1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2017 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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7 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
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34 .\"@ S-nail v14.9.3 / 2017-08-03
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()
79 .Op : Ns Fl a Ar attachment Ns \&:
80 .Op : Ns Fl b Ar bcc-addr Ns \&:
81 .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&:
82 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
85 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
88 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
90 .Pf : Ar to-addr Ns \&:
91 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
100 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
102 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
105 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
106 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
115 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
117 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
119 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
121 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
127 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
130 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
133 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
134 .Sy Compatibility note:
135 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2019).
136 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
139 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
140 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
141 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
144 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
145 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
146 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
150 enables obsoletion warnings.
154 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
156 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
158 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
159 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
160 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
161 the user to deal with them in any order.
165 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
166 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
167 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
168 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
169 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
171 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
174 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
177 Explicitly control which of the
181 d (loaded): if the letter
183 is (case-insensitively) part of the
187 is sourced, likewise the letter
189 controls sourcing of the user's personal
191 file, whereas the letters
195 explicitly forbid sourcing of any resource files.
196 Scripts should use this option: to avoid environmental noise they should
198 from any configuration and create a script-specific environment, setting
200 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
203 and running configurating commands via
205 This option overrides
212 command for the given user email
214 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
216 setting is being established; only
218 commands have not been evaluated yet).
219 Being a special incarnation of
221 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived
223 tings, activating such an email account also switches to the accounts
225 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
230 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
233 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
237 .Sx "Filename transformations"
240 will be performed, but shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
244 not be accessible but contain a
246 character, then anything before the
248 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
251 If an input character set is specified,
252 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
253 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
254 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
255 giving the empty string or the special string hyphen-minus
257 will be treated as if
259 has been specified (the default).
261 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
262 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
263 file's type and content.
264 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as the empty
265 string or hyphen-minus
267 then the default conversion algorithm (see
268 .Sx "Character sets" )
269 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
271 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first) \(em
272 without support for character set conversions
274 does not include the term
276 only this argument is supported.
279 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
280 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
285 Send a blind carbon copy to
292 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
294 The option may be used multiple times.
296 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
300 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
302 May be used multiple times.
307 the internal variable
309 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
310 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
316 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
317 This command line option is \*(OB.
321 Just check if mail is present (in the system
323 or the one specified via
325 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
326 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
327 specification can be added with the option
332 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
333 first recipient's address (instead of in
338 Read in the contents of the user's
340 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
342 (or the specified file) for processing;
343 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
349 argument will undergo some special
350 .Sx "Filename transformations"
355 is not an argument to the flag
357 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
361 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
362 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
368 and exit; a configurable summary view is available via the
374 Show a short usage summary.
380 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
386 of all messages that match the given
390 .Sx "Specifying messages"
395 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
396 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
402 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
403 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
408 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
412 and use it as the main message body.
413 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
414 .Va message-inject-head ,
417 .Va message-inject-tail .
423 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
425 and use it as the main message body.
426 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
427 .Va message-inject-head ,
430 .Va message-inject-tail .
436 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
441 for the internal variable
446 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
451 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
452 .Sx "Resource files" .
456 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
457 contents of the specified
459 which may be standard input
461 only in non-interactive context.
469 opened will be in read-only mode.
473 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
474 Whereas the source address that appears in the
476 header of a message (or in the
478 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is honoured by the
479 builtin SMTP transport, it is not used by a file-based
481 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) for the RFC 5321 reverse-path used for relaying
482 and delegating a message to its destination(s), for delivery errors
483 etc., but it instead uses the local identity of the initiating user.
486 When this command line option is used the given
488 will be assigned to the internal variable
490 but in addition the command line option
491 .Fl \&\&f Ar from-addr
492 will be passed to a file-based
494 whenever a message is sent.
497 include a user name the address components will be separated and
498 the name part will be passed to a file-based
504 If an empty string is passed as
506 then the content of the variable
508 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
510 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
519 command line options are used when contacting a file-based MTA, unless
520 this automatic deduction is enforced by
522 ing the internal variable
523 .Va r-option-implicit .
526 Remarks: many default installations and sites disallow overriding the
527 local user identity like this unless either the MTA has been configured
528 accordingly or the user is member of a group with special privileges.
532 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
536 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
540 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
544 may be overwritten from within resource files,
545 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
547 (\*(ID In the future such a setting may instead become
549 until the startup is complete.)
553 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
554 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
555 normalized to space (SP) characters.
559 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
560 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
565 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
566 specified on the command line.
567 If a message subject is specified via
569 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
585 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
586 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
587 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
589 Any other custom header field (also see
593 is passed through entirely
594 unchanged, and in conjunction with the options
598 it is possible to embed
599 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
607 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
610 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
611 .Ql Fl \&\&f Ns \0%user .
620 will also show the list of
622 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
627 ting the internal variable
629 enables display of some informational context messages.
630 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
634 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
636 to the list of commands to be executed,
637 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
638 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
639 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
640 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
650 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
651 in compose mode even in non-interactive use cases.
652 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
653 text before sending the message:
654 .Bd -literal -offset indent
655 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.';\e
656 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
657 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d~:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 bob@exam.ple
662 Enables batch mode: standard input is made line buffered, the complete
663 set of (interactive) commands is available, processing of
664 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
665 is enabled in compose mode, and diverse
666 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
667 are adjusted for batch necessities, exactly as if done via
683 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
684 .Bd -literal -offset indent
685 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' |\e
686 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d#:/ -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
691 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
694 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
695 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
701 arguments and all receivers established via
705 are subject to the checks established by
708 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
711 allows their recognition all
713 arguments given at the end of the command line after a
715 separator will be passed through to a file-based
717 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for the entire session.
719 constraints do not apply to the content of
723 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
726 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
728 Mail, itself a successor of the Research
731 .Dq was there from the start
734 It thus represents the user side of the
736 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
737 traditionally taken by
739 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
744 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
748 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
750 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
751 using it is a smooth experience.
752 (Rather complete configuration examples can be found in the section
756 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
757 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
758 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety already.
766 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to the
768 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
770 that would otherwise occur (see
771 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
774 to not remove empty system MBOX mailbox files in order not to mangle
775 file permissions when files eventually get recreated (all empty (MBOX)
776 mailbox files will be removed unless this variable is set whenever
778 mode has been enabled).
783 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
790 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
792 to allow editing of headers as well as
794 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
796 to include the message that is being responded to when
802 The file mode creation mask can be explicitly managed via the variable
804 Sufficient system support provided symbolic links will not be followed
805 when files are opened for writing.
806 Files and shell pipe output can be
808 d for evaluation, also during startup from within the
809 .Sx "Resource files" .
812 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
813 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
815 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a built-in
817 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
818 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
819 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
823 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
825 .Bd -literal -offset indent
827 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
829 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
830 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
831 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
832 -. '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
835 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
836 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=none \e
837 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
843 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
844 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
845 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
847 special \(en these are so-called
848 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
849 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
850 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
852 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
854 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
856 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
859 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
862 will leave compose mode and send the message once it is completed.
866 at the beginning of an empty line has the same effect, whereas typing
869 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
880 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
881 can be used to alter default behavior.
882 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
885 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
890 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
892 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content, whereas
896 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
897 recipients, respectively, if the given list is empty.
900 Especially when using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
902 it is often necessary to set
906 (even finer control via
907 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
908 which (even if empty) also causes creation of
915 Saving a copy of sent messages in a
917 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
919 targets the value will undergo
920 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
923 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
924 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
927 has example configurations for some of the well-known public mail
928 providers, and also gives a compact overview on how to setup a secure
929 SSL/TLS environment.)
934 sandbox dry-run tests will prove correctness.
938 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
939 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
940 account credentials, the
942 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
945 goes into the details of character encodings, and how to use them for
946 interpreting the input data given in
948 and representing messages and MIME part contents in
950 and reading the section
951 .Sx "The mime.types files"
952 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
953 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
954 Over the wire a configurable
956 .Pf ( Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding: )
957 may be applied to the message data.
960 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
965 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
966 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
969 is not set then only network addresses (see
971 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
972 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
976 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
978 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
979 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
983 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
984 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
986 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
988 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
989 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
991 or the character sequence dot solidus
993 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
994 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
996 Any other name which contains a commercial at
998 character is treated as a network address;
999 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
1001 character specifies a mailbox name;
1002 Any other name which contains a solidus
1004 character but no exclamation mark
1008 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
1009 What remains is treated as a network address.
1011 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1012 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
1013 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
1014 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1015 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
1016 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1021 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1023 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1025 and have it go to a group of people.
1026 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1027 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1031 and are often tracked in a file
1037 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1038 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1039 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1046 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1049 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
1051 .Va on-compose-cleanup
1052 hook variables may be set to
1054 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
1055 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
1056 .Va on-compose-splice
1058 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
1059 variables, the former also to be set to a
1061 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
1062 adjustments are available.
1063 (\*(ID These hooks work for commands which newly create messages, namely
1064 .Ic forward , mail , reply
1069 for now provide only the hooks
1072 .Va on-resend-cleanup . )
1075 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1077 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1078 environment, ideally with the command line options
1080 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1082 to specify variables:
1084 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1085 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1086 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1087 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1088 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1089 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
1090 -s 'Subject to go' -a attachment_file \e
1091 -. 'Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>' rec2@exam.ple \e
1096 As shown, scripts can
1098 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1101 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1103 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1104 can be sent by calling the
1106 command with a list of recipient addresses:
1108 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1109 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1110 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1111 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1113 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1114 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1118 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1119 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1121 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1123 When used like that the user's system
1125 (for more on mailbox types please see the command
1127 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed if
1131 The visual style of this summary of
1133 can be adjusted through the variable
1135 and the possible sorting criterion via
1141 can be performed with the command
1143 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1144 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1153 will give a listing of all available commands and
1155 will give a summary of some common ones.
1156 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1159 and see the actual expansion of
1161 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1162 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1163 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1164 however possible to define overwrites with
1165 .Ic commandalias ) .
1166 These commands can also produce a more
1171 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1172 messages; the current message \(en the
1174 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1175 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1177 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1182 ful of header summaries containing the
1186 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1190 Message content can be displayed with the command
1197 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1199 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1201 the sole difference to the command
1203 which will always use the
1207 will instead only show the first
1209 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1212 Message display experience may improve by setting and adjusting
1213 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
1215 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" .
1218 By default the current message
1220 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1221 a fancy message specification (see
1222 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1225 will display all unread messages,
1230 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1232 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1236 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1239 (a more substantial alias for
1241 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1242 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1245 .Dl ? from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1248 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1250 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1251 applications by using the command
1253 e.g., to restrict their display to a very restricted set for
1255 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain Ar \:from to cc subject .
1256 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1257 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1262 will show the raw message content.
1263 Note that historically the global
1265 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1269 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1270 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1271 aims at making the user experience with the many
1274 When reading the system
1280 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1282 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1284 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1285 then messages which have been read will be automatically moved to a
1287 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1290 file, when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1291 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1292 .Sx "Message states" )
1293 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1294 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1297 Messages can also be explicitly
1299 d to other mailboxes, whereas
1301 keeps the original message.
1303 can be used to write out data content of specific parts of messages.
1306 After examining a message the user can
1308 to the sender and all recipients (which will also be placed in
1311 .Va recipients-in-cc
1314 exclusively to the sender(s).
1316 ing a message will allow editing the new message: the original message
1317 will be contained in the message body, adjusted according to
1319 When replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses will be
1320 stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1327 messages: the former will add a series of
1329 headers, whereas the latter will not; different to newly created
1330 messages editing is not possible and no copy will be saved even with
1332 unless the additional variable
1335 Of course messages can be
1337 and they can spring into existence again via
1339 or when the \*(UA session is ended via the
1344 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1346 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1347 automatic moving of read messages to the
1349 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1351 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1355 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1358 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1359 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1361 Messages which are HTML-only become more and more common and of course
1362 many messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME (Multipurpose Internet
1363 Mail Extensions) parts for, e.g., attachments.
1364 To get a notion of MIME types, \*(UA will first read
1365 .Sx "The mime.types files"
1366 (as configured and allowed by
1367 .Va mimetypes-load-control ) ,
1368 and then add onto that types registered directly with
1370 It (normally) has a default set of types built-in, too.
1371 To improve interaction with faulty MIME part declarations which are
1372 often seen in real-life messages, setting
1373 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1374 will allow \*(UA to verify the given assertion and possibly provide
1375 an alternative MIME type.
1378 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter for
1379 HTML messages, it cannot handle MIME types other than plain text itself.
1380 Instead programs need to become registered to deal with specific MIME
1381 types or file extensions.
1382 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input in
1383 order to enable \*(UA to integrate their output neatlessly in its own
1384 message visualization (a mode which is called
1385 .Cd copiousoutput ) ,
1386 or display the content themselves, for example in an external graphical
1387 window: such handlers will only be considered by and for the command
1391 To install a handler program for a specific MIME type an according
1392 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1393 variable needs to be set; to instead define a handler for a specific
1394 file extension the respective
1396 variable can be used \(en these handlers take precedence.
1397 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1398 RFC 1524; this mechanism (see
1399 .Sx "The Mailcap files" )
1400 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1401 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1402 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1403 A last source for handlers is the MIME type definition itself, when
1404 a (\*(UA specific) type-marker was registered with the command
1406 (which many built-in MIME types do).
1409 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1410 fancy plain text representation than the built-in converter is capable to
1411 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1415 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1416 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1417 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1419 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1420 ? if [ "$features" !% +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1421 ? #set pipe-text/html='@* elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1422 ? set pipe-text/html='@* lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1423 ? # Display HTML as plain text instead
1424 ? #set pipe-text/html=@
1426 ? mimetype @ application/mathml+xml mathml
1427 ? wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1428 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1429 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1430 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1434 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1437 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1440 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1442 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1447 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1448 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1449 currently defined mailing lists.
1454 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1455 in the header display.
1458 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1459 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1461 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1462 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1463 (are) matched sequentially.
1465 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1466 ? set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
1467 reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1468 ? wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1469 ? mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1474 .Va followup-to-honour
1476 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1477 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1483 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1484 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1486 .Dq mailing list specific
1491 is used to respond to a message with its
1492 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1496 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1497 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1498 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1499 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1500 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1501 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1503 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1504 address that is presented in the
1506 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1508 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1510 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1513 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1514 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1515 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1519 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
1520 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
1522 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
1523 message signing and message encryption.
1524 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
1525 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
1526 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
1527 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
1528 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
1529 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
1531 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
1534 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
1535 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
1536 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
1538 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
1539 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
1541 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
1542 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
1546 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
1547 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
1548 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
1549 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
1551 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
1553 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
1554 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
1556 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
1557 to avoid using the default certificates and point
1561 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1562 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
1563 certificate has been retrieved with.
1566 This trusted pool of certificates is used by the command
1568 to ensure that the given S/MIME messages can be trusted.
1569 If so, verified sender certificates that were embedded in signed
1570 messages can be saved locally with the command
1572 and used by \*(UA to encrypt further communication with these senders:
1574 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1576 ? set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
1577 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
1581 To sign outgoing messages in order to allow receivers to verify the
1582 origin of these messages a personal S/MIME certificate is required.
1583 \*(UA supports password-protected personal certificates (and keys),
1584 for more on this, and its automatization, please see the section
1585 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
1587 .Sx "S/MIME step by step"
1588 shows examplarily how such a private certificate can be obtained.
1589 In general, if such a private key plus certificate
1591 is available, all that needs to be done is to set some variables:
1593 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1594 ? set smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
1595 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
1600 Variables of interest for S/MIME in general are
1603 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
1604 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
1606 .Va smime-crl-file .
1607 For S/MIME signing of interest are
1609 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
1610 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
1612 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
1613 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
1616 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
1619 \*(ID Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to
1620 message subjects or other header fields yet.
1621 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
1622 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
1623 When sending signed messages,
1624 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
1628 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
1629 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1631 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
1632 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
1633 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
1636 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
1637 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
1638 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
1640 is used by the local maildir and the IMAP protocol, but not by POP3);
1645 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
1651 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
1654 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
1655 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
1656 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
1657 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
1658 a well-known notation.
1661 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
1662 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
1667 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
1674 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
1680 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
1683 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
1684 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
1685 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1686 must not be URL percent encoded.
1689 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
1690 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
1691 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
1692 .Ql smtp://our.house
1693 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
1694 .Va smtp-use-starttls
1695 \*(UA first looks for whether
1696 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
1697 is defined, then whether
1698 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
1699 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
1702 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
1703 necessary credential information of an account:
1709 has been given in the URL the variables
1713 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
1714 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
1715 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
1722 specific entry which provides a
1724 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
1727 It is possible to load encrypted
1732 If there is still no
1734 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
1735 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
1736 known to be a valid user on the current host.
1739 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
1740 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
1741 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
1747 has been given in the URL, then if the
1749 has been found through the \*(OPal
1751 that may have already provided the password, too.
1752 Otherwise the variable chain
1753 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
1754 is looked up and used if existent.
1756 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
1757 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
1761 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
1762 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
1763 but with a password).
1765 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
1766 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
1767 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
1772 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
1776 header field(s), which means that the values of
1777 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
1779 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
1780 will not be looked up using the
1784 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
1785 message that is being worked on.
1786 In unusual cases multiple and different
1790 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
1791 unusual cases become possible.
1792 The usual case is as short as:
1795 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
1796 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
1801 contains complete example configurations.
1804 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1805 .Ss "Character sets"
1807 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1808 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1810 environment variable
1815 in that order, see there).
1816 The internal variable
1818 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly,
1819 and will thus show up in the output of commands like, e.g.,
1825 However, the user may give a value for
1827 during startup, so that it is possible to send mail in a completely
1829 locale environment, an option which can be used to generate and send,
1830 e.g., 8-bit UTF-8 input data in a pure 7-bit US-ASCII
1832 environment (an example of this can be found in the section
1833 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ) .
1834 Changing the value does not mean much beside that, because several
1835 aspects of the real character set are implied by the locale environment
1836 of the system, which stays unaffected by
1840 Messages and attachments which consist of 7-bit clean data will be
1841 classified as consisting of
1844 This is a problem if the
1846 character set is a multibyte character set that is also 7-bit clean.
1847 For example, the Japanese character set ISO-2022-JP is 7-bit clean but
1848 capable to encode the rich set of Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana
1849 characters: in order to notify receivers of this character set the mail
1850 message must be MIME encoded so that the character set ISO-2022-JP can
1852 To achieve this, the variable
1854 must be set to ISO-2022-JP.
1855 (Today a better approach regarding email is the usage of UTF-8, which
1856 uses 8-bit bytes for non-US-ASCII data.)
1859 If the \*(OPal character set conversion capabilities are not available
1861 does not include the term
1865 will be the only supported character set,
1866 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1867 (over the wire an intermediate, configurable
1870 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1871 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1872 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to
1873 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./config.h:CHARSET_*!)
1874 LATIN1 a.k.a. ISO-8859-1.
1877 \*(OP When reading messages, their text is converted into
1879 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1880 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1881 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1882 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1885 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1886 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1887 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1889 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1890 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1893 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1894 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1895 appear to be binary data,
1896 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1897 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1898 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1899 Permissible values for character sets used in outgoing messages can be
1904 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1905 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
1909 When replying to a message and the variable
1910 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1911 is set, then the character set of the message being replied to
1912 is tried first (still being a subject of
1913 .Ic charsetalias ) .
1914 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1915 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1916 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1917 please see there for more information.
1920 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1921 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1922 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1923 content of the part or attachment,
1924 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1928 In general, if a message saying
1929 .Dq cannot convert from a to b
1930 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1931 selected (terminal) character set,
1932 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1933 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1935 locale and/or the variable
1939 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1940 locale on an UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1941 spectrum of characters is available.
1942 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1943 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1944 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1947 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1948 .Dq portable character set
1949 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1950 restricted subset named
1951 .Dq portable filename character set
1952 consists of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1960 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1961 .Ss "Message states"
1963 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1964 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1966 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1968 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1970 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1971 When operating on the system
1975 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
1976 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
1978 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1980 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1981 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1983 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1986 mail-user-agents, the default global
1992 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1994 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
1996 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1997 Such messages are retained even in the
1999 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2002 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
2003 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
2004 Such messages are retained even in the
2006 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2009 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2028 will always try to automatically
2034 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
2036 command will do so if the internal variable
2041 command is used, messages that are in a
2043 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2046 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in the
2048 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2050 unless the internal variable
2055 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2061 can be used to access such messages.
2064 The message has been processed by a
2066 command and it will be retained in its current location.
2069 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2075 command is used, messages that are in a
2077 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2080 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in the
2082 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2084 when the internal variable
2090 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
2091 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
2092 addressing them when
2093 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2094 can be set on messages.
2095 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
2096 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
2098 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
2100 Mark messages as having been answered.
2102 Mark messages as being a draft.
2104 Mark messages which need special attention.
2108 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
2109 .Ss "Specifying messages"
2116 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
2117 of messages at once.
2120 deletes messages 1 and 2,
2123 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
2124 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
2128 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
2129 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
2132 The following special message names exist:
2135 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
2137 The current message, the so-called
2141 The message that was previously the current message.
2144 The parent message of the current message,
2145 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
2147 field or the last entry of the
2149 field of the current message.
2152 The next previous undeleted message,
2153 or the next previous deleted message for the
2156 In sorted/threaded mode,
2157 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2160 The next undeleted message,
2161 or the next deleted message for the
2164 In sorted/threaded mode,
2165 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2168 The first undeleted message,
2169 or the first deleted message for the
2172 In sorted/threaded mode,
2173 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2177 In sorted/threaded mode,
2178 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
2182 selects the message addressed with
2186 is any other message specification,
2187 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
2188 Otherwise it is identical to
2193 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
2198 All messages that were included in the
2199 .Sx "Message list arguments"
2200 of the previous command.
2203 An inclusive range of message numbers.
2204 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
2209 .Dq any substring matches
2212 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
2214 is set (and POSIX says
2215 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
2218 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
2219 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
2221 is completely ignored.
2222 For finer control and match boundaries use the
2226 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
2227 All messages that contain
2229 in the subject field (case ignored).
2236 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
2238 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
2241 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
2243 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
2245 support is available
2247 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
2249 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
2250 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
2254 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
2255 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
2258 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
2260 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
2262 In order to search for a string that includes a
2264 (commercial at) character the
2266 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
2267 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
2281 respectively and case-insensitively.
2286 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2295 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2296 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2298 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2299 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2300 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2301 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2302 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2303 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2304 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2307 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2310 All messages of state
2314 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2316 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2321 Old messages (any not in state
2343 messages (cf. the variable
2344 .Va markanswered ) .
2349 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2350 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2352 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2358 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2359 This addressing mode is available with all types of mailbox
2361 s; \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2362 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2364 in their entirety if they contain whitespace or parentheses;
2365 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2367 is recognized as an escape character.
2368 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2369 When the description indicates that the
2371 representation of an address field is used,
2372 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2375 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2376 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2381 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2382 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2386 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2387 .It Ar ( criterion )
2388 All messages that satisfy the given
2390 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2391 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2393 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2394 All messages that satisfy either
2399 To connect more than two criteria using
2401 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2403 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2407 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2410 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2411 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2415 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2416 All messages that do not satisfy
2418 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2419 All messages that contain
2421 in the envelope representation of the
2424 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2425 All messages that contain
2427 in the envelope representation of the
2430 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2431 All messages that contain
2433 in the envelope representation of the
2436 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2437 All messages that contain
2442 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2443 All messages that contain
2445 in the envelope representation of the
2448 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2449 All messages that contain
2454 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2455 All messages that contain
2458 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2459 All messages that contain
2461 in their header or body.
2462 .It Ar ( larger size )
2463 All messages that are larger than
2466 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2467 All messages that are smaller than
2471 .It Ar ( before date )
2472 All messages that were received before
2474 which must be in the form
2478 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2480 is the name of the month \(en one of
2481 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2484 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2488 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2489 .It Ar ( since date )
2490 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2491 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2492 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2493 .It Ar ( senton date )
2494 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2495 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2496 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2498 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2499 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2500 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2501 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2505 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2506 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2508 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2510 libraries, either the
2512 or, alternatively, the
2514 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2516 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2517 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2518 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2519 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys.
2522 The internal variable
2524 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2525 \*(UA may also become a fullscreen application by entering the
2526 so-called ca-mode and switching to an alternative exclusive screen
2527 (content) shall the terminal support it and the internal variable
2529 has been set explicitly.
2530 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2531 setting the internal variable
2532 .Va termcap-disable ;
2534 will be queried regardless, which is true even if the \*(OPal library
2535 support has not been enabled at configuration time as long as some other
2536 \*(OP which (may) query terminal control sequences has been enabled.
2539 \*(OP The built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2540 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2542 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2543 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2545 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2547 .Va line-editor-disable .
2548 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2549 entries in the internal variable
2551 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2552 The MLE can support a little bit of
2558 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2559 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2560 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2562 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2563 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2567 .Va history-gabby-persist
2572 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2573 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2574 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2575 be generated by holding the
2577 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2581 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2582 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2583 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2585 to establish its built-in key bindings
2586 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2587 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2588 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2589 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2590 notation is used in the following;
2591 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2592 generate a (unique) keycode:
2596 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql \eBa"
2598 Go to the start of the line
2600 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2603 Move the cursor backward one character
2605 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2608 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2609 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2613 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2616 Go to the end of the line
2618 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2621 Move the cursor forward one character
2623 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2626 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2627 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2628 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2629 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2631 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2634 Backspace: backward delete one character
2636 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2640 Horizontal tabulator:
2641 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2642 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2644 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2646 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2650 commit the current line
2652 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2655 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2657 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2662 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2665 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2667 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2670 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2674 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2676 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2679 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2682 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2683 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2684 is committed; also see
2688 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2690 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2693 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2695 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2698 Paste the snarf buffer
2700 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2708 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2711 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2713 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2714 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2715 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2716 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2717 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2718 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2720 function immediately.
2723 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2726 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2729 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2731 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2734 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2736 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2739 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2740 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2742 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2743 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2744 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2745 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2747 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2748 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2749 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2752 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2756 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2760 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2764 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2767 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2778 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2783 ring the audible bell.
2787 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2788 .Ss "Coloured display"
2790 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2791 attributes by emitting ANSI a.k.a. ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic
2792 rendition) escape sequences.
2793 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2794 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2795 environment variable
2797 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2801 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2803 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2804 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2805 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2810 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2811 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2812 support those sequences.
2813 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2814 environment it is often enough to simply set
2816 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2821 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2822 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2827 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2828 command family exists:
2830 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2833 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2834 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2835 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2838 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2839 if terminal && [ "$features" =% +colour ]
2840 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2841 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject
2842 colour iso view-header fg=red
2844 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2845 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2846 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 "subject,from"
2847 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2848 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2853 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
2856 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
2857 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
2858 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
2860 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
2861 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
2863 state can be prompted: the
2867 message specifications will address respective messages and their
2869 entries will be used when displaying the
2871 in the header display.
2876 rates the given messages and sets their
2879 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
2880 the header display by including the
2890 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
2891 the given messages as
2895 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
2897 of messages; it adheres to their current
2899 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
2904 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
2906 message flag, without any interface interaction.
2915 requires a running instance of the
2917 server in order to function, started with the option
2919 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
2921 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2922 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
2923 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
2924 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
2928 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
2930 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2931 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
2932 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
2933 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
2935 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
2936 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
2937 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
2941 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
2943 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
2946 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2947 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
2948 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
2949 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
2950 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
2951 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
2952 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
2953 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
2957 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
2958 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
2959 perform the local spam check last:
2961 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2962 define spamdelhook {
2964 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
2965 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
2966 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
2967 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
2973 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
2977 See also the documentation for the variables
2978 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
2979 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
2980 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
2983 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
2986 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
2989 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
2992 \*(UA reads input in lines.
2993 An unquoted reverse solidus
2995 at the end of a command line
2997 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
2998 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
2999 once an entire line is completed, the whitespace characters
3000 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3001 as well as those defined by the variable
3003 are removed from the beginning and end.
3004 Placing any whitespace characters at the beginning of a line will
3005 prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
3009 The beginning of such input lines is then scanned for the name of
3010 a known command: command names may be abbreviated, in which case the
3011 first command that matches the given prefix will be used.
3012 .Sx "Command modifiers"
3013 may prefix a command in order to modify its behaviour.
3014 A name may also be a
3016 which will become expanded until no more expansion is possible.
3017 Once the command that shall be executed is known, the remains of the
3018 input line will be interpreted according to command-specific rules,
3019 documented in the following.
3022 This behaviour is different to the
3024 ell, which is a programming language with syntactic elements of clearly
3025 defined semantics, and therefore capable to sequentially expand and
3026 evaluate individual elements of a line.
3027 \*(UA will never be able to handle
3028 .Ql ? set one=value two=$one
3029 in a single statement, because the variable assignment is performed by
3037 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
3038 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
3039 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
3040 \*(OPally the command
3044 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
3045 command matching the expanded argument, as in
3047 which should be a shorthand of
3049 with these documentation strings both commands support a more
3051 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command and other
3052 information which applies; a handy suggestion might thus be:
3054 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3056 # Before v15: need to enable sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
3057 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
3059 ? commandalias xv '\ecall __xv'
3063 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
3064 .Ss "Command modifiers"
3066 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
3070 The modifier reverse solidus
3073 to be placed first, prevents
3075 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
3077 will always evaluate the command
3079 even if an (command)alias of the same name exists.
3081 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
3082 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
3088 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
3089 ignored by the state machine and not cause a program exit with enabled
3091 or for the standardized exit cases in
3096 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3097 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
3100 Some commands support the
3103 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
3104 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
3105 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
3106 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
3108 The given name will be tested for being a valid
3110 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
3111 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
3112 a non-portable extension; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
3113 may not be used as last characters.
3114 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
3115 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3116 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
3117 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
3118 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
3119 Any error during these operations causes the command as such to fail,
3120 and the error number
3123 .Va ^ERR Ns -NOTSUP ,
3130 Last, but not least, the modifier
3133 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
3134 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3135 rules over the traditional
3136 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
3140 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
3141 .Ss "Message list arguments"
3143 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
3144 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
3145 .Sx "Specifying messages"
3147 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
3148 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
3149 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
3150 the search proceeds backwards;
3151 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
3152 shown and the command is aborted.
3155 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
3156 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
3158 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
3159 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
3160 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
3161 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3162 may be available even for those via
3165 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
3166 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
3167 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
3168 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
3171 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3173 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
3178 any whitespace, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
3179 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
3180 part of the argument.
3181 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
3183 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
3184 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
3190 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
3191 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
3195 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
3196 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
3200 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
3201 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
3203 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
3205 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
3207 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
3208 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
3210 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
3213 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
3214 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
3215 Metacharacters are vertical bar
3221 as well as all characters from the variable
3224 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
3225 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
3227 and less-than and greater-than signs
3231 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
3232 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it seems
3233 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
3235 .Bd -filled -offset indent
3236 .Sy Compatibility note:
3237 \*(ID Please note that even many new-style commands do not yet honour
3239 to parse their arguments: whereas the
3241 ell is a language with syntactic elements of clearly defined semantics,
3242 \*(UA parses entire input lines and decides on a per-command base what
3243 to do with the rest of the line.
3244 This also means that whenever an unknown command is seen all that \*(UA
3245 can do is cancellation of the processing of the remains of the line.
3247 It also often depends on an actual subcommand of a multiplexer command
3248 how the rest of the line should be treated, and until v15 we are not
3249 capable to perform this deep inspection of arguments.
3250 Nonetheless, at least the following commands which work with positional
3251 parameters fully support
3253 for an almost shell-compatible field splitting:
3254 .Ic call , call_if , read , vpospar , xcall .
3258 Any unquoted number sign
3260 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
3261 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
3262 An unquoted dollar sign
3264 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
3266 ell-style variable name (see
3268 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3271 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
3272 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
3275 Whereas the metacharacters
3276 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3277 only complete an input token, vertical bar
3283 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
3284 For now supported is semicolon
3286 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
3287 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
3288 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
3289 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
3290 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
3293 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3294 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3297 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
3298 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
3299 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
3300 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
3303 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3305 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
3306 with the escape character reverse solidus
3310 Arguments which are enclosed in
3311 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3312 retain their literal value.
3313 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3316 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3317 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3318 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3320 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3322 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3324 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3326 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3330 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3332 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3333 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3336 Arguments enclosed in
3337 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3338 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3339 expanded as follows:
3341 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3343 bell control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BEL).
3345 backspace control characer (ASCII and ISO-10646 BS).
3347 escape control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 ESC).
3351 form feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 FF).
3353 line feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 LF).
3355 carriage return control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 CR).
3357 horizontal tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 HT).
3359 vertical tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 VT).
3361 emits a reverse solidus character.
3365 double quote (escaping is optional).
3367 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3369 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3371 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3373 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3375 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3376 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3378 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3380 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3381 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3386 This escape is only supported in locales that support Unicode (see
3387 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3388 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3389 point is ASCII compatible or (if the \*(OPal character set conversion is
3390 available) can be represented in the current locale.
3391 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3395 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3397 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3398 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3399 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3400 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3401 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3402 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3403 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3405 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3406 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3408 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3409 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3411 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3413 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO-10646, ISO C) aliases,
3414 as shown above (e.g.,
3418 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3419 The control code NUL
3421 a non-standard extension) will suppress further output for the remains
3422 of the token (which may extend beyond the current quote), or, depending
3423 on the context, the remains of all arguments for the current command.
3425 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3426 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3428 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3435 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3436 ? echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3437 ? echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3438 ? echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3442 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3443 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3445 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3447 in their name, e.g.,
3451 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3452 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3453 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3454 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3455 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3456 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3460 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3461 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3463 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3465 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3466 ? eval shcodec d $res
3467 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3471 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3472 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3474 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3475 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3478 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3480 If the given name is a registered
3482 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3485 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3487 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3489 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3491 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3492 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3493 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3495 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3497 if that is set, or a built-in compile-time default otherwise.
3499 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3501 (and never the value of
3503 regardless of its actual setting).
3505 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3506 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3507 secondary mailbox, the
3514 directory (if that variable is set).
3516 Expands to the same value as
3518 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3520 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3524 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3525 session will be moved to the
3527 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3531 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3532 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3533 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3534 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3535 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3537 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3539 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3541 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3542 directory of the given user is used instead.
3544 In addition a shell expansion as if specified in double-quotes (see
3545 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
3546 is applied, so that any occurrence of
3550 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3551 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3554 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism.
3556 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3558 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3559 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3561 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3565 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3568 The following commands are available:
3570 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3577 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3578 previously executed command if the internal variable
3581 This command supports
3584 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
3585 and manages the error number
3587 A 0 or positive exit status
3589 reflects the exit status of the command, negative ones that
3590 an error happened before the command was executed, or that the program
3591 did not exit cleanly, but, e.g., due to a signal: the error number is
3592 .Va ^ERR Ns -CHILD ,
3596 In conjunction with the
3598 modifier the following special cases exist:
3599 a negative exit status occurs if the collected data could not be stored
3600 in the given variable, which is a
3602 error that should otherwise not occur.
3603 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED
3604 indicates that no temporary file could be created to collect the command
3605 output at first glance.
3606 In case of catchable out-of-memory situations
3608 will occur and \*(UA will try to store the empty string, just like with
3609 all other detected error conditions.
3614 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3616 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3619 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3620 on a line are not possible.
3624 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3630 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3631 a numeric argument n.
3635 Show the current message number (the
3640 Show a brief summary of commands.
3641 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3642 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3643 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3644 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3649 and see how the output changes.
3650 This mode also supports a more
3652 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3663 .It Ic account , unaccount
3664 (ac, una) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3665 Accounts are special incarnations of
3667 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3668 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3669 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3671 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3676 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted by the
3677 latter command, and in one operation with the special name
3680 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3681 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3683 of that account will be activated (as via
3685 a possibly installed
3687 will be run, and the internal variable
3690 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3692 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3694 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3695 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3696 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3703 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3704 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3708 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
3709 and manages the error number
3711 The first argument must be either
3712 .Ar [+[+[+]]]e[ncode] ,
3716 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3719 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3720 argument, which should be an email address.
3721 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3722 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3724 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3725 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3728 Skinning is identical to decoding but only outputs the plain address,
3729 without any string, comment etc. components.
3730 Another difference is that it may fail with the error number
3734 if decoding fails to find a(n) (valid) email address, in which case the
3735 unmodified input will be output again.
3738 Encoding supports four different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3739 chosen by prefixing one, two or three plus signs: the standard imposes
3740 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3741 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3743 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3744 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3745 Specify one plus sign to remark that parenthesis shall be left alone,
3746 two for not turning double quotation marks into quoted-pairs, and three
3747 for also leaving any user-specified reverse solidus alone.
3748 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported.
3749 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3752 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3753 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3755 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3756 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3757 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3758 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3759 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
3760 ? addrc s "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3767 .It Ic alias , unalias
3768 (a, una) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists
3769 that map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3770 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed.
3771 The latter command removes the given list of aliases, the special name
3773 will discard all existing aliases.
3774 The former command shows all currently defined aliases when used without
3775 arguments, and with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
3776 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3777 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3778 Alias names are restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3779 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon, commercial at and
3780 period, the last character can also be the dollar sign:
3781 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@.-]+$? .
3785 .It Ic alternates , unalternates
3786 \*(NQ (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3787 members of which will be removed from recipient lists.
3788 The latter command removes the given list of alternates, the special name
3790 will discard all existing aliases.
3791 The former command manages the error number
3793 and shows the current set of alternates when used without arguments; in
3794 this mode it supports
3797 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3798 Otherwise the given arguments (after being checked for validity) are
3799 appended to the list of alternate names; in
3801 mode they replace that list instead.
3802 There is a set of implicit alternates which is formed of the values of
3811 .It Ic answered , unanswered
3812 Take a message lists and mark each message as having been answered,
3813 having not been answered, respectively.
3814 Messages will be marked answered when being
3816 to automatically if the
3820 .Sx "Message states" .
3825 .It Ic bind , unbind
3826 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3827 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3828 with freely configurable key bindings.
3829 The latter command removes from the given context the given key binding,
3830 both of which may be specified as a wildcard
3834 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
3835 Due to initialization order unbinding will not work for built-in key
3836 bindings upon program startup, however: please use
3837 .Va line-editor-no-defaults
3838 for this purpose instead.
3841 With one argument the former command shows all key bindings for the
3842 given context, specifying an asterisk
3844 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3845 produced if either of
3850 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3851 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3852 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3854 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3855 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3856 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3858 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3859 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3860 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3863 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3864 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3865 This is not true for the shared binding
3867 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3868 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3869 The available contexts are the shared
3873 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3875 which applies to compose mode only.
3879 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3880 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3881 A list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3883 also refer to the name of a terminal capability; several dozen names
3884 will be compiled in and may be specified either by their
3886 or, if existing, by their
3888 name, regardless of the actually used \*(OPal terminal control library.
3889 It is possible to use any capability, as long as the name is resolvable
3890 by the \*(OPal control library or was defined via the internal variable
3892 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3893 required to update or remove a binding.
3896 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3897 ? bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3898 ? bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3899 ? bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3900 ? bind default a,b,c rm -irf / @ # Another editable binding
3901 ? bind default :kf1 File %
3902 ? bind compose :kf1 ~e
3906 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3907 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3908 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3909 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
3910 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
3911 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3912 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3913 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3914 and using terminal capabilities does so if no (corresponding) terminal
3915 control support is (currently) available.
3918 The following terminal capability names are built-in and can be used in
3920 or (if available) the two-letter
3923 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3926 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3928 or the given terminal type;
3931 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3934 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3935 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3937 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3939 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3940 \(em shifted variant.
3941 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3942 Clear to end of line.
3943 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3945 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3947 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3948 \(em shifted variant.
3949 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3951 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3952 \(em shifted variant.
3953 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3955 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3957 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3959 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3960 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3961 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3962 \(em shifted variant.
3963 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3964 Right cursor (ditto).
3965 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3966 \(em shifted variant.
3967 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3968 Down cursor (ditto).
3970 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3971 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3974 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3975 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3977 Add one for each function key up to
3982 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3984 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3986 Add one for each function key up to
3994 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3996 For example, the delete key,
3998 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
4000 then a number is appended for the states
4012 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
4014 The same for the left cursor key,
4016 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
4019 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
4021 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
4022 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
4023 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
4026 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
4031 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
4036 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
4037 may be accessed via special (positional) parameters, e.g.,
4042 The positional parameters may be removed by
4044 ing them off the stack (exceeding the supported number of arguments
4046 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW ) ,
4047 and are otherwise controllable via
4052 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4053 can be reverted before the current level regains control by setting
4055 for called macro(s) (or in them, of course).
4056 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
4060 Calling macros recursively will at some time excess the stack size
4061 limit, causing a hard program abortion; if recursively calling a macro
4062 is the last command of the current macro, consider to use the command
4064 which will first release all resources of the current macro before
4065 replacing the current macro with the called one.
4066 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
4070 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
4072 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4074 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
4077 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
4085 if the given macro has been created via
4087 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
4091 (ch) Change the working directory to
4093 or the given argument.
4099 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
4100 Takes a message list and a filename and saves the certificates
4101 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
4102 human-readable and PEM format.
4103 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
4104 respective message senders by setting
4105 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
4110 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
4111 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
4112 as documented in the section
4113 .Sx "Character sets" .
4114 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
4115 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
4117 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
4118 is not available (i.e., no
4122 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown,
4123 with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4124 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
4125 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
4126 existing aliases, as necessary.
4128 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
4130 will remove all aliases.
4134 (ch) Change the working directory to
4136 or the given argument.
4142 .It Ic collapse , uncollapse
4143 Only applicable to threaded mode.
4144 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
4145 in header summaries, except for
4149 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
4150 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
4151 The latter command undoes collapsing.
4156 .It Ic colour , uncolour
4157 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
4158 .Sx "Coloured display" .
4159 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
4160 which must be one of
4162 for 256-colour terminals,
4167 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
4171 for monochrome terminals.
4172 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
4176 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
4177 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
4181 will show the mappings of all types).
4182 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
4183 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
4184 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
4185 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
4186 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
4187 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
4189 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
4190 .Sx "Coloured display"
4191 for some examples), the following of which exist:
4194 Mappings prefixed with
4196 are used for the \*(OPal built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
4197 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4198 and do not support preconditions.
4200 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4202 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
4203 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
4210 Mappings prefixed with
4212 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
4214 (the current message) and
4216 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
4217 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
4219 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4221 This mapping is used for the
4223 that can be created with the
4227 formats of the variable
4230 For the complete header summary line except the
4232 and the thread structure.
4234 For the thread structure which can be created with the
4236 format of the variable
4241 Mappings prefixed with
4243 are used when displaying messages.
4245 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4247 This mapping is used for so-called
4249 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
4252 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
4253 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
4254 available then if any of the
4256 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
4257 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
4259 For the introductional message info line.
4260 .It Ar view-partinfo
4261 For MIME part info lines.
4265 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
4266 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
4276 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
4277 attributes for a single mapping.
4280 foreground colour attribute:
4290 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
4291 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
4293 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
4295 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
4297 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
4299 216 colors in tuples of 6.
4301 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
4303 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4305 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4306 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4308 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4309 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4311 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4312 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4316 background colour attribute (see
4318 for possible values).
4324 will remove for the given colour type (the special type
4326 selects all) the given mapping; if the optional precondition argument is
4327 given only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
4330 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed), thus
4332 will remove all established mappings.
4337 .It Ic commandalias , uncommandalias
4338 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, command aliases.
4339 An (command)alias can be used everywhere a normal command can be used,
4340 but always takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command
4341 alias are joined onto the alias expansion, and the resulting string
4342 forms the command line that is, in effect, executed.
4343 The latter command removes all given aliases, the special name
4345 will remove all existing aliases.
4346 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4347 known aliases, with one argument only the expansion of the given one.
4349 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4350 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4351 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4352 An alias may itself expand to another alias, but to avoid expansion loops
4353 further expansion will be prevented if an alias refers to itself or if
4354 an expansion depth limit is reached.
4355 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4358 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4359 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4361 \*(uA: `commandalias': no such alias: xx
4362 ? commandalias xx echo hello,
4364 commandalias xx 'echo hello,'
4373 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
4374 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
4375 otherwise identical to
4380 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
4381 otherwise identical to
4386 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
4391 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4392 The return status is tracked via
4397 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4399 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4403 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4405 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4409 .It Ic define , undefine
4410 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
4411 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined, replacing an existing macro of
4413 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
4414 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4423 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
4428 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
4430 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
4432 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
4435 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
4437 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
4439 switch) the macro is invoked.
4440 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
4444 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
4446 ed, or become completely replaced, removed etc. via
4449 The latter command deletes the given macro, the special name
4451 will discard all existing macros.
4452 Creation and deletion of (a) macro(s) can be performed from within
4457 .It Ic delete , undelete
4458 (d, u) Marks the given message list as being or not being
4460 respectively; if no argument has been specified then the usual search
4461 for a visible message is performed, as documented for
4462 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
4463 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
4464 Deleted messages will neither be saved in the
4466 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4468 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4471 variable is set, the new
4473 or the last message restored, respectively, is automatically
4483 Superseded by the multiplexer
4489 Delete the given messages and automatically
4493 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4500 up or down by one message when given
4504 argument, respectively.
4508 .It Ic draft , undraft
4509 Take message lists and mark each given message as being draft, or not
4510 being draft, respectively, as documented in the section
4511 .Sx "Message states" .
4515 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4516 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4519 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4521 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4522 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4528 except that is echoes to standard error.
4531 In interactive sessions the \*(OPal message ring queue for
4533 will be used instead, if available.
4539 but does not write a trailing newline.
4545 but does not write a trailing newline.
4549 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4551 at each message from the given list in turn.
4552 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4554 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
4555 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
4560 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4561 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4563 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4564 if it evaluates true.
4569 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4570 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4574 commands was true, the
4580 (en) Marks the end of an
4581 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4582 conditional execution block.
4587 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4588 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4589 and which are managed in the program
4591 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4592 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4593 internal variables via
4597 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4598 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4599 process environment where they normally are not, a
4601 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4604 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB TZ
4607 Afterwards changing such variables with
4609 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4610 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4611 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4612 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4614 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4615 the knowledge they ever have been
4618 Note that this implies that
4620 may cause loss of such links.
4625 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4626 Additionally the subcommands
4630 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4634 but (additionally un)link the variable(s) with the program environment
4635 and thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4636 respectively, the program environment.
4641 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4642 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4643 An error message ring queue is available which stores duplicates of any
4644 error message and notifies the user in interactive sessions whenever
4645 a new error has occurred.
4646 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4647 replaces the eldest.
4650 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4652 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4654 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4658 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4659 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4660 This command passes through the exit status
4664 of the evaluated command; also see
4666 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4677 call yyy '\ecall xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4685 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4686 any saving of messages in the
4688 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4690 as well as a possibly tracked line editor
4692 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
4694 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
4695 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
4696 otherwise success indicating status.
4702 but open the mailbox read-only.
4707 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4708 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4709 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4710 the user has made, open a new mailbox, update the internal variables
4711 .Va mailbox-resolved
4713 .Va mailbox-display ,
4714 and optionally display a summary of
4721 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4722 will be applied to the
4726 prefixes are, i.e., URL syntax is understood, e.g.,
4727 .Ql maildir:///tmp/mdirbox :
4728 if a protocol prefix is used the mailbox type is fixated and neither
4729 the auto-detection (read on) nor the
4732 \*(OPally URLs can also be used to access network resources, and it is
4733 possible to proxy all network traffic over a SOCKS5 server given via
4737 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4738 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4741 \*(OPally supported network protocols are
4745 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport),
4751 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4753 Network URLs require a special encoding as documented in the section
4754 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4757 If the resulting file protocol (MBOX database)
4759 is located on a local filesystem then the list of all registered
4761 s is traversed in order to see whether a transparent intermediate
4762 conversion step is necessary to handle the given mailbox, in which case
4763 \*(UA will use the found hook to load and save data into and from
4764 a temporary file, respectively.
4765 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes.
4766 For example, the following creates hooks for the
4768 compression tool and a combined compressed and encrypted format:
4770 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4772 gzip 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' \e
4773 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
4777 MBOX database files are generally locked during file operations in order
4778 to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent modifications.
4779 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4784 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4785 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4786 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4790 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4791 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4792 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4793 the dotlock file in the same directory
4794 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4797 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4798 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4799 complain (even more with
4801 if any is seen: in this case
4803 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4806 If no protocol has been fixated, and
4808 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4813 then it is treated as a folder in
4816 The maildir format stores each message in its own file, and has been
4817 designed so that file locking is not necessary when reading or writing
4821 \*(ID If no protocol has been fixated and no existing file has
4822 been found, the variable
4824 controls the format of mailboxes yet to be created.
4829 .It Ic filetype , unfiletype
4830 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, file handler hooks,
4831 which provide (shell) commands that enable \*(UA to load and save MBOX
4832 files from and to files with the registered file extensions;
4833 it will use an intermediate temporary file to store the plain data.
4834 The latter command removes the hooks for all given extensions,
4836 will remove all existing handlers.
4838 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4839 defined file hooks, with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4840 Otherwise three arguments are expected, the first specifying the file
4841 extension for which the hook is meant, and the second and third defining
4842 the load- and save commands, respectively, to deal with the file type,
4843 both of which must read from standard input and write to standard
4845 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes (\*(ID except below).
4846 \*(ID For now too much work is done, and files are oftened read in twice
4847 where once would be sufficient: this can cause problems if a filetype is
4848 changed while such a file is opened; this was already so with the
4849 built-in support of .gz etc. in Heirloom, and will vanish in v15.
4850 \*(ID For now all handler strings are passed to the
4851 .Ev SHELL for evaluation purposes; in the future a
4853 prefix to load and save commands may mean to bypass this shell instance:
4854 placing a leading space will avoid any possible misinterpretations.
4855 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4856 ? filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
4857 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
4858 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
4859 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
4860 ? set record=+sent.zst.pgp
4865 .It Ic flag , unflag
4866 Take message lists and mark the messages as being flagged, or not being
4867 flagged, respectively, for urgent/special attention.
4869 .Sx "Message states" .
4878 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
4879 With an existing folder as an argument,
4880 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
4886 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4887 recipient's address (instead of in
4894 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4895 recipient's address (instead of in
4902 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
4907 .It Ic followupsender
4910 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
4918 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
4919 recipient's address (instead of in
4924 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
4925 and forwards the message to him.
4926 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
4927 with the value of the
4928 .Va forward-inject-head
4929 variable preceding it.
4930 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
4932 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
4934 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
4935 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
4936 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names
4937 etc. unless the internal variable
4941 This may generate the errors
4942 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
4943 if no receiver has been specified,
4945 if some addressees where rejected by
4948 if no applicable messages have been given,
4950 if multiple messages have been specified,
4952 if an I/O error occurs,
4954 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
4960 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
4961 their message headers, exactly as via
4963 An alias of this command is
4966 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4977 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4981 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4984 .It Ic ghost , unghost
4987 .Ic uncommandalias .
4991 .It Ic headerpick , unheaderpick
4992 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to manage white- and blacklisting
4993 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
4994 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
4995 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
4996 command applies, one of (case-insensitive)
4998 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
5001 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
5007 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
5008 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
5010 for stripping down messages when
5012 ing message (has no effect if
5013 .Va forward-as-attachment
5016 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
5019 The current settings of the given context are displayed if it is the
5021 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
5022 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
5026 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
5027 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
5030 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
5031 will be displayed, otherwise the remaining arguments specify header
5032 fields, which \*(OPally may be given as regular expressions, to be added
5034 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
5036 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields.
5038 The latter command always takes three or more arguments and can be used
5039 to remove selections, i.e., from the given context, the given type of
5040 list, all the given headers will be removed, the special argument
5042 will remove all headers.
5046 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
5049 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
5051 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
5052 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
5065 (this mode also supports a more
5069 the list of history entries;
5072 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
5073 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
5074 offset to the current command, e.g.,
5076 will select the last command, the history top.
5077 The default mode if no arguments are given is
5080 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
5081 for more on this topic.
5087 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
5092 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5094 Does not override the
5097 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
5099 command issued after
5101 will display the following message, not the current one.
5106 (i) Part of the nestable
5107 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
5108 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
5109 the encapsulated block is executed.
5110 The POSIX standards supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
5115 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions.
5116 \*(ID These commands do not yet use
5117 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5118 and therefore do not know about input tokens, so that syntax
5119 elements have to be surrounded by whitespace; in v15 \*(UA will inspect
5120 all conditions bracket group wise and consider the tokens, representing
5121 values and operators, therein, which also means that variables will
5122 already have been expanded at that time (just like in the shell).
5124 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5133 The (case-insensitive) condition
5135 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
5136 in interactive sessions.
5137 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
5138 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5139 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
5142 .Dq always execute .
5143 (It shall be remarked that a faulty condition skips all branches until
5148 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5149 will be used, and this command will simply interpret expanded tokens.)
5150 It is possible to check
5151 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5154 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
5155 value or another variable by using the
5157 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
5158 conditional trigger character;
5159 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
5161 Variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
5162 When this mode has been triggered, several operators are available:
5165 Integer operators treat the arguments on the left and right hand side of
5166 the operator as integral numbers and compare them arithmetically.
5167 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
5168 argument (which implies it had been quoted) is treated as if it were 0.
5169 Available operators are
5173 (less than or equal to),
5179 (greater than or equal to), and
5184 String data operators compare the left and right hand side according to
5185 their textual content.
5186 Unset variables are treated as the empty string.
5187 The behaviour of string operators can be adjusted by prefixing the
5188 operator with the modifier trigger commercial at
5190 followed by none to multiple modifiers: for now supported is
5192 which turns the comparison into a case-insensitive one: this is
5193 implied if no modifier follows the trigger.
5196 Available string operators are
5200 (less than or equal to),
5206 (greater than or equal to),
5210 (is substring of) and
5212 (is not substring of).
5213 By default these operators work on bytes and (therefore) do not take
5214 into account character set specifics.
5215 If the case-insensitivity modifier has been used, case is ignored
5216 according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding, i.e., bytes are
5220 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
5226 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
5227 matched according to the active locale (see
5228 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
5229 i.e., character sets should be honoured correctly.
5232 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
5234 and the OR operator is
5236 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
5237 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
5239 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
5240 them in pairs of brackets
5241 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
5242 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
5246 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
5247 via unary operators: the unary operator
5249 will reverse the result.
5251 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5252 # (This not in v15, there [ -n "$debug"]!)
5256 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" @i== UTF8 ]
5257 echo *ttycharset* is UTF-8, the former case-sensitive!
5260 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
5261 echo These two variables are equal
5263 if [ "$features" =% +regex ] && [ "$TERM" @i=~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
5264 echo ..in an X terminal
5266 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
5267 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
5270 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
5271 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
5280 Superseded by the multiplexer
5285 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
5286 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
5287 in which command prefixes are searched.
5288 \*(OP In conjunction with a set variable
5290 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
5291 type will be indicated, the documentation string will be shown,
5292 and the set of command flags will show up:
5294 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
5295 .It Ql "vput modifier"
5296 command supports the command modifier
5298 .It Ql "errno in *!*"
5299 the error number is tracked in
5302 commands needs an active mailbox, a
5304 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
5305 command may only be used in interactive or
5308 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
5309 command can be used in send mode.
5310 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
5311 command is not available when in compose mode.
5312 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
5313 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
5314 .Sx "Resource files" .
5315 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
5316 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
5317 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
5318 .Va on-compose-splice .
5324 This command can be used to localize changes to (linked)
5327 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
5328 meaning that their state will be reverted to the former one once the
5331 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
5335 The covered scope of an
5337 is left once a different account is activated, and some macros, notably
5338 .Va folder-hook Ns s ,
5339 use their own specific notion of covered scope, here it will be extended
5340 until the folder is left again.
5343 This setting stacks up: i.e., if
5345 enables change localization and calls
5347 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
5349 will still be reverted when the scope of
5352 (Caveats: if in this example
5354 changes to a different
5356 which sets some variables that are already covered by localizations,
5357 their scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
5359 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
5360 were defined in a local, macro private context!)
5363 This command takes one or two arguments, the optional first one
5364 specifies an attribute that may be one of
5366 which refers to the current scope and is thus the default,
5368 which causes any macro that is being
5370 ed to be started with localization enabled by default, as well as
5372 which (if enabled) disallows any called macro to turn off localization:
5373 like this it can be ensured that once the current scope regains control,
5374 any changes made in deeper levels have been reverted.
5375 The latter two are mutually exclusive.
5376 The (second) argument is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
5377 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" )
5378 and states whether the given attribute shall be turned on or off.
5380 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5381 define temporary_settings {
5382 set possibly_global_option1
5387 set possibly_global_option2
5394 Reply to messages that come in via known
5397 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
5398 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
5399 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
5402 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
5403 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
5405 For example it will also implicitly generate a
5406 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
5407 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
5409 For more documentation please refer to
5410 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5412 This may generate the errors
5413 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5414 if no receiver has been specified,
5416 if some addressees where rejected by
5419 if no applicable messages have been given,
5421 if an I/O error occurs,
5423 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5426 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5432 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5433 recipient's address (instead of in
5438 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
5439 or asks on standard input if none were given;
5440 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
5441 For more documentation please refer to
5442 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5444 This may generate the errors
5445 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5446 if no receiver has been specified,
5448 if some addressees where rejected by
5451 if no applicable messages have been given,
5453 if multiple messages have been specified,
5455 if an I/O error occurs,
5457 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5463 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to the
5465 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5467 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
5470 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
5472 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5476 .It Ic mimetype , unmimetype
5477 Without arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed;
5478 a more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5483 When given arguments they will be joined, interpreted as shown in
5484 .Sx "The mime.types files"
5486 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) ,
5487 and the resulting entry will be added (prepended) to the cache.
5488 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
5489 .Va mimetypes-load-control
5490 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
5492 The latter command deletes all specifications of the given MIME type, thus
5493 .Ql ? unmimetype text/plain
5494 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5498 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5500 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5501 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5505 .It Ic mlist , unmlist
5506 The latter command removes all given mailing-lists, the special name
5508 can be used to remove all registered lists.
5509 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists (and their
5510 attributes, if any) when used without arguments; a more verbose listing
5511 will be produced if either of
5516 Otherwise all given arguments will be added and henceforth be recognized
5518 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
5519 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
5525 \*(ID Only available in interactive mode, this command allows to display
5526 MIME parts which require external MIME handler programs to run which do
5527 not integrate in \*(UAs normal
5530 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
5531 (\*(ID No syntax to directly address parts, this restriction may vanish.)
5532 The user will be asked for each non-text part of the given message in
5533 turn whether the registered handler shall be used to display the part.
5537 .It Ic mlsubscribe , unmlsubscribe
5538 The latter command removes the subscription attribute from all given
5539 mailing-lists, the special name
5541 can be used to do so for any registered list.
5542 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists which have
5543 a subscription attribute when used without arguments; a more verbose
5544 listing will be produced if either of
5549 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
5550 newly creating them as necessary (as via
5559 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
5560 sender address of the first message (instead of in
5567 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
5574 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5576 selection, and all MIME parts.
5584 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5585 standard output is a terminal.
5591 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
5593 has been given the content of the
5595 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
5598 then the cache will only be initialized and
5600 will remove its contents.
5601 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
5602 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
5603 to unlock further attempts.
5608 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5610 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5611 documents the file format in detail.
5615 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5617 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5621 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5622 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5630 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5631 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5645 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5647 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5653 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5655 selection, and all MIME parts.
5663 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5664 standard output is a terminal.
5672 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5674 selection, and all parts of MIME
5675 .Ql multipart/alternative
5680 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5681 and pipes the messages through the command.
5682 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5689 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5710 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5713 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5715 preserving all messages marked with
5719 or never referenced in the system
5721 and removing all other messages from the
5723 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5724 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5726 .Dq You have new mail
5728 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5730 then the edit file is rewritten.
5731 A return to the shell is effected,
5732 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5733 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5734 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
5736 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
5737 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
5738 otherwise success indicating status.
5742 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, or the channel set active via
5744 and assign the data, which will be splitted as indicated by
5746 to the given variables.
5747 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
5749 and the same error codes will be seen in
5753 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
5755 with the error number
5759 in case of I/O errors, or
5762 If there are more fields than variables, assigns successive fields to the
5763 last given variable.
5764 If there are less fields than variables, assigns the empty string to the
5766 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5769 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5771 ? wysh set ifs=:; read a b c;unset ifs
5772 hey2.0,:"'you ",:world!:mars.:
5773 ? echo $?/$^ERRNAME / <$a><$b><$c>
5774 0/NONE / <hey2.0,><"'you ",><world!:mars.:><><>
5779 \*(NQ Manages input channels for
5781 to be used to avoid complicated or impracticable code, like calling
5783 from within a macro in non-interactive mode.
5784 Without arguments, or when the first argument is
5786 a listing of all known channels is printed.
5787 Channels can otherwise be
5789 d, and existing channels can be
5793 d by giving the string used for creation.
5795 The channel name is expected to be a file descriptor number, or,
5796 if parsing the numeric fails, an input file name that undergoes
5797 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
5798 E.g. (this example requires a modern shell):
5799 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5800 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enyou\enecho $a' |\e
5803 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enecho $a' |\e
5804 LC_ALL=C 6<<< 'you' \*(uA -R#X'readctl create 6'
5818 Removes the named files or directories.
5819 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5820 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5821 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5825 Takes the name of an existing folder
5826 and the name for the new folder
5827 and renames the first to the second one.
5828 Both folders must be of the same type.
5832 (R) Replies to only the sender of each message of the given message
5833 list, by using the first message as the template to quote, for the
5837 will exchange this command with
5839 Unless the internal variable
5841 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5843 headers will be inspected if
5847 This may generate the errors
5848 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5849 if no receiver has been specified,
5851 if some addressees where rejected by
5854 if no applicable messages have been given,
5856 if an I/O error occurs,
5858 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5864 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
5865 and all recipients, subject to
5869 .Va followup-to-honour ,
5872 .Va recipients-in-cc
5873 influence response behaviour.
5874 Unless the internal variable
5876 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5886 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
5887 For more documentation please refer to
5888 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5890 This may generate the errors
5891 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5892 if no receiver has been specified,
5894 if some addressees where rejected by
5897 if no applicable messages have been given,
5899 if an I/O error occurs,
5901 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5904 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5910 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
5917 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
5924 but does not add any header lines.
5925 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
5926 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
5930 Takes a list of messages and a user name
5931 and sends each message to the named user.
5933 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
5936 is only performed if
5940 This may generate the errors
5941 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5942 if no receiver has been specified,
5944 if some addressees where rejected by
5947 if no applicable messages have been given,
5949 if an I/O error occurs,
5951 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5954 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5972 .It Ic respondsender
5978 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
5983 Only available inside the scope of a
5987 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
5988 execution control to the caller.
5989 The two optional parameters must be specified as positive decimal
5990 numbers and default to the value 0:
5991 the first argument specifies the signed 32-bit return value (stored in
5993 \*(ID and later extended to signed 64-bit),
5994 the second the signed 32-bit error number (stored in
5998 a non-0 exit status may cause the program to exit.
6004 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
6005 sender of the first message instead of (in
6007 and) taking a filename argument; the variable
6009 is inspected to decide on the actual storage location.
6013 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
6014 to the end of the file.
6015 If no filename is given, the
6017 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6020 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
6021 is echoed on the user's terminal.
6024 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
6025 the messages are marked for deletion.
6026 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6028 To filter the saved header fields to the desired subset use the
6030 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
6034 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6038 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6042 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6047 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
6048 all matching messages, as via
6050 This command is an alias of
6053 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
6057 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
6063 (se, \*(NQ uns) The latter command will delete all given variables,
6064 the former, when used without arguments, will show all variables which
6065 are currently known to \*(UA.
6066 A more verbose listing will be produced if
6072 Remarks: the list mode will not automatically link-in known
6074 variables, but only explicit addressing will, e.g., via
6076 using a variable in an
6078 condition or a string passed to
6082 ting, as well as some program-internal use cases.
6085 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
6086 Arguments are of the form
6088 (no space before or after
6092 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
6093 \*(ID In conjunction with the
6096 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
6097 can be used to quote arguments as necessary.
6098 \*(ID Otherwise quotation marks may be placed around any part of the
6099 assignment statement to quote blanks or tabs.
6102 .Dl ? wysh set indentprefix=' -> '
6105 If an argument begins with
6109 the effect is the same as invoking the
6111 command with the remaining part of the variable
6112 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
6117 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
6118 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
6119 environment requires corresponding system support) \(em use the command
6121 for further environmental control.
6126 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6133 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
6137 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6138 The first argument specifies the operation:
6142 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
6143 expanded away thereof, respectively.
6144 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
6145 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
6146 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
6147 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
6148 If the coding operation fails the error number
6151 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6152 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6153 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6157 \*(NQ (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell,
6158 and returns its exit status.
6162 .It Ic shortcut , unshortcut
6163 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
6164 shown, with one argument the expansion of the given shortcut.
6165 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
6166 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
6168 The latter command will remove all given shortcuts, the special name
6170 will remove all registered shortcuts.
6174 \*(NQ Shift the positional parameter stack (starting at
6176 by the given number (which must be a positive decimal),
6177 or 1 if no argument has been given.
6178 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
6179 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
6180 The stack as such can be managed via
6182 Note this command will fail in
6184 and hook macros unless the positional parameter stack has been
6185 explicitly created in the current context via
6192 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
6193 message text is shown.
6197 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
6202 \*(NQ Sleep for the specified number of seconds (and optionally
6203 milliseconds), by default interruptably.
6204 If a third argument is given the sleep will be uninterruptible,
6205 otherwise the error number
6209 if the sleep has been interrupted.
6210 The command will fail and the error number will be
6211 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6212 if the given duration(s) overflow the time datatype, and
6214 if the given durations are no valid integers.
6219 .It Ic sort , unsort
6220 The latter command disables sorted or threaded mode, returns to normal
6221 message order and, if the
6224 displays a header summary.
6225 The former command shows the current sorting criterion when used without
6226 an argument, but creates a sorted representation of the current folder
6227 otherwise, and changes the
6229 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
6231 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
6235 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
6236 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
6238 variable, as in, e.g.,
6239 .Ql set autosort=thread .
6240 Possible sorting criterions are:
6243 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
6245 Sort the messages by their
6247 field, that is by the time they were sent.
6249 Sort messages by the value of their
6251 field, that is by the address of the sender.
6254 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
6256 Sort the messages by their size.
6258 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
6261 Sort the messages by their message status.
6263 Sort the messages by their subject.
6265 Create a threaded display.
6267 Sort messages by the value of their
6269 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
6272 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
6278 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
6279 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6281 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
6283 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
6284 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
6285 Dependent on the settings of
6289 and also dependent on whether the command modifier
6291 had been used, encountering errors will stop sourcing of the given input.
6294 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
6295 .Va folder-hook Ns s
6298 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
6303 \*(NQ The difference to
6305 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
6306 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
6307 argument cannot be opened successfully.
6311 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
6317 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
6319 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
6320 Unless otherwise noted the
6322 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
6330 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6334 This also clears the
6336 flag of the messages in question.
6340 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
6341 .Va spam-interface ,
6342 without modifying the messages, but setting their
6344 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
6345 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
6346 Refer to the manual section
6348 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
6352 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
6358 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6364 flag of the messages in question.
6380 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
6384 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
6386 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
6387 Unless a special selection has been established for the
6391 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
6402 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
6404 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6409 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
6411 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6413 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
6416 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
6422 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
6424 selection, and all visualizable parts of MIME
6425 .Ql multipart/alternative
6430 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users terminal.
6431 The display of message headers is selectable via
6433 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
6435 all parts which have a registered MIME type handler (see
6436 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
6437 which produces plain text output, and all
6439 parts are shown, others are hidden except for their headers.
6440 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6444 can be used to display parts which are not displayable as plain text.
6487 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6491 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6496 Superseded by the multiplexer
6507 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
6518 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
6522 Superseded by the multiplexer
6526 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6530 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6552 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
6553 according to RFC 3986.
6557 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
6558 and manages the error number
6560 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
6561 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current
6563 \*(ID This command does not know about URLs beside that.
6565 The first argument specifies the operation:
6569 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
6573 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
6574 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
6576 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
6580 as an initial character.
6581 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
6582 If the coding operation fails the error number
6585 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6586 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6587 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6591 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
6593 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
6599 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
6603 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
6607 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
6608 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
6609 verification will fail for it.
6610 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
6612 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
6613 within the certificate,
6614 and if the message content has been altered.
6627 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
6628 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
6629 numeric calculations as well as byte string and string operations.
6630 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
6631 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
6632 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
6636 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6639 The result that is shown in case of errors is always
6641 for usage errors and numeric operations, and the empty string for byte
6642 string and string operations;
6643 if the latter two fail to provide result data for
6645 errors, e.g., when a search operation failed, they also set the
6648 .Va ^ERR Ns -NODATA .
6649 Except when otherwise noted numeric arguments are parsed as signed 64-bit
6650 numbers, and errors will be reported in the error number
6652 as the numeric error
6653 .Va ^ERR Ns -RANGE .
6656 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
6657 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
6659 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
6660 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
6662 which creates the bitwise complement.
6663 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
6665 subtraction (hyphen-minus
6667 multiplication (asterisk
6671 and modulo (percent sign
6673 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
6676 bitwise and (ampersand
6679 bitwise xor (circumflex
6681 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
6684 as well as for the unsigned right shift
6688 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
6692 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
6693 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are no longer reported
6694 via the exit status, but the result will linger at the minimum or
6695 maximum possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
6696 This is true also for the argument parse step.
6697 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
6698 Any catched overflow will be reported via the error number
6701 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6704 Character set agnostic string functions have no notion of locale
6705 settings and character sets.
6708 which performs the usual
6709 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6710 on its argument, and
6712 which generates a random string of the given length, or of
6714 bytes (a constant from
6716 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
6717 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a (portable) filename.
6720 Byte string operations work on 8-bit bytes and have no notion of locale
6721 settings and character sets, effectively assuming ASCII data.
6722 Operations that take one argument are
6724 which queries the length of the given argument, and
6726 which calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given argument.
6729 Byte string operations with two or more arguments are
6731 which byte-searches in the first for the second argument, and shows the
6732 resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found,
6734 which is identical to
6736 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
6739 will show a substring of its first argument:
6740 the second argument is the 0-based starting offset, the optional third
6741 argument can be used to specify the length of the desired substring,
6742 by default the entire string is used;
6743 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments (set
6745 for error logs), but reports them via the error number
6748 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6751 String operations work, sufficient support provided, according to the
6752 active user's locale encoding and character set (see
6753 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
6754 There is the one argument operation
6756 which (one-way) converts the argument to something safely printable on
6762 is a string operation that will try to match the first argument with the
6763 regular expression given as the second argument, as does
6765 but which is case-insensitive.
6766 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
6767 the match offset a replacement operation is performed:
6768 the third argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote
6770 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
6771 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
6773 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression.
6775 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6776 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
6777 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
6784 \*(NQ Manage the positional parameter stack (see
6788 If the first argument is
6790 then the positional parameter stack of the current context, or the
6791 global one, if there is none, is cleared.
6794 then the remaining arguments will be used to (re)create the stack,
6795 if the parameter stack size limit is excessed an
6796 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6800 If the first argument is
6802 a round-trip capable representation of the stack contents is created,
6803 with each quoted parameter separated from each other with the first
6806 and followed by the first character of
6808 if that is not empty and not identical to the first.
6809 If that results in no separation at all a
6815 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6816 I.e., the subcommands
6820 can be used (in conjunction with
6822 to (re)create an argument stack from and to a single variable losslessly.
6824 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6825 ? vpospar set hey, "'you ", world!
6826 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6827 ? vput vpospar x quote
6829 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6830 ? eval vpospar set ${x}
6831 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6837 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
6838 Modified contents are discarded unless the
6840 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
6841 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
6845 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
6846 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
6848 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
6849 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
6850 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
6851 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
6852 depends on the execution mode.
6853 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
6855 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
6856 the processed parts.
6857 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
6858 value, the same result as writing it to
6860 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
6862 character for the filename is supported.
6863 Other user input undergoes the usual
6864 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6865 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
6868 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
6869 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
6870 URL percent encoded (as via
6872 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
6873 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
6874 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
6875 a dot are appended after a number sign
6877 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
6882 \*(NQ The sole difference to
6884 is that the new macro is executed in place of the current one, which
6885 will not regain control: all resources of the current macro will be
6887 This implies that any setting covered by
6889 will be forgotten and covered variables will become cleaned up.
6890 If this command is not used from within a
6892 ed macro it will silently be (a more expensive variant of)
6902 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
6904 fuls as described under the
6907 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
6908 likewise if the argument is
6912 scrolls to the last,
6914 scrolls to the first, and
6919 A number argument prefixed by
6923 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
6924 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
6930 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
6941 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
6942 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6944 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
6945 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
6946 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines, and
6947 consist of a trigger (escape) and a command character.
6948 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
6950 it defaults to the tilde
6952 Otherwise ignored whitespace characters following the escape character
6953 will prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
6957 Unless otherwise noted all compose mode command escapes ensure proper
6958 updates of the variables which represent the error number
6964 is set they will, unless stated otherwise, error out message compose
6965 mode if an operation fails.
6966 It is however possible to place the character hyphen-minus
6968 after (possible whitespace following) the escape character, which has an
6969 effect equivalent to the command modifier
6971 If the \*(OPal key bindings are available it is possible to create
6973 ings specifically for the compose mode.
6976 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
6979 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
6981 (If the escape character has been changed,
6982 that character must be doubled instead.)
6985 .It Ic ~! Ar command
6986 Execute the indicated shell
6988 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
6989 executed command if the internal variable
6991 is set, then return to the message.
6995 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
6998 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
6999 Execute the given \*(UA command.
7000 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
7004 Write a summary of command escapes.
7007 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
7012 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
7014 is executed using the shell.
7015 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
7018 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
7019 Append or edit the list of attachments.
7020 Does not manage the error number
7026 instead if this is a concern).
7029 arguments is expected as shell tokens (see
7030 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
7031 token-separating commas are ignored, too), to be
7032 interpreted as documented for the command line option
7034 with the message number exception as below.
7038 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
7039 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
7040 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
7041 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
7045 For all mode, if a given filename solely consists of the number sign
7047 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
7048 the given message is attached as a
7051 As the shell comment character the number sign must be quoted.
7055 Inserts the string contained in the
7058 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
7059 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
7063 are understood (use the
7067 ting the variable(s) instead).
7071 Inserts the string contained in the
7074 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
7075 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
7079 are understood (use the
7083 ting the variable(s) instead).
7086 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
7087 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
7090 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
7091 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
7095 Read the file specified by the
7097 variable into the message.
7101 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
7102 After the editing session is finished,
7103 the user may continue appending text to the message.
7106 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
7107 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
7108 message headers and MIME parts.
7109 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7113 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
7114 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
7115 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7117 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7119 white- and blacklist selection of
7121 For MIME multipart messages,
7122 only the first displayable part is included.
7126 Edit the message header fields
7131 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7132 The default values for these fields originate from the
7140 Edit the message header fields
7146 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7149 .It Ic ~I Ar variable
7150 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message.
7151 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7152 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
7156 are understood (use the
7160 ting the variable(s) instead).
7163 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
7166 but adds a newline character at the end of a successful insertion.
7169 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
7170 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7173 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7177 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
7178 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7181 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7183 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7185 white- and blacklist selection of
7187 For MIME multipart messages,
7188 only the first displayable part is included.
7192 Display the message collected so far,
7193 prefaced by the message header fields
7194 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
7198 Abort the message being sent,
7199 copying it to the file specified by the
7206 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
7209 but indent each line that has been read by
7213 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
7214 Read the named file, object to the usual
7215 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7216 into the message; if (the expanded)
7220 then standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
7221 Only in this latter mode
7223 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
7225 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
7227 is a required argument in non-interactive mode; if it is single-quote
7228 quoted then the pasted content will not be expanded, \*(ID otherwise
7229 a future version of \*(UA may perform shell-style expansion on the content.
7233 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
7234 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
7235 normalized to space (SP) characters.
7238 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
7239 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
7242 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
7243 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
7247 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
7248 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
7252 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
7254 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
7255 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
7256 After the editor is quit,
7257 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
7260 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
7261 Write the message onto the named file, which is object to the usual
7262 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
7264 the message is appended to it.
7270 except that the message is not saved at all.
7273 .It Ic ~| Ar command
7274 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
7275 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
7276 retain the original text of the message.
7279 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
7283 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
7284 Low-level command meant for scripted message access, i.e., for
7285 .Va on-compose-splice
7287 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
7288 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
7289 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
7290 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
7291 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
7292 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
7293 Does not manage the error number
7297 because errors are reported via the protocol
7298 (hard errors like I/O failures cannot be handled).
7299 This command has read-only access to several virtual pseudo headers in
7300 the \*(UA private namespace, which may not exist (except for the first):
7304 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7305 .It Ql Mailx-Command:
7306 The name of the command that generates the message, one of
7314 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-To:
7315 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Cc:
7316 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Bcc:
7317 Represent the frozen initial state of these headers before any
7318 transformation (e.g.,
7321 .Va recipients-in-cc
7324 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-From:
7325 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-To:
7326 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Cc:
7327 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Bcc:
7328 The values of said headers of the original message which has been
7330 .Ic reply , forward , resend .
7334 The status codes are:
7338 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql 210"
7340 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
7343 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7344 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
7345 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
7346 plain address, e.g.,
7348 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
7349 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
7350 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
7351 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7352 commands can be issued.
7355 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7356 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
7357 terminated by an empty line.
7358 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7359 commands can be issued.
7362 Syntax error; invalid command.
7365 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
7368 Error: an argument fails verification.
7369 For example an invalid address has been specified, or an attempt was
7370 made to modify anything in \*(UA's own namespace.
7373 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
7374 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
7375 a single address only.
7380 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
7382 Most commands can fail with
7384 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
7385 The following (case-insensitive) commands are supported:
7388 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm header"
7390 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
7391 Header name case is not normalized, and case-insensitive comparison
7392 should be used when matching names.
7393 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7395 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7397 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
7399 this command is the default command of
7401 if no second argument has been given.
7402 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
7405 if no such field is defined.
7408 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
7409 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
7413 any failure results in
7417 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
7422 if no such header can be found, and
7424 on \*(UA namespace violations.
7427 This will remove from the header given as the third argument the
7428 instance at the list position (counting from one!) given with the fourth
7433 if the list position argument is not a number or on \*(UA namespace
7436 if no such header instance exists.
7439 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
7440 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
7441 (the remains of the line).
7444 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
7445 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
7447 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks or
7448 on \*(UA namespace violations, and
7450 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
7452 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
7455 is returned upon success, followed by the name of the header and the list
7456 position of the newly inserted instance.
7457 The list position is always 1 for single-instance header fields.
7458 All free-form header fields are managed in a single list.
7463 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
7464 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7466 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7468 List all attachments via
7472 if no attachments exist.
7473 This command is the default command of
7475 if no second argument has been given.
7478 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
7482 if no such attachment can be found.
7483 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
7484 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
7485 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
7486 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
7487 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
7490 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
7492 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
7493 will be searched for
7495 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
7496 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
7501 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
7502 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
7506 if the argument is not a number or
7508 if no such attachment exists.
7511 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
7512 documented for the command line option
7514 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
7518 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
7520 if the given file cannot be opened,
7522 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
7524 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
7525 requested but not available.
7528 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7530 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
7534 if no such attachment can be found.
7535 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
7536 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
7540 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7542 and is otherwise identical to
7545 .It Cm attribute-set
7546 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7548 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
7549 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
7550 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
7551 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
7552 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
7556 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
7558 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
7560 if no such attachment can be found.
7561 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
7563 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".It Ql filename"
7565 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
7566 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
7567 .It Ql content-description
7568 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
7569 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
7571 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
7572 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
7575 upon address content verification failure.
7577 Defines the media type/subtype of the part, which is managed
7578 automatically, but can be overwritten.
7579 .It Ql content-disposition
7580 Automatically set to the string
7584 .It Cm attribute-set-at
7585 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7587 and is otherwise identical to
7598 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
7599 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
7601 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
7605 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
7609 has the same effect as using
7615 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
7620 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
7622 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
7623 Both commands support a more
7626 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
7629 implicitly, others can be imported explicitly with the command
7631 and henceforth share said properties.
7634 Two different kinds of internal variables exist.
7635 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
7639 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
7640 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
7641 introduction of the section
7643 documents the supported quoting rules.
7645 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7646 ? wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
7647 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
7648 varshow one two three four; \e
7649 unset one two three four
7653 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
7654 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
7655 a special kind of string value, the
7656 .Dq boolean string ,
7657 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
7661 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
7667 for a false boolean and
7673 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
7675 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
7676 (case-insensitive) term
7680 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
7681 boolean as the default value.
7683 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
7684 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
7685 .Ss "Initial settings"
7687 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
7693 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
7707 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
7709 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
7711 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
7719 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
7728 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
7730 variable \(en use command line options or
7732 to pass options through to a
7734 And the default global
7736 file, which is loaded unless the
7738 (with according argument) or
7740 command line options have been used, or the
7741 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
7742 environment variable is set (see
7743 .Sx "Resource files" )
7744 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
7749 to name a few, establishes a default
7751 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
7754 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
7757 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
7761 \*(RO The exit status of the last command, or the
7766 This status has a meaning in the state machine: in conjunction with
7768 any non-0 exit status will cause a program exit, and in
7770 mode any error while loading (any of the) resource files will have the
7774 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
7775 can be used to instruct the state machine to ignore errors.
7779 \*(RO The current error number
7780 .Pf ( Xr errno 3 ) ,
7781 which is set after an error occurred; it is also available via
7783 and the error name and documentation string can be queried via
7787 \*(ID This machinery is new and the error number is only really usable
7788 if a command explicitly states that it manages the variable
7790 for others errno will be used in case of errors, or
7792 if that is 0: it thus may or may not reflect the real error.
7793 The error number may be set with the command
7799 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
7800 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
7803 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7807 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
7808 The number, documentation, and name of the current
7810 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
7811 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
7812 explicitly states that it manages the variable
7814 which is effectively identical to
7816 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
7817 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
7818 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
7819 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7821 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1: \e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
7822 vput vexpr i + "$1" 1
7834 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
7836 separated by a space character.
7837 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
7839 are not yet supported.
7843 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
7845 separated by a space character.
7846 If placed in double quotation marks, each positional parameter is
7847 properly quoted to expand to a single parameter again.
7851 \*(RO Expands to the number of positional parameters, i.e., the size of
7852 the positional parameter stack in decimal.
7856 \*(RO Inside the scope of a
7860 ed macro this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
7861 string if the macro is running from top-level.
7862 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
7864 this expands to the entire matching expression.
7865 It represents the program name in global context.
7869 \*(RO Access of the positional parameter stack.
7870 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
7873 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
7875 The parameter stack contains, e.g., the arguments of a
7879 d macro, the matching groups of the \*(OPal regular expression search
7880 and replace expression of
7882 and can be explicitly created or overwritten with the command
7887 \*(RO Is set to the active
7891 .It Va add-file-recipients
7892 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
7893 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
7894 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
7895 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
7899 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
7900 when comparing addresses.
7904 \*(BO Causes messages saved in the
7906 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
7908 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
7909 This should always be set.
7913 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
7914 If the user responds with simply a newline,
7915 no subject field will be sent.
7919 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
7923 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
7927 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
7928 shall the list be found empty at that time.
7929 An empty line finalizes the list.
7933 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
7934 (at the end of each message if
7938 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7939 An empty line finalizes the list.
7943 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
7944 recipients (at the end of each message if
7948 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7949 An empty line finalizes the list.
7953 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
7954 signed at the end of each message.
7957 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
7961 \*(BO Alternative name for
7966 A sequence of characters to display in the
7970 as shown in the display of
7972 each for one type of messages (see
7973 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
7974 with the default being
7977 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
7980 variable is set, in the following order:
7982 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
8004 start of a collapsed thread.
8006 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
8010 classified as possible spam.
8016 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
8017 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
8021 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
8022 message will be sent automatically.
8026 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
8033 \*(BO Enable automatic
8035 ing of a(n existing)
8041 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
8043 is shown automatically, as via
8050 Causes sorted mode (see the
8052 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
8053 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
8054 .Ql set autosort=thread .
8058 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
8061 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
8063 shell escape command and
8065 one of the compose mode
8066 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8067 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
8071 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
8072 input, for example for function and other special keys.
8073 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
8074 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
8075 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
8076 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8077 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
8083 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
8084 has the same affect as setting
8086 and all other variables prefixed with
8088 it also changes the behaviour of
8090 (which does not exist in BSD).
8094 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
8095 summary to traditional BSD style.
8099 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
8104 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
8110 field to appear immediately after the
8112 field in message headers and with the
8114 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8118 .It Va build-os , build-osenv
8119 \*(RO The operating system \*(UA has been build for, usually taken from
8125 respectively, the former being lowercased.
8129 The value that should appear in the
8133 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
8135 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
8136 US-ASCII compatible.
8140 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
8141 member of the variable
8143 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
8144 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
8147 and this variable is effectively ignored.
8148 Refer to the section
8149 .Sx "Character sets"
8150 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
8153 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
8154 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
8156 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
8158 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
8159 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
8160 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
8162 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
8163 otherwise the (final) value of
8165 is used for this purpose.
8167 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
8168 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
8169 of a MIME message part that uses the
8171 character set is forcefully treated as text.
8175 The default value for the
8180 .It Va colour-disable
8181 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
8182 Also see the section
8183 .Sx "Coloured display" .
8187 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
8189 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
8197 in order to support colours.
8198 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
8199 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
8201 (see there for more).
8205 .It Va contact-mail , contact-web
8206 \*(RO Addresses for contact per email and web, respectively, e.g., for
8207 bug reports, suggestions, or help regarding \*(UA.
8208 The former can be used directly:
8209 .Ql ? eval mail $contact-mail .
8213 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
8214 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
8215 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
8219 can be forced by setting this to the value
8221 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
8222 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
8227 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
8228 format, which, dependent on the
8230 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
8231 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
8235 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
8236 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
8239 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
8240 .Va on-compose-splice
8242 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
8243 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
8244 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
8246 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
8249 .Dl ? set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
8253 Controls the appearance of the
8255 date and time format specification of the
8257 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
8259 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
8260 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
8262 It is possible to assign a
8264 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
8266 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
8268 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
8270 .Va datefield-markout-older .
8273 .It Va datefield-markout-older
8274 Only used in conjunction with
8276 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
8277 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
8279 option of the POSIX utility
8281 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
8283 will be displayed, but a
8285 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
8291 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
8292 actual delivery of messages and also implies
8298 .It Va disposition-notification-send
8300 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
8301 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
8305 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
8307 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8308 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
8309 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
8311 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8312 .\"for a specific account.
8316 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
8318 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive or batch
8320 compose mode will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the
8321 normal end-of-file condition).
8322 This behaviour is implied in
8328 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
8329 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
8331 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
8332 es (see, e.g., the notes on
8333 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
8334 as well as the documentation of
8336 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
8337 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
8338 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
8339 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
8340 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
8341 fatal unless this variable is set.
8345 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
8346 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
8348 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8352 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
8356 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
8357 its header is included in the editable text.
8361 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
8362 .Dq \&No mail for user
8363 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
8364 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or non-existent
8365 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
8371 \*(BO Let each command with a non-0 exit status, including every
8375 s a non-0 status, cause a program exit unless prefixed by
8378 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
8380 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
8381 but which use a different modifier for ignoring the error.
8382 Please refer to the variable
8384 for more on this topic.
8388 The first character of this value defines the escape character for
8389 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8391 The default value is the character tilde
8393 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
8397 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
8398 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
8399 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
8400 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
8401 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
8403 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
8404 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8408 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
8410 (it actually acts like
8411 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
8412 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8414 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
8417 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
8418 send error instead of only filtering them out.
8419 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
8420 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
8422 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
8426 addresses all possible address specifications,
8430 command pipeline targets,
8432 plain user names and (MTA) aliases and
8435 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
8436 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
8437 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
8438 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
8442 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
8444 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
8445 To change this so that any encountered invalid email address causes
8446 a hard error it must be ensured that
8448 is an entry in the above list.
8449 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
8450 (it actually acts like
8451 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
8452 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8456 Unless this variable is set additional
8458 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
8459 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
8461 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
8462 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
8464 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
8465 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
8466 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
8468 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
8469 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8476 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
8478 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
8481 The output of the command
8483 will include this information in a more pleasant output.
8487 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
8488 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
8489 included in the header of a message
8490 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
8491 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
8492 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
8495 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
8497 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
8498 are not affected by the current setting of
8503 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
8504 filenames that begin with the plus sign
8506 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
8507 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
8508 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8511 for more on this topic.
8512 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
8513 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
8517 will be prefixed automatically.
8518 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
8520 will be updated for caching purposes.
8524 This variable can be set to the name of a
8526 macro which will be called whenever a
8529 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
8530 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
8531 only include newly arrived messages then.
8533 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
8534 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
8537 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
8542 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
8543 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
8544 However, if the mailbox resides under
8548 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
8552 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
8553 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
8555 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
8556 first, but then followed by
8557 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
8560 .It Va folder-resolved
8561 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
8563 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
8567 \*(BO Controls whether a
8568 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
8569 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
8571 .Va followup-to-honour
8573 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
8578 .It Va followup-to-honour
8580 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
8581 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
8585 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
8595 .It Va forward-as-attachment
8596 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
8599 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
8600 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
8602 attachments with all of their parts included.
8605 .It Va forward-inject-head
8606 The string to put before the text of a message with the
8608 command instead of the default
8609 .Dq -------- Original Message -------- .
8610 No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
8611 This variable is ignored if the
8612 .Va forward-as-attachment
8617 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
8619 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
8620 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
8621 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
8624 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
8628 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
8629 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
8631 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
8634 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
8638 contains more than one address,
8641 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
8643 If a file-based MTA is used, then
8645 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8647 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
8648 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
8650 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
8651 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
8652 .Va r-option-implicit .
8656 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
8657 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
8658 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
8659 and comments, names etc. are retained.
8662 \*(OB Predecessor of
8663 .Va forward-inject-head .
8667 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
8668 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
8673 mode a header summary will also be displayed on folder changes.
8674 The command line option
8682 A format string to use for the summary of
8684 similar to the ones used for
8687 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
8689 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
8690 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
8691 Valid format specifiers are:
8694 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
8696 A plain percent sign.
8699 a space character but for the current message
8701 for which it expands to
8705 a space character but for the current message
8707 for which it expands to
8710 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
8713 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
8715 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
8719 The date found in the
8721 header of the message when
8723 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
8724 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
8729 The indenting level in threaded mode.
8731 The address of the message sender.
8733 The message thread tree structure.
8734 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
8736 The number of lines of the message, if available.
8740 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
8742 Message subject (if any).
8744 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
8746 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
8747 subscribed mailing list \(en see
8752 The position in threaded/sorted order.
8756 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
8758 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
8769 .It Va headline-bidi
8770 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
8771 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
8772 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
8773 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
8774 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
8775 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
8777 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
8778 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
8779 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
8781 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
8782 fields that may occur when displaying
8784 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
8786 with special Unicode control sequences;
8787 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
8789 no value (or any value other than
8794 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
8795 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
8796 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
8798 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
8800 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
8802 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
8803 sequences onto the line).
8808 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
8809 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
8813 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
8814 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
8819 .It Va history-gabby
8820 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
8823 .It Va history-gabby-persist
8824 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
8826 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
8827 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
8828 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
8834 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
8836 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
8837 loading and incorporation of the
8839 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
8840 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
8841 entries saved to permanent storage.
8845 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
8847 and it is set by default.
8851 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
8852 the value obtained from
8856 It is used, e.g., in
8860 fields, as well as when generating
8862 MIME part related unique ID fields.
8863 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
8864 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
8865 \*(IN in conjunction with the built-in SMTP
8868 also influences the results:
8869 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
8878 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
8879 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
8881 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
8883 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
8884 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
8888 The input field separator that is used (\*(ID by some functions) to
8889 determine where to split input data.
8891 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
8893 Unsetting is treated as assigning the default value,
8896 If set to the empty value, no field splitting will be performed.
8898 If set to a non-empty value, all whitespace characters are extracted
8899 and assigned to the variable
8903 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
8906 will be ignored at the beginning and end of input.
8907 Diverging from POSIX shells default whitespace is removed in addition,
8908 which is owed to the entirely different line content extraction rules.
8910 Each occurrence of a character of
8912 will cause field-splitting, any adjacent
8914 characters will be skipped.
8919 \*(RO Automatically deduced from the whitespace characters in
8924 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
8925 messages; instead echo them as
8927 characters and discard the current line.
8931 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
8932 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
8933 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
8934 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
8935 explicitly using one of the commands
8939 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
8942 on a line by itself or by using the
8944 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
8945 Setting this implies the behaviour that
8953 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
8955 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
8958 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
8961 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8964 for more on this topic.
8965 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
8973 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8976 option for indenting messages,
8977 in place of the normal tabulator character
8979 which is the default.
8980 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
8984 \*(BO If set, an empty
8986 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
8987 file is not removed.
8988 Note that, in conjunction with
8990 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
8991 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
8992 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
8993 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
8994 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
8995 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
8998 .It Va keep-content-length
8999 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing MBOX mailbox files \*(UA can
9004 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
9005 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
9006 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
9007 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
9008 work with with same mailbox files.
9009 Note that, if this is not set but
9010 .Va writebackedited ,
9011 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
9012 fields already marks the message as being modified.
9013 \*(ID At some future time \*(UA will be capable to rewrite and apply an
9015 to modified messages, and then those fields will be stripped silently.
9019 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
9020 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
9021 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
9024 .It Va line-editor-disable
9025 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
9026 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
9030 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
9031 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
9035 Error log message prefix string
9036 .Pf ( Ql "\*(uA: " ) .
9039 .It Va mailbox-display
9040 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
9042 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
9045 .It Va mailbox-resolved
9046 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
9049 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
9050 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
9051 .Sx "Resource files" .
9052 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
9054 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
9055 .Sx "Initial settings" .
9059 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
9060 it is marked as having been
9063 .Sx "Message states" .
9067 \*(BO When opening MBOX mailbox databases \*(UA by default uses tolerant
9068 POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
9070 lines) due to compatibility reasons, instead of the stricter rules that
9071 have been standardized in RFC 4155.
9072 This behaviour can be switched to the stricter RFC 4155 rules by
9073 setting this variable.
9074 (This is never necessary for any message newly generated by \*(UA,
9075 it only applies to messages generated by buggy or malicious MUAs, or may
9076 occur in old MBOX databases: \*(UA itself will choose a proper
9078 to avoid false interpretation of
9080 content lines in the MBOX database.)
9082 This may temporarily be handy when \*(UA complains about invalid
9084 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case setting this variable and
9085 re-opening the mailbox in question may correct the result.
9086 If so, copying the entire mailbox to some other file, as in
9087 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE ,
9088 will perform proper, all-compatible
9090 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
9091 Finally the variable can be unset again:
9092 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9094 localopts yes; wysh set mbox-rfc4155;\e
9095 wysh File "${1}"; eval copy * "${2}"
9097 call mboxfix /tmp/bad.mbox /tmp/good.mbox
9102 \*(BO Internal development variable.
9105 .It Va message-id-disable
9106 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
9108 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
9110 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
9111 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
9112 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
9114 This variable also affects automatic generation of
9119 .It Va message-inject-head
9120 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
9121 The escape sequences tabulator
9128 .It Va message-inject-tail
9129 A string to put at the end of each new message.
9130 The escape sequences tabulator
9138 \*(BO Usually, when an
9140 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
9141 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
9146 option to be passed through to the
9148 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
9149 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
9153 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
9154 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
9155 in order to classify the
9158 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
9161 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
9162 a computation rather similar to what the
9164 command produces when used with the
9168 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
9169 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
9170 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
9175 .Ql application/octet-stream :
9176 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
9178 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
9179 interpret the contents of the part.
9181 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
9182 text data at first glance (by a
9186 file extension), then the original
9188 will not be overwritten.
9191 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
9192 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
9193 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
9194 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
9195 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9196 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
9197 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
9198 contains topic subjects.)
9201 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
9204 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
9205 Some MUAs, however, do not use
9206 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9208 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
9209 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but specify an
9210 unspecific MIME type
9211 .Pf ( Ql application/octet-stream )
9212 even for plain text attachments.
9213 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to re-classify such MIME
9214 message parts, if possible, for example via a possibly existing
9215 attachment filename.
9216 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
9217 actually a carrier of bits.
9218 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
9219 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9220 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
9221 Value should be set to 14
9224 .Bl -bullet -compact
9226 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
9228 will be carried along with the message and be used for deciding which
9229 MIME handler is to be used, for example;
9230 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
9231 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
9234 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
9235 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
9236 overriding the parts given MIME type.
9238 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
9239 .Ql application/octet-stream
9240 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
9245 .It Va mime-encoding
9247 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
9248 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
9249 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
9252 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9255 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
9256 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
9257 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
9258 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
9259 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
9260 .It Ql quoted-printable
9262 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
9263 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
9264 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
9265 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
9266 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
9267 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
9268 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
9270 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
9271 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
9273 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
9274 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
9275 to four bytes of output.
9276 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
9281 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
9282 Can be used to control which of
9283 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9284 are loaded: if the letter
9286 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
9288 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
9290 controls loading of the system wide
9291 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
9292 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
9294 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
9295 Incorporation of the \*(UA-built-in MIME types cannot be suppressed,
9296 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
9299 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
9300 value string contains an equals sign
9302 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
9305 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
9306 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
9307 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9308 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
9309 the MIME type cache).
9314 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
9315 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
9317 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
9319 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9322 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
9323 The default has been chosen at compile time.
9324 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
9325 run asynchronously and without supervision unless either the
9330 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
9337 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
9339 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
9342 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
9345 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
9348 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
9353 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
9354 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
9355 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
9356 (which will also disable passing
9360 (for not treating a line with only a dot
9362 character as the end of input),
9370 variable is set); in conjunction with the
9372 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
9378 \*(OPally \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
9379 defined SMTP smart host by specifying a SMTP URL as the value (see
9380 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
9381 Note that with some mail providers it may be necessary to set the
9383 variable in order to use a specific combination of
9388 \*(UA also supports forwarding of all network traffic over a specified
9390 The following SMTP variants may be used:
9394 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
9395 server port 25 and requires setting the
9396 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9397 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
9398 Assign a value like \*(IN
9399 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9401 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
9402 to choose this protocol.
9404 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
9405 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
9406 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
9407 be supported by your hosts network service database
9408 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
9411 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
9412 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
9413 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9415 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
9416 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
9421 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
9422 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
9423 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
9424 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9425 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
9426 Assign a value like \*(IN
9427 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9429 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
9434 .It Va mta-arguments
9435 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
9437 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
9438 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
9439 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
9440 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
9441 .Ql ? wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"' .
9444 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
9445 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
9446 standard command line options to a file-based
9448 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
9452 Many systems use a so-called
9454 environment to ensure compatibility with
9456 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
9458 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
9459 actually executed when calling the file-based
9461 will treat its contents as that name.
9464 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
9465 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
9467 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
9468 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
9472 .Sx "The .netrc file"
9473 documents the file format.
9485 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
9487 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
9488 This can be used to, e.g., store
9491 .Ql ? set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp' .
9495 If this variable has the value
9497 newly created local folders will be in Maildir instead of MBOX format.
9501 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
9502 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
9503 If this variable is set to the special value
9505 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
9506 timestamp changes are detected.
9510 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
9513 and the sender-based filenames for the
9517 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
9519 variable rather than to the current directory,
9520 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
9523 .It Va on-compose-cleanup
9524 Macro hook which will be called after the message has been sent (or not,
9525 in case of failures), as the very last step before unrolling compose mode
9527 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
9528 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
9531 For compose mode hooks that may affect the message content please see
9532 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave , on-compose-splice .
9533 \*(ID This hook exists only because
9534 .Ic alias , alternates , commandalias , shortcut ,
9535 to name a few, are currently not covered by
9537 or a similar mechanism: any changes applied in compose mode will
9538 continue to be in effect thereafter.
9542 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
9543 Macro hooks which will be called before compose mode is entered,
9544 and after composing has been finished (but before the
9546 is injected, etc.), respectively.
9548 are enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be forgotten after
9549 the message has been sent;
9550 .Va on-compose-cleanup
9551 can be used to perform any other necessary cleanup.
9552 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
9553 execution of the macros to represent the according message headers, or
9554 the empty string for non-existent; they correspond to accoding virtual
9555 temporary message headers that can be accessed via
9558 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" :
9560 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va mailx_subject"
9561 .It Va mailx-command
9562 The command that generates the message.
9563 .It Va mailx-subject
9569 .It Va mailx-to , mailx-cc , mailx-bcc
9570 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
9571 .It Va mailx-raw-to , mailx-raw-cc , mailx-raw-bcc
9572 The list of receiver addresses before any mangling (due to, e.g.,
9575 .Va recipients-in-cc )
9576 as a space-separated list.
9577 .It Va mailx-orig-from
9578 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
9580 of the given message.
9581 .It Va mailx-orig-to , mailx-orig-cc , mailx-orig-bcc
9582 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
9583 receivers of the given message.
9589 .It Va on-compose-splice , on-compose-splice-shell
9590 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
9591 .Va on-compose-leave
9592 macro hook is called, the
9595 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
9596 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
9598 The difference in between them is that the latter is a
9600 command, whereas the former is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
9601 restricted to a small set of commands (the
9605 will indicate said capability).
9607 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
9608 to be forgotten after the message has been sent;
9609 .Va on-compose-cleanup
9610 can be used to perform other cleanup as necessary.
9613 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
9614 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
9615 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9616 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproducibilities sake
9620 will be set to their defaults.
9621 The compose mode command
9623 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
9624 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
9625 version of said command escape, currently
9627 backward incompatible protocol changes have to be expected.
9630 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks and other false control flow:
9631 if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
9632 same time, or one does not expect more input but the other is stuck
9633 waiting for consumption of its output, etc.
9634 There is no automatic synchronization of the hook: it will not be
9635 stopped automatically just because it, e.g., emits
9637 The hooks will however receive a termination signal if the parent enters
9639 \*(ID Protection against and interaction with signals is not yet given;
9640 it is likely that in the future these scripts will be placed in an
9641 isolated session, which is signalled in its entirety as necessary.
9643 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9644 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
9646 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
9647 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
9648 read status result;\e
9649 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
9652 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
9655 echo Splice protocol version is $ver
9656 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substring "${hl}" 0 1
9658 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'; xit
9660 if [ "$hl" @i!% ' cc' ]
9661 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
9662 vput vexpr es substring "${es}" 0 1
9664 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
9672 .It Va on-resend-cleanup
9674 .Va on-compose-cleanup ,
9675 but is only triggered by
9679 .It Va on-resend-enter
9681 .Va on-compose-enter ,
9682 but is only triggered by
9687 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
9689 is followed by a formfeed character
9693 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
9694 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
9695 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
9696 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
9697 the authentication method requires a password.
9698 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
9699 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
9701 .It Va password-USER@HOST
9702 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
9703 Set the password for
9707 If no such variable is defined for a host,
9708 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
9709 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
9710 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
9714 \*(BO Send messages to the
9716 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
9720 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
9721 When a MIME message part of type
9723 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
9724 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
9726 Note that only parts which can be displayed inline as plain text (see
9728 are displayed unless otherwise noted, other MIME parts will only be
9729 considered by and for the command
9733 The special value commercial at
9735 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
9736 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
9737 will henceforth display XML
9739 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
9742 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
9743 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
9744 \(em these directives,
9746 has already been used, should be referred to for further documentation.
9751 can in fact be used as a trigger character to adjust usage and behaviour
9752 of a following shell command specification more thoroughly by appending
9753 more special characters which refer to further mailcap directives, e.g.,
9754 the following hypothetical command specification could be used:
9756 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9757 ? set pipe-X/Y='@!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
9761 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
9763 The command produces plain text to be integrated in \*(UAs output:
9767 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
9768 but only when it will be displayed:
9769 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
9772 Run the command asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA:
9776 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
9777 temporarily release the terminal to it:
9781 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
9782 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
9783 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY :
9784 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
9785 If given twice then the file will be unlinked automatically by \*(UA
9786 when the command loop is entered again at latest:
9787 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
9790 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
9791 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
9792 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
9793 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
9794 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
9795 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
9800 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
9801 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
9802 remaining characters.
9803 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
9807 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
9808 the environment of the shell command:
9811 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
9813 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
9814 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
9817 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
9819 .Va mime-counter-evidence
9820 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
9821 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
9822 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
9826 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
9827 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
9830 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
9834 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
9835 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
9836 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
9842 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
9843 This is identical to
9844 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
9847 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
9848 names a file extension, e.g.,
9850 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
9853 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
9854 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
9855 The only possible value as of now is
9857 which is thus the default.
9860 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
9861 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
9862 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
9863 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
9864 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
9866 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
9867 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
9869 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
9870 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
9871 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
9872 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
9873 but practical experience may vary.
9874 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
9878 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
9881 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
9882 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
9884 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
9888 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
9889 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
9891 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
9894 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
9895 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
9896 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
9898 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
9899 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
9900 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
9902 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
9908 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
9909 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
9910 It will be set implicitly before the
9911 .Sx "Resource files"
9912 are loaded if the environment variable
9914 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
9916 The following behaviour is covered and enforced by this mechanism:
9919 .Bl -bullet -compact
9921 In non-interactive mode, any error encountered while loading resource
9922 files during program startup will cause a program exit, whereas in
9923 interactive mode such errors will stop loading of the currently loaded
9924 (stack of) file(s, i.e., recursively).
9925 These exits can be circumvented on a per-command base by using
9928 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
9929 for each command which shall be allowed to fail.
9933 will replace the list of alternate addresses instead of appending to it.
9936 Upon changing the active
9940 will be displayed even if
9947 implies the behaviour described by
9953 is extended to cover any empty mailbox, not only empty
9955 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
9956 es: they will be removed when they are left in empty state otherwise.
9961 .It Va print-alternatives
9962 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
9963 .Ql multipart/alternative
9964 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
9966 other parts are normally discarded.
9967 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
9968 just as if the surrounding part was of type
9969 .Ql multipart/mixed .
9973 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
9974 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
9975 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
9976 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
9977 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
9978 status information, for example
9983 .Va mailbox-display .
9985 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
9986 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
9987 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
9989 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
9991 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
9993 .Ql set noprompt ) .
9997 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
10004 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
10008 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
10009 prefixed by the value of the variable
10011 Normally, a heading consisting of
10012 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
10013 is put before the quotation.
10018 variable, this heading is omitted.
10021 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
10024 selection are put above the message body,
10027 acts like an automatic
10029 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10033 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
10034 parts are included, making
10036 act like an automatic
10039 .Va quote-as-attachment .
10042 .It Va quote-as-attachment
10043 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
10045 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
10046 Note this works regardless of the setting of
10051 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
10053 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
10054 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
10056 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
10057 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
10058 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
10060 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
10061 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
10062 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
10064 plus some additional pad.
10065 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
10068 .It Va r-option-implicit
10069 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
10071 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10073 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
10075 option (empty argument case).
10078 .It Va recipients-in-cc
10085 are by default merged into the new
10087 If this variable is set, only the original
10091 the rest is merged into
10096 Unless this variable is defined, no copies of outgoing mail will be saved.
10097 If defined it gives the pathname, subject to the usual
10098 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
10099 of a folder where all new, replied-to or forwarded messages are saved:
10100 when saving to this folder fails the message is not sent, but instead
10104 The standard defines that relative (fully expanded) paths are to be
10105 interpreted relative to the current directory
10107 to force interpretation relative to
10110 needs to be set in addition.
10113 .It Va record-files
10114 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10116 will be extended to cover messages which target only file and pipe
10119 These address types will not appear in recipient lists unless
10120 .Va add-file-recipients
10124 .It Va record-resent
10125 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10127 will be extended to also cover the
10134 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
10135 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
10136 character set of the original message for replies.
10137 If this fails, the mechanism described in
10138 .Sx "Character sets"
10139 is evaluated as usual.
10142 .It Va reply-strings
10143 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
10144 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
10145 built-in strings as
10147 reply message indicators \(en built-in are
10149 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
10154 which often has been seen in the wild;
10155 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
10159 A list of addresses to put into the
10161 field of the message header.
10162 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
10171 .It Va reply-to-honour
10174 header is honoured when replying to a message via
10178 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
10182 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
10183 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
10185 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
10187 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
10191 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
10193 upon interrupt or delivery error.
10197 The number of lines that represents a
10206 line display and scrolling via
10208 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
10209 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
10210 terminal, the more will be shown.
10211 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
10212 environment variables
10220 .It Va searchheaders
10221 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
10223 to all messages containing the substring
10225 in the header field
10227 The string search is case insensitive.
10230 .It Va sendcharsets
10231 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
10232 outgoing internet mail.
10233 The value of the variable
10235 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
10236 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
10237 the only supported charset is
10240 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10241 and refer to the section
10242 .Sx "Character sets"
10243 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
10246 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10247 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
10249 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
10251 had been set to the value of the variable
10253 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
10254 character set of the current locale encoding:
10255 therefore mail message text will be (assumed to be) in ISO-8859-1
10256 encoding when send from within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8
10257 encoding when send from within an UTF-8 locale.
10261 never comes into play as
10263 is implicitly assumed to be 8-bit and capable to represent all files the
10264 user may specify (as is the case when no character set conversion
10265 support is available in \*(UA and the only supported character set is
10267 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
10268 This might be a problem for scripts which use the suggested
10270 setting, since in this case the character set is US-ASCII by definition,
10271 so that it is better to also override
10277 An address that is put into the
10279 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
10280 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
10281 This field should normally not be used unless the
10283 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
10286 address is handled as if it were in the
10290 .Va r-option-implicit .
10293 \*(OB Predecessor of
10296 .It Va sendmail-arguments
10297 \*(OB Predecessor of
10298 .Va mta-arguments .
10300 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
10301 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
10302 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
10304 .It Va sendmail-progname
10305 \*(OB Predecessor of
10310 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
10312 (including the built-in SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
10314 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
10315 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
10316 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
10320 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
10321 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
10325 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
10326 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
10330 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
10331 summary if the message was sent by the user.
10335 The string to expand
10338 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
10342 The string to expand
10345 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
10349 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
10350 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
10351 and to the first part of each multipart message.
10352 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
10353 individual message.
10356 .It Va skipemptybody
10357 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
10358 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
10359 command line option
10364 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
10365 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
10366 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
10367 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
10368 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
10369 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
10370 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
10371 be explicitly turned off by setting
10372 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
10373 and further fine-tuning is possible via
10374 .Va smime-ca-flags .
10377 .It Va smime-ca-flags
10378 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
10379 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
10380 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
10384 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
10385 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
10386 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
10388 .Mx Va smime-cipher
10389 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
10390 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
10391 messages (for the specified account).
10392 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
10395 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
10403 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
10405 is not available) and
10407 (DES CBC, 56 bits).
10409 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
10410 library that \*(UA uses.
10411 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
10412 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
10413 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
10414 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
10417 .It Va smime-crl-dir
10418 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
10419 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
10422 .It Va smime-crl-file
10423 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
10424 verifying S/MIME messages.
10427 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
10428 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
10429 encrypted before sending.
10430 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
10431 contains a certificate in PEM format.
10433 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
10434 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
10435 individually encrypted message;
10436 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
10438 .Va smime-force-encryption
10440 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
10445 .It Va smime-force-encryption
10446 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
10450 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
10451 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
10452 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
10453 a valid certificate,
10454 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
10455 header and that the message content has not been altered.
10456 It does not change the message text,
10457 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
10459 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
10461 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
10463 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
10464 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
10465 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
10466 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
10467 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
10469 For message signing
10471 is always derived from the value of
10473 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10475 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
10476 (certificate) is expected; the command
10478 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
10479 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
10480 gives some details).
10481 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
10483 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
10488 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
10490 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
10491 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
10492 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
10494 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
10495 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
10496 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
10497 for the private key
10499 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
10500 for the certificate stored in the same file)
10501 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
10502 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
10503 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
10504 For example, the hypothetical address
10506 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
10507 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
10508 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
10509 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
10511 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
10512 To include intermediate certificates, use
10513 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
10515 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
10516 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
10517 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
10518 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
10519 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
10520 .Va smime-sign-cert
10522 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
10523 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
10524 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
10525 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
10526 .Va smime-sign-cert .
10527 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
10528 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
10530 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
10532 refers to the content of the internal variable
10534 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10537 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
10538 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
10539 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
10540 via the mechanisms described in
10541 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
10543 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
10544 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
10545 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
10546 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
10548 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
10556 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
10557 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
10558 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
10559 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
10560 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
10561 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
10562 Remember that for this
10564 refers to the variable
10566 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10570 \*(OB\*(OP To use the built-in SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
10572 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
10574 is used in preference of
10578 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
10579 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
10581 authentication method, possible values are
10587 as well as the \*(OPal methods
10593 method does not need any user credentials,
10595 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
10603 .Va smtp-auth-password
10605 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
10610 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
10611 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
10614 .It Va smtp-auth-password
10615 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
10616 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
10617 .Va smtp-auth-password
10619 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
10621 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
10623 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
10625 .Va smtp-auth-password
10626 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
10629 .It Va smtp-auth-user
10630 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
10631 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
10634 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
10636 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
10638 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
10641 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
10645 .It Va smtp-hostname
10646 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
10648 to derive the necessary
10650 information in order to issue a
10657 can be used to use the
10659 from the SMTP account
10666 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
10668 or the local hostname as a last resort).
10669 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
10670 a provider other than which (in
10672 is about to send the message.
10673 Setting this variable also influences generated
10679 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
10680 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
10681 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10683 command to make an SMTP
10685 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
10688 .It Va socks-proxy-USER@HOST , socks-proxy-HOST , socks-proxy
10689 \*(OP If this is set to the hostname (SOCKS URL) of a SOCKS5 server then
10690 \*(UA will proxy all of its network activities through it.
10691 This can be used to proxy SMTP, POP3 etc. network traffic through the
10692 Tor anonymizer, for example.
10693 The following would create a local SOCKS proxy on port 10000 that
10694 forwards to the machine
10696 and from which the network traffic is actually instantiated:
10697 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10698 # Create local proxy server in terminal 1 forwarding to HOST
10699 $ ssh -D 10000 USER@HOST
10700 # Then, start a client that uses it in terminal 2
10701 $ \*(uA -Ssocks-proxy-USER@HOST=localhost:10000
10705 .It Va spam-interface
10706 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
10708 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
10709 Please refer to the manual section
10710 .Sx "Handling spam"
10711 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
10712 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
10714 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
10720 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
10722 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
10723 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
10724 knowledge to parse the program's output.
10725 A default value for
10727 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
10731 during compilation.
10732 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
10733 using a configuration file for that), the variable
10734 .Va spamc-arguments
10735 can be used as in, e.g.,
10736 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
10737 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
10739 Note that this interface does not inspect the
10741 flag of a message for the command
10745 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
10746 This interface is meant for programs like
10748 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
10749 status for at least the command
10752 meaning a message is spam,
10756 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
10757 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
10758 can be intercepted as necessary.
10760 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
10763 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
10765 .Sx "Handling spam"
10766 contains examples for some programs.
10767 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
10768 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
10770 Note that spam score support for
10772 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
10774 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
10780 .It Va spam-maxsize
10781 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
10783 .Va spam-interface .
10784 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
10787 .It Va spamc-command
10788 \*(OP The path to the
10792 .Va spam-interface .
10793 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
10795 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
10796 executable had been found during compilation.
10799 .It Va spamc-arguments
10800 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
10803 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
10804 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
10805 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
10809 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
10811 .Va spam-interface .
10812 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
10821 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
10822 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
10823 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
10825 .Va spam-interface .
10827 .Sx "Handling spam"
10828 contains examples for some programs.
10831 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
10832 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
10835 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
10836 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
10837 be used to overcome this restriction.
10838 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
10839 must be followed by a semicolon
10841 and an extended regular expression.
10842 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
10843 .Va spamfilter-rate
10844 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
10845 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
10849 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
10850 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
10851 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
10852 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
10853 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
10854 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
10855 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
10856 be explicitly turned off by setting
10857 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
10858 and further fine-tuning is possible via
10861 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
10862 for more information.
10863 \*(UA will try to use the TLS/SNI (ServerNameIndication) extension when
10864 establishing TLS connections to servers identified with hostnames.
10868 .It Va ssl-ca-flags
10869 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
10870 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
10872 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
10873 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
10874 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
10875 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
10876 which are usually defined in a file
10877 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
10878 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
10879 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
10881 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
10884 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
10885 .It Cd no-alt-chains
10886 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
10888 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
10889 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
10890 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
10891 .Cd trusted-first .
10892 .It Cd no-check-time
10893 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
10894 .It Cd partial-chain
10895 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
10896 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
10897 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
10898 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
10900 The OpenSSL manual page
10901 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
10902 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
10904 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
10905 .It Cd trusted-first
10906 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
10907 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
10908 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
10909 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
10910 .Cd no-alt-chains .
10915 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
10916 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
10917 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
10920 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
10921 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the filename for a SSL/TLS client
10922 certificate required by some servers.
10923 This is a direct interface to the
10927 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
10929 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
10930 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
10931 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
10932 This is a direct interface to the
10936 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
10939 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list 3
10940 for more information.
10941 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
10943 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
10944 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
10945 supports \(en the manual section
10946 .Sx "An example configuration"
10947 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
10950 .It Va ssl-config-file
10951 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
10952 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
10953 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
10955 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
10956 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
10957 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
10958 The application name will always be passed as
10962 .It Va ssl-curves-USER@HOST , ssl-curves-HOST , ssl-curves
10963 \*(OP Specifies a list of supported curves for SSL/TLS connections.
10964 This is a direct interface to the
10968 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
10969 .Xr SSL_CTX_set1_curves_list 3
10970 for more information.
10971 By default \*(UA does not set a list of curves.
10975 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
10976 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
10977 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
10980 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
10981 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the filename for the private key of
10982 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
10983 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
10984 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
10985 This is a direct interface to the
10989 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
10991 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
10992 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
10994 instead: if both values are set,
10996 will take precedence!
10997 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
10999 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
11001 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
11003 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
11005 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
11008 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
11013 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
11014 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
11016 .Mx Va ssl-protocol
11017 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
11018 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
11019 This is a direct interface to the
11023 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
11024 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
11025 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
11031 as well as the special value
11033 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
11034 ignores any whitespace.
11037 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
11039 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
11041 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
11043 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
11044 supported and which protocols are used if
11046 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
11048 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
11049 .Va ssl-cipher-list
11050 may be worthwile, see
11051 .Sx "An example configuration" .
11054 .It Va ssl-rand-egd
11055 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
11057 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
11060 .It Va ssl-rand-file
11061 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
11062 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
11063 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
11064 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11066 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
11067 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
11069 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
11070 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
11071 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
11072 This variable is only used if
11074 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
11077 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
11078 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
11079 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
11080 specified or default trust stores
11083 or the SSL/TLS library built-in defaults (unless usage disallowed via
11084 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
11085 and as fine-tuned via
11087 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
11089 (fail and close connection immediately),
11091 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
11093 (show a warning and continue),
11095 (do not perform validation).
11101 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
11107 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
11108 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
11109 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
11110 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
11111 to track down the originating mail user agent.
11112 If set to the value
11118 suppression does not occur.
11123 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
11128 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11129 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
11132 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11133 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11136 String capabilities form
11138 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
11139 Numerics have to be notated as
11141 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
11142 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
11143 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
11144 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
11145 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
11146 for one notations like
11149 .Ql control-LETTER ,
11150 and for clarification purposes
11152 can be used to specify
11154 (the control notation
11156 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
11157 the standard CSI sequence);
11158 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
11161 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
11162 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
11164 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11165 ? set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
11169 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
11170 operation of the built-in line editor or \*(UA in general:
11173 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd yay"
11175 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
11177 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
11178 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
11179 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
11182 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
11185 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
11186 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen ca-mode,
11187 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
11188 This must be enabled explicitly by setting
11189 .Va termcap-ca-mode .
11191 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
11195 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
11196 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
11197 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
11198 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
11200 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
11204 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
11206 clear the screen and home cursor.
11207 (Will be simulated via
11212 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
11217 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
11219 clear to the end of line.
11220 (Will be simulated via
11222 plus repetitions of space characters.)
11224 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
11225 .Cd column_address :
11226 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
11227 (Will be simulated via
11233 .Cd carriage_return :
11234 move to the first column in the current row.
11235 The default built-in fallback is
11238 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
11240 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
11241 The default built-in fallback is
11244 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
11246 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
11247 The default built-in fallback is
11249 which is used by most terminals.
11257 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
11262 .It Va termcap-ca-mode
11263 \*(OP Allow usage of the
11267 terminal capabilities, effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen
11268 application, as documented for
11271 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11272 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11275 .It Va termcap-disable
11276 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
11277 If set only some generic fallback built-ins and possibly the content of
11279 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
11281 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11282 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11286 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
11289 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
11292 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
11293 unsigned right shifting (see
11301 \*(BO If set then the
11303 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
11307 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
11308 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
11309 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
11310 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
11311 from the locale specified in the
11313 environment variable (if supported, see there for more).
11314 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
11315 Refer to the section
11316 .Sx "Character sets"
11317 for the complete picture about character sets.
11320 .It Va typescript-mode
11321 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
11322 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
11325 .Va colour-disable ,
11326 .Va line-editor-disable
11327 and (before startup completed only)
11328 .Va termcap-disable .
11329 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
11333 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
11337 but this variable can be used to override that:
11338 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting (on
11339 startup), otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to
11341 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
11344 .It Va user-HOST , user
11345 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
11346 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
11348 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
11352 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
11353 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
11354 how they are handled.
11355 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
11356 doing things, respectively.
11360 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
11362 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
11363 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
11364 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
11365 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
11366 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
11369 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
11376 .It Va version , version-date , version-major , version-minor , version-update
11377 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
11378 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
11379 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
11380 The date is in ISO 8601 notation.
11381 The output of the command
11383 will include this information.
11386 .It Va writebackedited
11387 If this variable is set messages modified using the
11391 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
11392 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
11393 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
11394 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
11395 performed, and proper RFC 4155
11397 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
11400 .\" }}} (Variables)
11402 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
11405 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
11409 .Dq environment variable
11410 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
11411 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
11412 commonly found in there.
11413 The process environment is inherited from the
11415 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
11416 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
11417 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
11418 from \*(UA's point of view.
11419 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
11423 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
11424 newly created child processes).
11427 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
11428 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
11430 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
11431 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
11432 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
11434 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
11436 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
11438 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11439 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
11441 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
11444 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
11447 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
11449 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
11450 processes and the MLE (see
11451 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
11452 in interactive mode thereafter.
11453 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 80 columns, unless in
11459 The name of the (mailbox)
11461 to use for saving aborted messages if
11463 is set; this defaults to
11470 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
11475 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
11479 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11480 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
11484 The user's home directory.
11485 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11486 The calling user's home directory will be used instead if this directory
11487 does not exist, is not accessible or cannot be read.
11488 (No test for being writable is performed to allow usage by
11489 non-privileged users within read-only jails, but dependent on the
11490 variable settings this directory is a default write target, e.g. for
11498 .It Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , LANG
11499 \*(OP The (names in lookup order of the)
11503 which indicates the used
11504 .Sx "Character sets" .
11505 Runtime changes trigger automatic updates of the entire locale system,
11506 updating and overwriting also a
11512 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
11513 or window size in lines.
11514 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
11515 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
11516 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 24 lines, unless in
11522 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
11524 command when operating on local mailboxes.
11527 (path search through
11532 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
11533 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
11534 name to any newly created child process.
11538 Is used as the users
11540 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
11544 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
11548 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
11549 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
11550 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
11551 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
11552 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
11553 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
11554 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
11558 Is used as a startup file instead of
11561 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
11562 either this variable should be set to
11566 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
11567 reading their configuration files.
11568 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11571 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
11572 If this variable is set then reading of
11574 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
11575 had been started up with the option
11577 (and according argument) or
11579 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11583 The name of the users
11585 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
11587 A logical subset of the special
11588 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11594 Traditionally this MBOX is used as the file to save messages from the
11596 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
11597 that have been read.
11599 .Sx "Message states" .
11603 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
11609 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
11613 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
11614 The default paginator is
11616 (path search through
11619 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
11621 then a non-existing environment variable
11628 will optionally be set to
11635 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
11636 looking for commands, e.g.,
11637 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
11640 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
11641 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
11647 The shell to use for the commands
11652 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
11653 and when starting subprocesses.
11654 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
11657 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
11658 This specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch (1970-01-01) to be
11659 used in place of the current time.
11660 This variable is looked up upon program startup, and its existence will
11661 switch \*(UA to a completely reproducible mode which causes
11662 deterministic random numbers, a special fixed (non-existent?)
11664 and more to be used and set.
11665 It is to be used during development or by software packagers.
11666 \*(ID Currently an invalid setting is only ignored, rather than causing
11667 a program abortion.
11669 .Dl $ SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=`date +%s` \*(uA
11673 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
11674 For extended colour and font control please refer to
11675 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
11676 and for terminal management in general to
11677 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
11681 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
11683 if set, existent, accessible as well as read- and writable.
11684 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
11685 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
11686 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
11692 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
11693 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
11697 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
11701 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11711 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
11713 File giving initial commands, one of the
11714 .Sx "Resource files" .
11717 System wide initialization file, one of the
11718 .Sx "Resource files" .
11722 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
11723 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
11724 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
11725 a configuration option and can be overridden via
11729 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
11730 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
11731 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
11732 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
11733 a configuration option and can be overridden via
11737 The default value for
11739 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11742 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
11743 Personal MIME types, see
11744 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
11745 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11748 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
11749 System wide MIME types, see
11750 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
11751 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11755 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
11757 file \(en the section
11758 .Sx "The .netrc file"
11759 documents the file format.
11760 The actually used path is a configuration option and can be overridden via
11767 The actually used path is a compile-time constant.
11771 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
11772 .Ss "Resource files"
11774 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
11776 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
11779 System wide initialization file.
11780 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
11782 (and according argument) or
11784 command line options, or by setting the
11787 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
11791 File giving initial commands.
11792 A different file can be chosen by setting the
11796 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
11798 command line option.
11800 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
11801 Defines a startup file to be read after all other resource files.
11802 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
11804 implementations, for example.
11805 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
11807 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
11811 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
11814 .Bl -bullet -compact
11816 The whitespace characters space, tabulator and newline,
11817 as well as those defined by the variable
11819 are removed from the beginning and end of input lines.
11821 Empty lines are ignored.
11823 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
11824 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
11826 by placing a reverse solidus character
11828 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
11829 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
11830 remains in the input.
11832 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
11834 then it is a comment-command and also ignored.
11835 (The comment-command is a real command, which does nothing, and
11836 therefore the usual follow lines mechanism applies!)
11840 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
11841 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
11842 More files with syntactically equal content can be
11844 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
11846 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11847 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
11848 es, it is really continued here.
11855 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
11856 .Ss "The mime.types files"
11859 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
11860 \*(UA needs to learn about MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
11861 media types in order to classify message and attachment content.
11862 One source for them are
11864 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
11865 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
11866 Another is the command
11868 which also offers access to \*(UAs MIME type cache.
11870 files have the following syntax:
11872 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11873 type/subtype extension [extension ...]
11874 # E.g., text/html html htm
11880 define the MIME media type, as standardized in RFC 2046:
11882 is used to declare the general type of data, while the
11884 specifies a specific format for that type of data.
11885 One or multiple filename
11887 s, separated by whitespace, can be bound to the media type format.
11888 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
11890 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
11892 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in especially
11893 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
11894 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
11895 and prepends an optional
11899 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
11902 The following type markers are supported:
11905 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
11907 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
11912 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
11913 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
11914 the content as plain text instead.
11918 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
11919 handler to be defined.
11924 for sending messages:
11926 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
11927 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
11928 For reading etc. messages:
11929 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
11930 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
11932 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
11933 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
11934 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
11935 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
11938 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
11939 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
11941 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
11942 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
11944 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
11945 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports (see
11946 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
11947 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
11948 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
11949 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
11950 et cetera MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that
11951 includes multiple possible locations of
11955 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
11956 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
11957 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
11958 the list of MIME type handler directives.
11962 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
11963 Comment lines start with a number sign
11965 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
11966 Empty lines are also ignored.
11967 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
11969 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
11970 follow lines if newline characters are
11972 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
11974 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
11975 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
11979 entries consist of a number of semicolon
11981 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
11983 character can be used to escape any following character including
11984 semicolon and itself.
11985 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
11986 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
11987 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
11990 The first field defines the MIME
11992 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
11993 escaping is possible in this field).
11994 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
11996 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
11998 would match any audio type.
11999 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
12001 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
12008 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
12009 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
12012 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
12013 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
12016 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
12017 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
12019 In any case any given
12021 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
12022 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
12024 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
12025 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
12026 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12028 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12029 flags had been set; see below for more.
12032 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
12033 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
12034 naming the field followed by an equals sign
12036 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
12038 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
12039 Optional fields include the following:
12042 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12044 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
12046 (Currently unused.)
12048 .It Cd composetyped
12051 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
12053 header field to be applied to the composed data.
12054 (Currently unused.)
12057 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
12059 (Currently unused.)
12062 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
12064 (Currently unused.)
12067 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
12068 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
12069 this mailcap entry applies.
12070 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
12071 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
12074 .It Cd needsterminal
12075 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
12076 an interactive terminal.
12077 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
12078 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
12079 ignored; this flag implies
12080 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
12083 .It Cd copiousoutput
12084 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
12086 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
12087 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
12088 It is mutually exclusive with
12089 .Cd needsterminal .
12091 .It Cd textualnewlines
12092 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
12093 that, if encoded in
12095 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
12096 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
12097 (Currently unused.)
12099 .It Cd nametemplate
12100 This field gives a filename format, in which
12102 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
12103 will be used as the filename denoted by
12104 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12105 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
12106 have a name ending in
12109 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
12110 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
12111 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
12112 characters, the underscore and dot only.
12115 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
12116 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
12117 This field is not used by \*(UA.
12120 A textual description that describes this type of data.
12123 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
12124 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
12126 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
12127 then their use will be considered.
12128 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
12129 .Cd needsterminal .
12132 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
12133 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
12136 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
12137 (as it would be by default).
12140 .It Cd x-mailx-async
12141 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
12143 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
12144 Cannot be used in conjunction with
12145 .Cd needsterminal .
12148 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
12149 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
12151 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
12152 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
12153 .Dq running under the X Window System .
12156 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12157 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
12158 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
12159 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12160 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12165 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12166 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
12167 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
12169 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
12170 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
12171 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12173 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12178 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12179 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
12180 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
12181 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
12182 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12184 format, or in conjunction with
12185 .Cd x-mailx-async ,
12186 or without also setting
12187 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12189 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
12192 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12195 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
12197 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
12199 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
12204 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
12205 entry fields, prefixed by
12207 Flag fields apply to the entire
12209 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
12210 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
12211 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
12212 one does not provide enough information.
12215 command needs to specify the
12219 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
12223 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
12225 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12226 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
12227 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
12231 In fields any occurrence of the format string
12233 will be replaced by the
12236 Named parameters from the
12238 field may be placed in the command execution line using
12240 followed by the parameter name and a closing
12243 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
12244 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
12246 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12248 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
12251 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
12252 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
12254 # Executed shell command
12255 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
12259 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
12260 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
12261 shown in this example (as of today).
12262 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
12266 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
12268 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
12269 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
12270 in additional user-provided quotes:
12272 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12274 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
12276 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
12278 application/pdf; \e
12280 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
12281 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
12283 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12285 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
12286 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
12287 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
12292 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12293 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
12296 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12297 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12298 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12301 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
12302 .Ss "The .netrc file"
12306 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
12307 The default location in the user's
12309 directory may be overridden by the
12311 environment variable.
12312 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
12313 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
12314 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
12315 of that file format, shall their
12317 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
12320 .Bl -bullet -compact
12322 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
12323 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
12325 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
12326 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
12328 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
12330 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
12332 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
12333 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
12334 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
12336 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
12337 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
12338 whitespace, with a number sign
12340 then the rest of the line is ignored.
12342 Whereas other programs may require that the
12344 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
12346 token for any other
12350 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
12354 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
12359 At runtime the command
12361 can be used to control \*(UA's
12365 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12366 .It Cd machine Ar name
12367 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
12369 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
12374 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
12377 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
12378 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
12380 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12381 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
12382 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
12383 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
12389 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
12393 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
12394 Note that in the example neither
12395 .Ql pop3.example.com
12397 .Ql smtp.example.com
12398 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
12399 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
12402 This is the same as
12404 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
12405 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
12406 and it must be the last first-class token.
12408 .It Cd login Ar name
12409 The user name on the remote machine.
12411 .It Cd password Ar string
12412 The user's password on the remote machine.
12414 .It Cd account Ar string
12415 Supply an additional account password.
12416 This is merely for FTP purposes.
12418 .It Cd macdef Ar name
12420 A macro is defined with the specified
12422 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
12423 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
12426 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
12427 defined following the
12429 they are intended to be used with.)
12432 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
12433 This is merely for FTP purposes.
12440 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
12443 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
12444 .Ss "An example configuration"
12446 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12447 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
12450 # Request strict transport security checks!
12451 set ssl-verify=strict
12453 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
12454 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
12455 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
12456 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
12457 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
12458 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
12459 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
12460 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
12461 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
12463 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
12464 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
12465 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
12466 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
12467 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
12468 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
12470 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
12471 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
12472 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
12473 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
12474 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
12475 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
12477 # - TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
12478 # ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
12479 # DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
12480 # -ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
12481 # Especially with TLSv1.3 curves selection may be desired:
12482 #set ssl-curves=P-521:P-384:P-256
12484 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
12485 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
12487 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
12488 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
12489 set reply-in-same-charset
12491 # When replying, do not merge From: and To: of the original message
12492 # into To:. Instead old From: -> new To:, old To: -> merge Cc:.
12493 set recipients-in-cc
12495 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
12496 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
12497 # exit status of the MTA (including the built-in SMTP one)!
12500 # Only use built-in MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
12501 set mimetypes-load-control
12503 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
12505 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
12506 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
12507 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt \e
12508 record=+sent.mbox record-files record-resent
12510 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
12511 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
12513 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
12514 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12516 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
12517 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
12518 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
12519 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
12520 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
12523 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
12525 colour-pager crt= \e
12526 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
12527 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
12528 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
12529 prompt='?\e$?!\e$!/\e$^ERRNAME[\e$account#\e$mailbox-display]? ' \e
12530 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
12533 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
12534 headerpick type retain from_ date from to cc subject \e
12535 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
12536 # ...when forwarding messages
12537 headerpick forward retain subject date from to cc
12538 # ...when saving message, etc.
12539 #headerpick save ignore ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
12541 # Some mailing lists
12542 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
12543 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
12545 # Handle a few file extensions (to store MBOX databases)
12546 filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
12547 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
12548 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
12549 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
12551 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
12552 # Instead of directly placing content inside `account',
12553 # we `define' a macro: like that we can switch "accounts"
12554 # from within *on-compose-splice*, for example!
12556 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12557 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
12558 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
12564 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
12565 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
12566 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
12567 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
12568 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
12569 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
12571 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12572 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12573 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
12574 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
12580 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
12581 commandalias lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
12582 commandalias llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
12584 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
12585 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
12588 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
12589 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
12590 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
12592 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
12595 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
12596 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
12597 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
12601 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
12602 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
12609 commandalias V '\e'call V
12613 When storing passwords in
12615 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
12616 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
12619 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
12621 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
12622 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
12624 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12626 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12627 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12629 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
12630 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
12632 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
12633 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
12634 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
12635 commandalias xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
12647 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12648 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
12652 This configuration should now work just fine:
12655 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -dvv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
12658 .\" .Ss "S/MIME step by step" {{{
12659 .Ss "S/MIME step by step"
12661 \*(OP The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message
12662 exchange is your personal certificate, including a private key.
12663 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
12664 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
12665 encrypt messages for you,
12666 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
12667 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
12668 The private key must be kept secret.
12669 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
12670 public key, and to sign messages.
12673 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
12674 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
12675 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
12677 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
12678 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
12679 community for free; their root certificate
12680 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
12681 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
12682 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
12683 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
12686 or as a vivid member of the
12687 .Va smime-ca-file .
12688 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
12689 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
12692 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
12693 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
12694 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
12695 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
12696 entries of the web interface.
12697 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
12698 .Dq client certificate ,
12699 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
12700 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
12704 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
12705 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
12706 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
12709 .Dl $ openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
12712 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
12714 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
12715 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
12716 .Dq advanced options
12717 to see the corresponding text field).
12718 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
12719 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
12720 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
12721 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
12722 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
12727 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
12728 (certificate) file has to be created:
12731 .Dl $ cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
12734 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
12735 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
12736 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
12737 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
12739 is of interest for verification only):
12741 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12742 ? set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
12743 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
12744 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
12750 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
12751 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
12753 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
12754 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
12755 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
12756 declared invalid after they have been issued.
12757 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
12759 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
12760 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
12761 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
12762 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
12763 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
12764 invalidated certificates.
12765 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
12766 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
12769 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
12770 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
12773 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
12776 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
12777 (and no other files) must be created.
12782 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
12783 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
12784 to verify a certificate.
12793 In general it is a good idea to turn on
12799 twice) if something does not work well.
12800 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
12801 problems' solution.
12803 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
12804 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
12806 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
12807 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
12809 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
12810 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
12812 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
12816 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
12819 return the expected value?
12820 Does this local hostname have a domain suffix?
12821 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
12823 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
12826 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
12827 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
12829 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
12831 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
12832 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
12833 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
12836 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
12837 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
12838 her- and himself with the locally installed
12840 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
12841 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
12842 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
12843 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
12846 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
12847 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
12848 .Dq less secure app
12849 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
12850 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
12855 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
12858 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
12860 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
12862 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
12863 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
12864 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
12868 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
12869 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
12871 It can happen that the terminal library (see
12872 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
12875 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
12876 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
12877 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
12878 Especially without the \*(OPal terminal capability library support one
12879 reason for this may be that the (possibly even non-existing) keypad
12880 is not turned on and the resulting layout reports the keypad control
12881 codes for the normal keyboard keys.
12886 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
12889 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
12891 in conjunction with the command line option
12893 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
12894 by keypresses, and use the variable
12896 to make \*(UA aware of them.
12897 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
12898 an example showing the shifted home key:
12900 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12903 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
12908 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
12918 .\" .Sh "IMAP CLIENT" {{{
12921 \*(OPally there is IMAP client support available.
12922 This part of the program is obsolete and will vanish in v15 with the
12923 large MIME and I/O layer rewrite, because it uses old-style blocking I/O
12924 and makes excessive use of signal based long code jumps.
12925 Support can hopefully be readded later based on a new-style I/O, with
12926 SysV signal handling.
12927 In fact the IMAP support had already been removed from the codebase, but
12928 was reinstantiated on user demand: in effect the IMAP code is at the
12929 level of \*(UA v14.8.16 (with
12931 being the sole exception), and should be treated with some care.
12938 protocol prefixes, and an IMAP-based
12941 IMAP URLs (paths) undergo inspections and possible transformations
12942 before use (and the command
12944 can be used to manually apply them to any given argument).
12945 Hierarchy delimiters are normalized, a step which is configurable via the
12947 variable chain, but defaults to the first seen delimiter otherwise.
12948 \*(UA supports internationalised IMAP names, and en- and decodes the
12949 names from and to the
12951 as necessary and possible.
12952 If a mailbox name is expanded (see
12953 .Sx "Filename transformations" )
12954 to an IMAP mailbox, all names that begin with `+' then refer to IMAP
12955 mailboxes below the
12957 target box, while folder names prefixed by `@' refer to folders below
12958 the hierarchy base.
12961 Note: some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in
12962 the hierarchy base, but require that they are created as subfolders of
12963 `INBOX' \(en with such servers a folder name of the form
12965 .Dl imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.
12967 should be used (the last character is the server's hierarchy
12969 The following IMAP-specific commands exist:
12972 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
12975 Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes;
12976 takes a message list and reads the specified messages into the IMAP
12981 If operating in disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
12982 switch to online mode and connect to the mail server while retaining
12983 the mailbox status.
12984 See the description of the
12986 variable for more information.
12990 If operating in online mode on an IMAP mailbox,
12991 switch to disconnected mode while retaining the mailbox status.
12992 See the description of the
12995 A list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
12996 the respective messages are then read into the cache before the
12997 connection is closed, thus
12999 makes the entire mailbox available for disconnected use.
13003 Sends command strings directly to the current IMAP server.
13004 \*(UA operates always in IMAP `selected state' on the current mailbox;
13005 commands that change this will produce undesirable results and should be
13007 Useful IMAP commands are:
13008 .Bl -tag -offset indent -width ".Ic getquotearoot"
13010 Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and creates it.
13012 (RFC 2087) Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument
13013 and prints the quotas that apply to the mailbox.
13014 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13016 (RFC 2342) Takes no arguments and prints the Personal Namespaces,
13017 the Other User's Namespaces and the Shared Namespaces.
13018 Each namespace type is printed in parentheses;
13019 if there are multiple namespaces of the same type,
13020 inner parentheses separate them.
13021 For each namespace a prefix and a hierarchy separator is listed.
13022 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13027 Perform IMAP path transformations.
13031 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
13032 and manages the error number
13034 The first argument specifies the operation:
13036 normalizes hierarchy delimiters (see
13038 and converts the strings from the locale
13040 to the internationalized variant used by IMAP,
13042 performs the reverse operation.
13047 The following IMAP-specific internal variables exist:
13050 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
13052 .It Va disconnected
13053 \*(BO When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable is set,
13054 no connection to the server is initiated.
13055 Instead, data is obtained from the local cache (see
13058 Mailboxes that are not present in the cache
13059 and messages that have not yet entirely been fetched from the server
13061 to fetch all messages in a mailbox at once,
13063 .No ` Ns Li copy * /dev/null Ns '
13064 can be used while still in connected mode.
13065 Changes that are made to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued
13066 and committed later when a connection to that server is made.
13067 This procedure is not completely reliable since it cannot be guaranteed
13068 that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs) on the server still match the
13069 ones in the cache at that time.
13072 when this problem occurs.
13074 .It Va disconnected-USER@HOST
13075 The specified account is handled as described for the
13078 but other accounts are not affected.
13081 .It Va imap-auth-USER@HOST , imap-auth
13082 Sets the IMAP authentication method.
13083 Valid values are `login' for the usual password-based authentication
13085 `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication that does not send
13086 the password over the network in clear text,
13087 and `gssapi' for GSS-API based authentication.
13091 Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes.
13092 The value of this variable must point to a directory that is either
13093 existent or can be created by \*(UA.
13094 All contents of the cache can be deleted by \*(UA at any time;
13095 it is not safe to make assumptions about them.
13098 .It Va imap-delim-USER@HOST , imap-delim-HOST , imap-delim
13099 The hierarchy separator used by the IMAP server.
13100 Whenever an IMAP path is specified it will undergo normalization.
13101 One of the normalization steps is the squeezing and adjustment of
13102 hierarchy separators.
13103 If this variable is set, any occurrence of any character of the given
13104 value that exists in the path will be replaced by the first member of
13105 the value; an empty value will cause the default to be used, it is
13107 If not set, we will reuse the first hierarchy separator character that
13108 is discovered in a user-given mailbox name.
13110 .Mx Va imap-keepalive
13111 .It Va imap-keepalive-USER@HOST , imap-keepalive-HOST , imap-keepalive
13112 IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of
13113 inactivity; the standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes,
13114 but practical experience may vary.
13115 Setting this variable to a numeric `value' greater than 0 causes
13116 a `NOOP' command to be sent each `value' seconds if no other operation
13120 .It Va imap-list-depth
13121 When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the
13123 command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid possible
13125 The value of this variable sets the maximum depth allowed.
13127 If the folder separator on the current IMAP server is a slash `/',
13128 this variable has no effect and the
13130 command does not descend to subfolders.
13132 .Mx Va imap-use-starttls
13133 .It Va imap-use-starttls-USER@HOST , imap-use-starttls-HOST , imap-use-starttls
13134 Causes \*(UA to issue a `STARTTLS' command to make an unencrypted
13135 IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted.
13136 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
13137 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the IMAPS method.
13143 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
13153 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
13162 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
13168 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
13171 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
13172 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
13173 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
13176 command already appeared in First Edition
13180 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
13181 Electronic mail was there from the start.
13182 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
13183 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
13184 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
13185 freeloaders, or whatever.
13186 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
13187 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
13188 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
13194 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
13197 distribution until 1995.
13198 Mail has then seen further development in open source
13200 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
13202 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
13203 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
13204 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
13205 This man page is derived from
13206 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
13207 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
13214 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
13215 .An "Edward Wang" ,
13216 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
13217 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
13218 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
13219 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" .
13226 provide contact addresses:
13228 .\" v15-compat: drop eval as `mail' will expand variable?
13229 .Dl ? echo $contact-web; eval mail $contact-mail
13232 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
13235 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
13239 from anywhere else but a command prompt is very problematic and likely
13240 to leave the program in an undefined state: many library functions
13241 cannot deal with the
13243 that this software (still) performs; even though efforts have been taken
13244 to address this, no sooner but in v15 it will have been worked out:
13245 interruptions have not been disabled in order to allow forceful breakage
13246 of hanging network connections, for example (all this is unrelated to
13250 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
13251 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
13252 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
13257 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
13258 that is capable of message queuing.
13265 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
13266 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
13267 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
13269 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
13270 occasionally (this is may and very).
13274 in the source repository lists future directions.