well as the \*(OPal methods
8141 method does not need any user credentials,
8143 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
8151 .Va smtp-auth-password
8153 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
8158 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
8159 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
8162 .It Va smtp-auth-password
8163 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
8164 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
8165 .Va smtp-auth-password
8167 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
8169 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
8171 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
8173 .Va smtp-auth-password
8174 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
8177 .It Va smtp-auth-user
8178 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
8179 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
8182 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
8184 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
8186 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
8189 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
8193 .It Va smtp-hostname
8194 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
8196 to derive the necessary
8198 information in order to issue a
8205 can be used to use the
8207 from the SMTP account
8214 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
8216 or the local hostname as a last resort).
8217 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
8218 a provider other than which (in
8220 is about to send the message.
8221 Setting this variable also influences the generated
8224 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
8225 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
8226 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
8228 command to make an SMTP
8230 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
8234 .It Va spam-interface
8235 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
8237 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
8238 Please refer to the manual section
8240 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
8241 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
8243 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
8249 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
8251 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
8252 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
8253 knowledge to parse the program's output.
8256 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
8261 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
8262 using a configuration file for that), the variable
8264 can be used as in, e.g.,
8265 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
8266 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
8268 Note that this interface does not inspect the
8270 flag of a message for the command
8274 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
8275 This interface is meant for programs like
8277 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
8278 status for at least the command
8281 meaning a message is spam,
8285 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
8286 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
8287 can be intercepted as necessary.
8289 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
8292 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
8295 contains examples for some programs.
8296 The process environment of the hooks will have the variables
8297 .Ev NAIL_TMPDIR , TMPDIR
8299 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_GENERATED
8301 Note that spam score support for
8303 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
8305 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
8312 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
8314 .Va spam-interface .
8315 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
8318 .It Va spamc-command
8319 \*(OP The path to the
8323 .Va spam-interface .
8324 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
8326 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
8327 executable had been found during compilation.
8330 .It Va spamc-arguments
8331 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
8334 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
8335 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
8336 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
8340 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
8342 .Va spam-interface .
8343 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
8352 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
8353 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
8354 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
8356 .Va spam-interface .
8359 contains examples for some programs.
8362 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
8363 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
8366 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPtional
8367 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
8368 be used to overcome this restriction.
8369 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
8370 must be followed by a semicolon
8372 and an extended regular expression.
8373 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
8375 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
8376 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
8380 \*(OP Specifies a directory with CA certificates in PEM (Pricacy
8381 Enhanced Mail) for verification of of SSL/TLS server certificates.
8383 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
8384 for more information.
8388 \*(OP Specifies a file with CA certificates in PEM format for
8389 verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
8391 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
8392 for more information.
8395 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
8396 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client
8397 certificate required by some servers.
8398 This is a direct interface to the
8402 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
8404 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
8405 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
8406 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
8407 This is a direct interface to the
8411 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
8413 for more information.
8414 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
8416 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
8417 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
8418 supports \(en the manual section
8419 .Sx "An example configuration"
8420 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
8423 .It Va ssl-config-file
8424 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
8425 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
8426 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
8428 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
8429 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
8430 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
8431 The application name will always be passed as
8436 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
8437 verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
8441 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
8442 to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
8445 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
8446 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for the private key of
8447 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
8448 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
8449 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
8450 This is a direct interface to the
8454 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
8457 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
8458 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
8460 instead: if both values are set,
8462 will take precedence!
8463 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
8465 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
8467 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
8469 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
8471 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
8474 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
8479 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
8480 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
8483 .It Va ssl-no-default-ca
8484 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load default CA locations to verify SSL/TLS server
8488 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
8489 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
8490 This is a direct interface to the
8494 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
8495 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
8496 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
8502 as well as the special value
8504 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
8505 ignores any whitespace.
8508 plus prefix will enable a protocol, a
8510 minus prefix will disable it, so that
8512 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
8514 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
8515 supported and which protocols are used if
8517 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
8519 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
8521 may be worthwile, see
8522 .Sx "An example configuration" .
8526 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
8528 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
8531 .It Va ssl-rand-file
8532 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
8533 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
8534 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
8535 filename expansion failed, then
8536 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
8537 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
8539 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
8540 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
8541 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
8542 This variable is only used if
8544 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
8547 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
8548 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
8549 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation.
8550 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
8552 (fail and close connection immediately),
8554 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
8556 (show a warning and continue),
8558 (do not perform validation).
8564 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
8569 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
8570 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
8571 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
8572 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
8573 to track down the originating mail user agent.
8578 suppression does not occur.
8583 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
8588 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
8589 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
8591 Note that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and
8592 can thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
8595 String capabilities form
8597 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
8598 Numerics have to be notated as
8600 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
8601 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
8602 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
8603 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
8604 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
8605 for one notations like
8608 .Ql control-LETTER ,
8609 and for clarification purposes
8611 can be used to specify
8613 (the control notation
8615 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
8616 the standard CSI sequence);
8617 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
8620 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
8621 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
8623 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8624 set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
8628 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
8629 operation of the builtin line editor or \*(UA in general:
8632 .Bl -tag -compact -width yay
8634 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
8636 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
8637 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
8638 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
8641 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
8645 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen
8647 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
8648 To disable that, set (at least) one to the empty string.
8650 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
8654 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
8655 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
8656 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
8657 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
8659 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
8663 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
8665 clear the screen and home cursor.
8666 (Will be simulated via
8671 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
8676 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
8678 clear to the end of line.
8679 (Will be simulated via
8681 plus repetitions of space characters.)
8683 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
8684 .Cd column_address :
8685 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
8686 (Will be simulated via
8692 .Cd carriage_return :
8693 move to the first column in the current row.
8694 The default builtin fallback is
8697 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
8699 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
8700 The default builtin fallback is
8703 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
8705 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
8706 The default builtin fallback is
8708 which is used by most terminals.
8716 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
8720 .It Va termcap-disable
8721 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
8722 If set only some generic fallback builtins and possibly the content of
8724 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
8726 that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
8727 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
8731 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
8734 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
8737 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for right
8740 height; (shifting bitwise is like dividing algorithmically, but since
8741 it takes away bits the value decreases pretty fast).
8745 \*(BO If set then the
8747 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
8751 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
8752 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
8753 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
8754 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
8758 Refer to the section
8759 .Sx "Character sets"
8760 for the complete picture about character sets.
8763 .It Va typescript-mode
8764 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
8765 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
8768 .Va colour-disable ,
8769 .Va line-editor-disable
8770 and (before startup completed only)
8771 .Va termcap-disable .
8772 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
8776 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
8780 but this variable can be used to override that:
8781 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting,
8782 otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to the new value.
8783 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
8786 .It Va user-HOST , user
8787 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
8788 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
8790 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
8794 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
8795 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
8796 how they are handled.
8797 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
8798 doing things, respectively.
8802 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
8804 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
8805 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
8806 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
8807 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
8808 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
8811 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
8817 .It Va version , version-major , version-minor , version-update
8818 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
8819 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
8820 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
8821 The output of the command
8823 will include this information.
8826 .It Va writebackedited
8827 If this variable is set messages modified using the
8831 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
8832 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
8833 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
8834 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
8835 performed, and proper RFC 4155
8837 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
8841 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
8844 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
8848 .Dq environment variable
8849 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
8850 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
8851 commonly found in there.
8852 The process environment is inherited from the
8854 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
8855 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
8856 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
8857 from \*(UA's point of view.
8858 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
8862 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
8863 newly created child processes).
8866 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
8867 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
8869 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
8870 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
8871 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
8873 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
8875 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
8877 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8878 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
8880 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
8883 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev _AILR_"
8886 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
8888 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
8889 processes and the MLE (see
8890 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8891 in interactive mode thereafter.
8895 The name of the (mailbox)
8897 to use for saving aborted messages if
8899 is set; this defaults to
8906 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
8911 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
8915 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8916 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
8920 The user's home directory.
8921 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
8928 .It Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_COLLATE , LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES
8932 .Sx "Character sets" .
8936 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
8937 or window size in lines.
8938 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
8939 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
8943 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
8945 command when operating on local mailboxes.
8948 (path search through
8953 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
8954 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
8955 name to any newly created child process.
8959 Is used as the user's primary system mailbox, unless
8963 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
8967 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
8968 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
8969 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
8970 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
8971 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
8972 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
8973 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
8977 Is used as a startup file instead of
8980 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
8981 either this variable should be set to
8985 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
8986 reading their configuration files.
8987 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
8991 The name of the user's mbox file.
8992 A logical subset of the special conventions that are documented for the
8994 command and the internal variable
8997 The fallback default is
9002 Traditionally this secondary mailbox is used as the file to save
9003 messages from the primary system mailbox that have been read.
9005 .Sx "Message states" .
9008 .It Ev NAIL_NO_SYSTEM_RC
9009 If this variable is set then reading of
9011 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
9012 had been started up with the option
9014 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
9018 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
9024 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
9028 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
9029 The default paginator is
9031 (path search through
9034 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
9036 then a non-existing environment variable
9043 dependent on whether terminal control support is available and whether
9044 that supports full (alternative) screen mode or not (also see
9045 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ) .
9049 will optionally be set to
9056 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
9057 looking for commands, e.g.,
9058 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
9061 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
9062 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
9068 The shell to use for the commands
9073 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9074 and when starting subprocesses.
9075 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
9078 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
9079 If set, this specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch
9080 (1970-01-01) to be used in place of the current time.
9081 This is for the sake of reproduceability of tests, to be used during
9082 development or by software packagers.
9086 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
9087 For extended colour and font control please refer to
9088 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
9089 and for terminal management in general to
9090 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
9094 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
9097 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
9103 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
9104 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
9108 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
9112 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
9120 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa _etc/mime.type_"
9122 File giving initial commands.
9125 System wide initialization file.
9129 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
9130 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
9131 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
9135 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
9136 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
9137 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
9140 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
9141 Personal MIME types, see
9142 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9145 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
9146 System wide MIME types, see
9147 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9151 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
9153 file \(en the section
9154 .Sx "The .netrc file"
9155 documents the file format.
9158 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
9159 .Ss "The mime.types files"
9161 When sending messages \*(UA tries to determine the content type of all
9163 When displaying message content or attachments \*(UA uses the content
9164 type to decide whether it can directly display data or whether it needs
9165 to deal with content handlers.
9166 It learns about M(ultipurpose) I(nternet) M(ail) E(xtensions) types and
9167 how to treat them by reading
9169 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
9170 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
9173 can also be used to deal with MIME types.)
9175 files have the following syntax:
9178 .Dl type/subtype extension [extension ...]
9183 are strings describing the file contents, and one or multiple
9185 s, separated by whitespace, name the part of a filename starting after
9186 the last dot (of interest).
9187 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
9189 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
9191 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in specially
9192 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
9193 .Va mimetypes-load-control
9194 and prepends an optional
9198 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
9201 The following type markers are supported:
9204 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
9206 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
9211 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
9212 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
9213 the content as plain text instead.
9217 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
9218 handler to be defined.
9223 for sending messages:
9225 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
9226 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
9227 For reading etc. messages:
9228 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
9229 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
9231 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
9232 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
9233 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
9234 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
9237 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
9238 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
9241 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
9242 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports.
9243 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
9244 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
9245 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
9246 etc. MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that includes
9247 multiple possible locations of
9251 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
9252 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
9253 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
9254 the list of MIME type handler directives.
9258 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
9259 Comment lines start with a number sign
9261 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
9262 Empty lines are also ignored.
9263 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
9265 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
9266 follow lines if newline characters are
9268 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
9270 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
9271 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
9275 entries consist of a number of semicolon
9277 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
9279 character can be used to escape any following character including
9280 semicolon and itself.
9281 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
9282 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
9283 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
9286 The first field defines the MIME
9288 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
9289 escaping is possible in this field).
9290 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
9292 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
9294 would match any audio type.
9295 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
9297 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
9304 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
9305 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
9308 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
9309 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
9312 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
9313 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
9315 In any case any given
9317 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
9318 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
9320 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
9321 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
9322 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
9324 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
9325 flags had been set; see below for more.
9328 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
9329 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
9330 naming the field followed by an equals sign
9332 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
9334 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
9335 Optional fields include the following:
9338 .Bl -tag -width textualnewlines
9340 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
9347 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
9349 header field to be applied to the composed data.
9353 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
9358 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
9363 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
9364 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
9365 this mailcap entry applies.
9366 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
9367 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
9369 .It Cd needsterminal
9370 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
9371 an interactive terminal.
9372 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
9373 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
9374 ignored; this flag implies
9375 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
9377 .It Cd copiousoutput
9378 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
9380 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
9381 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9382 It is mutually exclusive with
9385 .Cd x-mailx-always .
9387 .It Cd textualnewlines
9388 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
9391 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
9392 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
9396 This field gives a file name format, in which
9398 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
9399 will be used as the filename denoted by
9400 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
9401 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
9402 have a name ending in
9405 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
9406 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
9407 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
9408 characters, the underscore and dot only.
9411 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
9412 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
9413 This field is not used by \*(UA.
9416 A textual description that describes this type of data.
9418 .It Cd x-mailx-always
9419 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
9421 command shall be executed even if multiple messages will be displayed
9423 Normally messages which require external viewers that produce output
9424 which does not integrate into \*(UA's visual display (i.e., do not have
9426 set) have to be addressed directly and individually.
9427 (To avoid cases where, e.g., a thousand PDF viewer instances are spawned
9430 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
9431 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
9433 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
9434 then their use will be considered.
9435 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
9438 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
9439 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
9442 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
9443 (as it would be by default).
9445 .It Cd x-mailx-async
9446 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
9448 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
9449 Cannot be used in conjunction with
9452 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
9453 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
9455 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
9456 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
9457 .Dq running under the X Window System .
9459 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
9460 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
9461 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
9462 .Ev NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
9463 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
9467 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
9468 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
9469 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
9471 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
9472 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
9473 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
9475 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
9479 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
9480 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
9481 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
9482 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
9483 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
9485 format, or without also setting
9488 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
9490 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
9493 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
9495 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
9497 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
9502 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
9503 entry fields, prefixed by
9505 Flag fields apply to the entire
9507 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
9508 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
9509 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
9510 one does not provide enough information.
9513 command needs to specify the
9517 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
9521 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
9523 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9524 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
9525 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
9529 In fields any occurrence of the format string
9531 will be replaced by the
9534 Named parameters from the
9536 field may be placed in the command execution line using
9538 followed by the parameter name and a closing
9541 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
9542 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
9544 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9546 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
9549 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
9550 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
9552 # Executed shell command
9553 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
9557 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
9558 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
9559 shown in this example (as of today).
9560 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
9564 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
9566 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
9567 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
9568 in additional user-provided quotes:
9570 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9572 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
9574 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
9578 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
9579 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
9581 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
9583 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
9584 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
9585 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
9590 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
9591 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
9594 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
9595 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
9596 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
9599 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
9600 .Ss "The .netrc file"
9604 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
9605 The default location in the user's
9607 directory may be overridden by the
9609 environment variable.
9610 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
9611 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
9612 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
9613 of that file format, shall their
9615 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
9618 .Bl -bullet -compact
9620 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
9621 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
9623 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
9624 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
9626 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
9628 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
9630 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
9631 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
9632 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
9634 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
9635 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
9636 whitespace, with a number sign
9638 then the rest of the line is ignored.
9640 Whereas other programs may require that the
9642 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
9648 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
9652 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
9657 At runtime the command
9659 can be used to control \*(UA's
9663 .Bl -tag -width password
9664 .It Cd machine Ar name
9665 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
9667 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
9672 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
9675 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
9676 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
9678 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9679 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
9680 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
9681 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
9687 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
9691 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
9692 Note that in the example neither
9693 .Ql pop3.example.com
9695 .Ql smtp.example.com
9696 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
9697 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
9702 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
9703 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
9704 and it must be the last first-class token.
9706 .It Cd login Ar name
9707 The user name on the remote machine.
9709 .It Cd password Ar string
9710 The user's password on the remote machine.
9712 .It Cd account Ar string
9713 Supply an additional account password.
9714 This is merely for FTP purposes.
9716 .It Cd macdef Ar name
9718 A macro is defined with the specified
9720 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
9721 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
9724 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
9725 defined following the
9727 they are intended to be used with.)
9730 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
9731 This is merely for FTP purposes.
9738 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
9741 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
9742 .Ss "An example configuration"
9744 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9745 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
9748 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
9749 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
9750 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
9752 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
9753 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
9754 set ssl-no-default-ca
9756 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
9757 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
9758 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
9759 # such explicit exceptions, then
9760 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
9762 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
9763 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
9764 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
9765 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
9766 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
9767 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
9768 # ALL:!aNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
9770 # Request strict transport security checks!
9771 set ssl-verify=strict
9773 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
9774 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
9776 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
9777 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
9778 set reply-in-same-charset
9780 # When replying to or forwarding a message the comment and name
9781 # parts of email addresses are removed unless this variable is set
9784 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
9785 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
9786 # exit status of the MTA (including the builtin SMTP one)!
9789 # Only use builtin MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
9790 set mimetypes-load-control
9792 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
9794 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
9795 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
9796 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox record=+sent.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt
9798 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
9799 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
9801 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
9802 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
9804 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
9805 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
9806 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
9807 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
9808 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
9811 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
9813 colour-pager crt= \e
9814 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
9815 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
9816 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
9817 prompt='[\e${-account-name} \e${-mailbox-display}]? ' \e
9818 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
9821 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
9822 headerpick type retain add from_ date from to cc subject \e
9823 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
9824 # ...when forwarding messages
9825 headerpick forward retain add subject date from to cc
9826 # ...when saving message, etc.
9827 #headerpick save ignore add ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
9829 # Some mailing lists
9830 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
9831 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
9833 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
9835 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
9836 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
9837 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
9840 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
9841 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
9842 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
9843 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
9844 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
9845 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
9847 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
9848 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
9849 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
9850 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
9853 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
9854 wysh ghost lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
9855 wysh ghost llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
9856 wysh ghost ls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFrS'
9857 wysh ghost lS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFS'
9858 wysh ghost lla '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlr'
9859 wysh ghost llA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFl'
9860 wysh ghost la '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFr'
9861 wysh ghost lA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aF'
9862 wysh ghost ll '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFltr'
9863 wysh ghost lL '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlt'
9864 wysh ghost l '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFtr'
9865 wysh ghost L '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFt'
9867 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
9868 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
9870 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
9871 < "${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
9872 -v TMPFILE="${NAIL_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
9874 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/{\e
9877 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
9878 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
9879 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
9883 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
9884 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
9894 !printf 'Key IDs to gpg --recv-keys: ';\e
9896 gpg --recv-keys ${keyids};
9902 When storing passwords in
9904 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
9905 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
9908 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
9910 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
9911 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
9913 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9915 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
9916 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
9918 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
9919 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
9921 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
9922 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
9923 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
9924 ghost xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
9933 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9934 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
9938 This configuration should now work just fine:
9941 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -vv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
9944 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
9945 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
9947 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
9948 message signing and message encryption.
9949 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
9950 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
9951 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
9952 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
9953 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
9954 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
9958 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
9959 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
9960 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
9961 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
9963 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
9964 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
9966 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
9967 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
9971 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
9972 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
9973 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
9974 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
9976 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
9978 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
9979 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
9981 .Va smime-no-default-ca
9982 to avoid using the default certificate and point
9986 to a trusted pool of certificates.
9987 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
9988 certificate has been retrieved with.
9991 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message exchange is
9992 your personal certificate, including a private key.
9993 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
9994 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
9995 encrypt messages for you,
9996 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
9997 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
9998 The private key must be kept secret.
9999 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
10000 public key, and to sign messages.
10003 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
10004 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
10005 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
10007 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
10008 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
10009 community for free; their root certificate
10010 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
10011 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
10012 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
10013 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
10016 or as a vivid member of the
10017 .Va smime-ca-file .
10018 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
10019 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
10022 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
10023 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
10024 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
10025 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
10026 entries of the web interface.
10027 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
10028 .Dq client certificate ,
10029 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
10030 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
10034 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
10035 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
10036 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
10039 .Dl openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
10042 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
10044 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
10045 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
10046 .Dq advanced options
10047 to see the corresponding text field).
10048 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
10049 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
10050 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
10051 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
10052 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
10057 In order to use your new S/MIME setup you will have to create
10058 a combined private key/public key (certificate) file:
10061 .Dl cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
10064 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
10065 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
10066 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
10067 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
10069 is of interest for verification only):
10071 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10072 set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
10073 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
10074 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
10079 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
10080 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
10081 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do the same,
10084 command to check the validity of the certificate.
10087 Variables of interest for S/MIME signing:
10089 .Va smime-ca-file ,
10090 .Va smime-crl-dir ,
10091 .Va smime-crl-file ,
10092 .Va smime-no-default-ca ,
10094 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
10095 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
10097 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
10100 After it has been verified save the certificate via
10102 and tell \*(UA that it should use it for encryption for further
10103 communication with that somebody:
10105 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10107 set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
10108 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
10112 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
10115 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
10118 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted messages
10120 If you do, anybody who has access to your mail folders can read them,
10121 but if you do not, you might be unable to read them yourself later if
10122 you happen to lose your private key.
10125 command saves messages in decrypted form, while the
10129 commands leave them encrypted.
10132 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to message
10133 subjects or other header fields yet.
10134 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
10135 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
10136 When sending signed messages,
10137 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
10141 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
10142 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
10144 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
10145 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
10146 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
10147 declared invalid after they have been issued.
10148 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
10150 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
10151 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
10152 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
10153 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
10154 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
10155 invalidated certificates.
10156 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
10157 the Internet, so you have to retrieve them by some external mechanism.
10160 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
10161 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
10164 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
10167 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
10168 (and no other files) must be created.
10173 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
10174 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
10175 to verify a certificate.
10178 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
10179 .Ss "Handling spam"
10181 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
10182 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
10183 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
10185 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
10186 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
10188 state can be prompted: the
10192 message specifications will address respective messages and their
10194 entries will be used when displaying the
10196 in the header display.
10201 rates the given messages and sets their
10204 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
10205 the header display by including the
10215 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
10216 the given messages as
10220 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
10222 of messages; it adheres to their current
10224 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
10229 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
10231 message flag, without any interface interaction.
10240 requires a running instance of the
10242 server in order to function, started with the option
10244 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
10246 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10247 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
10248 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
10249 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
10253 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
10255 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10256 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
10257 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
10258 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
10260 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
10261 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
10262 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
10266 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
10268 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
10271 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10272 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
10273 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
10274 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
10275 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
10276 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
10277 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
10278 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
10282 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
10283 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
10284 perform the local spam check last:
10286 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10287 define spamdelhook {
10289 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
10290 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
10291 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
10292 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
10293 move :S +maybe-spam
10296 move :S +maybe-spam
10298 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
10302 See also the documentation for the variables
10303 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
10304 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
10305 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
10308 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
10316 In general it is a good idea to turn on
10322 twice) if something does not work well.
10323 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
10324 problems' solution.
10326 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
10327 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
10329 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
10330 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
10332 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
10333 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
10335 You may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
10339 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
10342 return what you would expect?
10343 Does this local hostname has a domain suffix?
10344 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
10348 .\" .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away" {{{
10349 .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away"
10351 When this happens even with
10353 set, then this most likely indicates a problem with the creation of
10354 so-called dotlock files: setting
10355 .Va dotlock-ignore-error
10356 should overcome this situation.
10357 This only avoids symptoms, it does not address the problem, though.
10358 Since the output is cleared away \*(UA has support for
10359 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
10360 and switches to the
10362 which causes the output clearance: by doing
10363 .Ql set termcap='smcup='
10364 this mode can be suppressed, and by setting
10366 (twice) the actual problem should be reported.
10369 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
10370 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
10372 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
10374 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
10375 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
10376 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
10379 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
10380 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
10381 her- and himself with the locally installed
10383 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
10384 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
10385 local cache this query has to be performed whenever \*(UA is invoked
10386 from the command line (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
10389 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
10390 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
10391 .Dq less secure app
10392 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
10393 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
10398 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
10401 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
10403 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
10405 use that special password instead of your real Google account password in
10406 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
10407 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
10411 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
10412 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
10414 It can happen that the terminal library (see
10415 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
10418 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
10419 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
10420 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
10421 The verbose listing of
10423 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
10426 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
10428 in conjunction with the
10430 flag if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
10431 by keypresses, and use the variable
10433 to make \*(UA aware of them.
10434 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
10435 an example showing the shifted home key:
10437 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10440 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
10445 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
10454 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
10464 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
10473 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
10478 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
10481 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
10482 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
10483 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
10486 command already appeared in First Edition
10490 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
10491 Electronic mail was there from the start.
10492 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
10493 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
10494 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
10495 freeloaders, or whatever.
10496 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
10497 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
10498 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
10504 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
10507 distribution until 1995.
10508 Mail has then seen further development in open source
10510 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
10512 Basing upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
10513 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
10514 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
10515 This man page is derived from
10516 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
10517 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
10523 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
10524 .An "Edward Wang" ,
10525 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
10526 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
10527 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
10528 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq Mt s-nail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
10530 .Mt s-mailx@sdaoden.eu ) .
10533 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
10536 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
10540 is often problematic: many library functions cannot deal with the
10542 that this software (still) performs.
10545 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
10546 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
10547 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
10552 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
10553 that is capable of message queuing.
10559 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
10560 claims that there are no messages to display, you need to perform
10561 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
10563 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
10564 occasionally (this is may and very).
10568 in the source repository lists future directions.