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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34 .\"@ S-nail(1): v14.9.0-pre3 / 2016-12-31
36 .ds VV \\%v14.9.0-pre3
46 .\" If not ~/.mailrc, it breaks POSIX compatibility. And adjust main.c.
51 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
52 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
53 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
64 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
70 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
78 .Op Fl a Ar attachment
81 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
83 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
88 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
97 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
100 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
108 .Op Fl L Ar spec-list
109 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
110 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
113 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
118 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
121 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
124 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
125 .Sy Compatibility note:
126 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2018).
127 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
130 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
131 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
132 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
135 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
136 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
137 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
141 enables obsoletion warnings.
145 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
147 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
149 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
150 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
151 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
152 the user to deal with them in any order.
156 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
157 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
158 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
159 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
160 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
162 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
165 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
168 Explicitly control which of the
170 shall be loaded: if the letter
172 is (case-insensitively) part of the
176 is loaded, likewise the letter
178 controls loading of the user's personal
180 file, whereas the letters
184 explicitly forbid loading of any resource files.
185 This option should be used by scripts: to avoid environmental noise they
188 from any configuration files and create a script-local environment,
189 explicitly setting any of the desired
190 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
193 This option overrides
200 command for the given user email
202 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
204 setting is being established; only
206 commands have not been evaluated yet).
207 Being a special incarnation of
209 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived settings, activating
210 such an email account also switches to the accounts
212 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
217 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
220 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
224 .Sx "Filename transformations"
227 will be performed, but shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
231 not be accessible but contain a
233 character, then anything before the
235 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
238 If an input character set is specified,
239 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
240 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
241 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
242 giving the special string hyphen-minus
244 will be treated as if
246 has been specified (the default).
247 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
248 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
249 file's type and content.
250 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as hyphen-minus
252 then the default conversion algorithm (see
253 .Sx "Character sets" )
254 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
256 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first).
257 It is an error to specify anything but
259 if no character set conversion is available
261 does not include the term
266 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
267 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
272 Send a blind carbon copy to
274 ess, if the setting of
277 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
279 The option may be used multiple times.
281 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
285 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
287 May be used multiple times.
292 the internal variable
294 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
295 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
301 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
302 This command line option is \*(OB.
306 Just check if mail is present (in the specified or system
308 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
309 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
310 specification can be added with the option
315 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
316 first recipient's address (instead of in
321 Read in the contents of the user's
323 (or the specified file) for processing;
324 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
330 argument will undergo some special
331 .Sx "Filename transformations"
336 is not a argument to the flag
338 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
342 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
343 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
347 Display a summary of the
349 of all messages in the specified mailbox or system
352 A configurable summary view is available via the
358 Show a short usage summary.
359 Because of widespread use a
361 argument will have the same effect.
367 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
370 .It Fl L Ar spec-list
371 Display a summary of all
373 of only those messages in the specified mailbox or the system
379 .Sx "Specifying messages"
386 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
387 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
393 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
394 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
399 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
403 and use it as the main message body.
404 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
405 .Va message-inject-head ,
408 .Va message-inject-tail .
414 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
416 and use it as the main message body.
417 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
418 .Va message-inject-head ,
421 .Va message-inject-tail .
427 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
428 editing a mail folder by calling
430 for the internal variable
435 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
440 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
441 .Sx "Resource files" .
445 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
446 contents of the specified
448 which may be standard input
450 only in non-interactive context.
456 Any folder opened will be in read-only mode.
460 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
461 The source address that appears in the
464 header of a message (or in the
467 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is not used for
468 relaying and delegating a message over the wire via SMTP, but instead an
469 envelope will enwrap the message content and provide the necessary
470 information (i.e., the RFC 5321 reverse-path, also used to report, e.g.,
471 delivery errors) to transmit the message to its destination(s).
472 Whereas said headers and internal variables will be used by \*(UA to
473 create the envelope if the builtin SMTP
475 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) is used, a file-based MTA will instead use the
476 identity of the message-originating user.
478 This command line option can be used to specify the reverse-path, to be
479 passed to a file-based
481 when a message is sent, via
482 .Ql -f Ar from-addr .
485 include a user name, then the address components will be separated and
486 the name part will be passed to a file-based
492 is also assigned to the internal variable
494 Many default installations and sites disallow explicit overriding of the
495 user identity which could be adjusted by this option, unless either
497 has been configured accordingly, or the user is member of a group with
498 special privileges, respectively.
500 If an empty string is passed as
502 then the content of the variable
504 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
506 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
509 Note that \*(UA by default, without
511 that is, neither passes
515 command line options to a file-based MTA by itself, unless this
516 automatic deduction is enforced by
518 ing the internal variable
519 .Va r-option-implicit .
523 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
527 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
531 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
535 may be overwritten from within resource files,
536 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
541 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
542 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
543 normalized to space (SP) characters.
547 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
548 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
553 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
554 specified on the command line.
555 If a message subject is specified via
557 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
573 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
574 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
575 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
577 Any other custom header field (also see
580 is passed through entirely
581 unchanged, and in conjunction with the option
583 it is possible to embed
584 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
592 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
595 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
605 will also show the list of
607 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
612 ting the internal variable
614 enables display of some informational context messages.
615 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
619 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
621 to the list of commands to be executed,
622 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
623 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
624 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
625 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
627 but different to that errors won't stop evaluation.
631 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
636 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
637 even if not in interactive mode.
638 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
639 text before sending the message:
640 .Bd -literal -offset indent
641 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.'; \e
642 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
643 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 -d~ bob@exam.ple
649 In batch mode the full set of commands is available, just like in
650 interactive mode, standard input is made line buffered, and diverse
651 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
652 are adjusted for batch necessities, e.g., it
668 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
669 is enabled in compose mode.
670 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
671 .Bd -literal -offset indent
672 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' | \e
673 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d# -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
678 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
681 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
682 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
690 argument, as well as all receivers established by the command line options
694 are subject to checks established via
697 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
699 .Op Ar mta-option ...
701 arguments that are given at the end of the command line after a
703 separator will be passed through to a file-based
705 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for an entire (interactive) session
706 \(en if the setting of the internal variable
708 allows their recognition; no such constraints apply to the variable
712 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
715 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
717 Mail, a successor of the Research
720 .Dq was there from the start
723 It thus represents the user side of the
725 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
726 traditionally taken by
728 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
733 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
737 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
739 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
740 using it is a smooth experience.
743 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
744 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
745 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety, however, e.g., it
750 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to
752 that would otherwise occur (see
753 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
756 to not remove empty system (MBOX) mailbox files in order not to mangle
757 file permissions when files eventually get recreated \(en
758 \*(UA will remove all empty (MBOX) mailbox files unless this variable is
761 .Pf ( Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
762 mode has been enabled.
763 The file mode creation mask is explicitly managed via
769 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
774 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
776 to allow editing of headers as well as
778 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
780 to include the message that is being responded to when
785 contains some more complete configuration examples.
788 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
789 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
791 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a builtin
793 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
794 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
795 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
799 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
801 .Bd -literal -offset indent
803 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
805 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
806 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait \e
807 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
808 -. '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
811 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait \e
812 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
813 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
819 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
820 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
821 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
823 special \(en these are so-called
824 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
825 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
826 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
828 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
830 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
832 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
835 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
839 at the beginning of an empty line leaves compose mode and causes the
840 message to be sent, whereas typing
843 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
854 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
855 can be used to alter default behavior.
856 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
859 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
864 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
866 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content, whereas
870 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
871 recipients, respectively, if the given list is empty.
875 hook variables may be set to
877 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
878 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
879 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
881 .Va on-compose-splice
882 variables, the latter also to be set to a
884 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
885 adjustments are available.
888 Especially for using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
890 it is often necessary to set
894 (even finer control via
895 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
896 which also causes creation of
900 header fields (even if empty) unless
902 is set; saving a copy of sent messages in a
904 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
906 targets the value will undergo
907 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
910 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
911 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
914 contains example configurations for sending messages via some of the
915 well-known public mail providers and also gives a compact overview on
916 how to setup a secure SSL/TLS environment).
921 sandbox dry-run tests first will prove correctness.
925 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
926 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
927 account credentials, the
929 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
932 goes into the details of character encoding and how to use them for
933 representing messages and MIME part contents by specifying them in
935 and reading the section
936 .Sx "The mime.types files"
937 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
938 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
939 Over the wire an intermediate, configurable
940 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
941 may be applied to the raw message part data.
944 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
949 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
950 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
953 is not set then only network addresses (see
955 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
956 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
960 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
962 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
963 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
967 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
968 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
970 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
972 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
973 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
975 or the character sequence dot solidus
977 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
978 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
980 Any other name which contains a commercial at
982 character is treated as a network address;
983 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
985 character specifies a mailbox name;
986 Any other name which contains a solidus
988 character but no exclamation mark
992 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
993 What remains is treated as a network address.
995 .Bd -literal -offset indent
996 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
997 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
998 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
999 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave \e
1000 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1005 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1007 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1009 and have it go to a group of people.
1010 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1011 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1015 and are often tracked in a file
1021 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1022 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1023 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1030 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1033 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1035 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1036 environment, ideally with the command line options
1038 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1040 to specify variables:
1042 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1043 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1044 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1045 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1046 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1047 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
1048 -s 'subject' -a attachment_file \e
1049 -. "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>" rec2@exam.ple \e
1054 As shown, scripts can
1056 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1059 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1061 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1062 can be sent by calling the
1064 command with a list of recipient addresses \(em the semantics are
1065 completely identical to non-interactive message sending:
1067 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1068 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1069 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1070 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1071 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1072 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1076 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1077 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1079 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1081 When used like that the user's system
1085 for an in-depth description of the different mailbox types that exist)
1086 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed.
1087 The visual style of this summary of
1089 can be adjusted through the variable
1091 and the possible sorting criterion via
1097 can be performed with the command
1099 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1100 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1109 will give a listing of all available commands and
1111 will give a summary of some common ones.
1112 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1115 and see the actual expansion of
1117 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1118 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1119 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1120 possible to define overwrites with the
1123 These commands can also produce a more
1128 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1129 messages; the current message \(en the
1131 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1132 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1134 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1139 ful of header summaries containing the
1143 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1147 Message content can be displayed with the command
1154 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1156 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1158 the sole difference to the command
1160 which will always use the
1164 will instead only show the first
1166 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1171 By default the current message
1173 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1174 a fancy message specification (see
1175 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1178 will display all unread messages,
1183 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1185 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1189 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1192 (a more substantial alias for
1194 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1195 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1198 .Dl from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1201 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1203 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1204 applications by using the command
1206 e.g., to restrict display to a very restricted set:
1207 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain add Ar \:from to cc subject .
1208 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1209 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1213 Note that historically the global
1215 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1219 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1220 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1221 aims at making user experience with the many
1224 When reading the system
1230 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1232 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1234 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1235 then messages which have been read will be moved to a
1237 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1240 file, automatically when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1241 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1242 .Sx "Message states" )
1243 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1244 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1249 After examining a message the user can also
1253 to the sender and all recipients or
1255 exclusively to the sender(s).
1256 Messages can also be
1258 ed (shorter alias is
1260 Note that when replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses
1261 will be stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1264 Deletion causes \*(UA to forget about the message;
1265 This is not irreversible, though, one can
1267 the message by giving its number,
1268 or the \*(UA session can be ended by giving the
1273 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1275 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1276 automatic moving of read messages to
1278 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1282 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1285 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1286 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1288 Messages which are HTML-only get more and more common and of course many
1289 messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME attachments.
1290 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter to deal
1291 with HTML messages (see
1292 .Sx "The mime.types files" ) ,
1293 it normally cannot deal with any of these itself, but instead programs
1294 need to become registered to deal with specific MIME types or file
1296 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input
1297 in order to enable \*(UA to display the content on the terminal,
1298 or display the content themselves, for example in a graphical window.
1301 To install an external handler program for a specific MIME type set an
1303 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1304 variable; to instead define a handler for a specific file extension set
1307 variable \(en these handlers take precedence.
1308 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1309 RFC 1524; this mechanism, documented in the section
1310 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
1311 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1312 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1313 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1314 A last source for handlers may be the MIME type definition itself, if
1315 the \*(UA specific type-marker extension was used when defining the type
1318 (Many of the builtin MIME types do so by default.)
1322 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1323 can be set to improve dealing with faulty MIME part declarations as are
1324 often seen in real-life messages.
1325 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1326 fancy plain text representation than the builtin converter is capable to
1327 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1331 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1332 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1333 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1335 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1336 if [ "$features" !@ +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1337 #set pipe-text/html='elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1338 set pipe-text/html='lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1339 # Display HTML as plain text instead
1340 #set pipe-text/html=@
1342 mimetype '@ application/mathml+xml mathml'
1343 wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1344 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1345 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1346 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1350 Note: special care must be taken when using such commands as mail
1351 viruses may be distributed by this method: if messages of type
1352 .Ql application/x-sh
1353 or files with the extension
1355 were blindly filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1356 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system \*(UA is running on.
1357 For more on MIME, also in respect to sending of messages, see the
1359 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
1360 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
1365 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1368 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1371 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1373 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1378 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1379 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1380 currently defined mailing lists.
1385 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1386 in the header display.
1389 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1390 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1392 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1393 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1394 (are) matched sequentially.
1396 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1397 set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1398 wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1399 mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1404 .Va followup-to-honour
1406 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1407 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1413 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1414 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1416 .Dq mailing list specific
1421 is used to respond to a message with its
1422 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1426 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1427 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1428 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1429 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1430 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1431 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1433 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1434 address that is presented in the
1436 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1438 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1440 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1443 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1444 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1445 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1449 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
1450 .Ss "Resource files"
1452 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
1454 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
1457 System wide initialization file.
1458 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
1460 (and according argument) or
1462 command line options, or by setting the
1465 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
1469 File giving initial commands.
1470 A different file can be chosen by setting the
1474 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
1476 command line option.
1478 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
1479 Can be used to define an optional startup file to be read after all
1480 other resource files.
1481 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
1483 implementations, for example.
1484 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
1486 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1490 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
1493 .Bl -bullet -compact
1495 A lines' leading whitespace is removed.
1497 Empty lines are ignored.
1499 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
1500 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
1502 by placing a reverse solidus character
1504 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
1505 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
1506 remains in the input.
1508 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
1510 then it is a comment-command \(en a real command! \(en and also ignored.
1511 This command is the only form of comment that is understood.
1515 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
1516 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
1517 More files with syntactically equal content can be
1519 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
1521 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1522 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
1523 es, it is really continued here.
1530 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1531 .Ss "Character sets"
1533 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1534 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1539 should give an overview); the \*(UA internal variable
1541 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly
1542 and will thus show up in the output of the commands
1548 However, a user supplied
1550 value is not overwritten by this detection mechanism: this
1552 must be used if the detection does not work properly,
1553 and it may be used to adjust the name of the locale character set.
1554 E.g., on BSD systems one may use a locale with the character set
1555 ISO8859-1, which is not a valid name for this character set; to be on
1556 the safe side, one may set
1558 to the correct name, which is ISO-8859-1.
1561 Note that changing the value does not mean much beside that,
1562 since several aspects of the real character set are implied by the
1563 locale environment of the system,
1564 and that stays unaffected by the content of an overwritten
1567 (This is mostly an issue when interactively using \*(UA, though.
1568 It is actually possible to send mail in a completely
1570 locale environment, an option that \*(UA's test-suite uses excessively.)
1573 If no character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into
1576 does not include the term
1580 will be the only supported character set,
1581 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1582 (over the wire an intermediate
1583 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
1585 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1586 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1587 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to the mentioned
1588 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./nail.h:CHARSET_*!)
1592 When reading messages, their text is converted into
1594 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1595 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1596 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1597 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1600 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1601 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1602 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1604 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1605 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1608 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1609 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1610 appear to be binary data,
1611 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1612 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1613 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1614 Permissible values for character sets can be declared using the
1618 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1619 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
1623 When replying to a message and the variable
1624 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1625 is set then the character set of the message being replied to is tried
1626 first (after mapping via
1627 .Ic charsetalias ) .
1628 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1629 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1630 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1631 please see there for more information.
1634 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1635 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1636 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1637 content of the part or attachment,
1638 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1642 In general, if the message
1643 .Dq Cannot convert from a to b
1644 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1645 selected (terminal) character set,
1646 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1647 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1649 locale and/or the variable
1653 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1654 locale on a UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1655 spectrum of characters is available.
1656 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1657 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1658 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1661 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1662 .Dq portable character set
1663 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1664 restricted subset named
1665 .Dq portable filename character set
1666 consisting of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1674 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1675 .Ss "Message states"
1677 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1678 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1680 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1682 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1684 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1685 When operating on the system
1689 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
1690 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
1692 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1694 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1695 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1697 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1700 mail-user-agents, the default global
1706 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1708 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
1710 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1711 Such messages are retained even in the
1713 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1716 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
1717 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
1718 Such messages are retained even in the
1720 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1723 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1742 will always try to automatically
1748 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
1750 command will do so if the internal variable
1755 command is used, messages that are in a
1757 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1760 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in
1762 unless the internal variable
1767 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1773 can be used to access such messages.
1776 The message has been processed by a
1778 command and it will be retained in its current location.
1781 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1787 command is used, messages that are in a
1789 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1792 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in
1794 when the internal variable
1800 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
1801 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
1802 addressing them when
1803 .Sx "Specifying messages"
1804 can be set on messages.
1805 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
1806 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
1808 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
1810 Mark messages as having been answered.
1812 Mark messages as being a draft.
1814 Mark messages which need special attention.
1818 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
1819 .Ss "Specifying messages"
1826 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
1827 of messages at once.
1830 deletes messages 1 and 2,
1833 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
1834 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
1838 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
1839 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
1842 The following special message names exist:
1845 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
1847 The current message, the so-called
1851 The message that was previously the current message.
1854 The parent message of the current message,
1855 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
1857 field or the last entry of the
1859 field of the current message.
1862 The next previous undeleted message,
1863 or the next previous deleted message for the
1866 In sorted/threaded mode,
1867 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1870 The next undeleted message,
1871 or the next deleted message for the
1874 In sorted/threaded mode,
1875 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1878 The first undeleted message,
1879 or the first deleted message for the
1882 In sorted/threaded mode,
1883 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1887 In sorted/threaded mode,
1888 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
1892 selects the message addressed with
1896 is any other message specification,
1897 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
1898 Otherwise it is identical to
1903 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
1908 All messages that were included in the
1909 .Sx "Message list arguments"
1910 of the previous command.
1913 An inclusive range of message numbers.
1914 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
1919 .Dq any substring matches
1922 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
1924 is set (and POSIX says
1925 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
1928 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
1929 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
1931 is completely ignored.
1932 For finer control and match boundaries use the
1936 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
1937 All messages that contain
1939 in the subject field (case ignored).
1946 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
1948 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
1951 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
1953 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
1955 support is available
1957 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
1959 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
1960 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
1964 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
1965 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
1968 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
1970 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
1972 In order to search for a string that includes a
1974 (commercial at) character the
1976 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
1977 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
1991 respectively and case-insensitively.
1996 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2005 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2006 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2008 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2009 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2010 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2011 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2012 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2013 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2014 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2017 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2020 All messages of state
2024 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2026 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2031 Old messages (any not in state
2053 messages (cf. the variable
2054 .Va markanswered ) .
2059 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2060 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2062 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2068 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2069 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders;
2070 \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2071 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2073 in their entirety if they contain white space or parentheses;
2074 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2076 is recognized as an escape character.
2077 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2078 When the description indicates that the
2080 representation of an address field is used,
2081 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2084 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2085 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2090 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2091 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2095 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2096 .It Ar ( criterion )
2097 All messages that satisfy the given
2099 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2100 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2102 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2103 All messages that satisfy either
2108 To connect more than two criteria using
2110 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2112 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2116 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2119 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2120 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2124 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2125 All messages that do not satisfy
2127 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2128 All messages that contain
2130 in the envelope representation of the
2133 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2134 All messages that contain
2136 in the envelope representation of the
2139 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2140 All messages that contain
2142 in the envelope representation of the
2145 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2146 All messages that contain
2151 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2152 All messages that contain
2154 in the envelope representation of the
2157 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2158 All messages that contain
2163 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2164 All messages that contain
2167 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2168 All messages that contain
2170 in their header or body.
2171 .It Ar ( larger size )
2172 All messages that are larger than
2175 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2176 All messages that are smaller than
2180 .It Ar ( before date )
2181 All messages that were received before
2183 which must be in the form
2187 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2189 is the name of the month \(en one of
2190 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2193 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2197 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2198 .It Ar ( since date )
2199 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2200 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2201 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2202 .It Ar ( senton date )
2203 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2204 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2205 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2207 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2208 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2209 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2210 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2214 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
2215 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
2217 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
2218 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
2219 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
2222 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
2223 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
2224 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
2226 is used by the IMAP protocol but not by POP3);
2231 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
2237 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
2240 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
2241 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
2242 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
2243 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
2244 a well-known notation.
2247 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
2248 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
2253 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
2260 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
2266 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
2269 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
2270 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
2271 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2272 must not be URL percent encoded.
2275 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
2276 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
2277 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
2278 .Ql smtp://our.house
2279 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
2280 .Va smtp-use-starttls
2281 \*(UA first looks for whether
2282 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
2283 is defined, then whether
2284 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
2285 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
2288 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
2289 necessary credential information of an account:
2295 has been given in the URL the variables
2299 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
2300 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
2301 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
2308 specific entry which provides a
2310 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
2313 It is possible to load encrypted
2318 If there is still no
2320 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
2321 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
2322 known to be a valid user on the current host.
2325 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
2326 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
2327 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
2333 has been given in the URL, then if the
2335 has been found through the \*(OPal
2337 that may have already provided the password, too.
2338 Otherwise the variable chain
2339 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
2340 is looked up and used if existent.
2342 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
2343 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
2347 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
2348 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
2349 but with a password).
2351 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
2352 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
2353 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
2358 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
2362 header field(s), which means that the values of
2363 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
2365 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
2366 will not be looked up using the
2370 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
2371 message that is being worked on.
2372 In unusual cases multiple and different
2376 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
2377 unusual cases become possible.
2378 The usual case is as short as:
2381 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
2382 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
2387 contains complete example configurations.
2390 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2391 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2393 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2395 libraries, either the
2397 or, alternatively, the
2399 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2401 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2402 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2403 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2404 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys, and which will
2405 automatically enter the so-called
2407 alternative screen shall the terminal support it.
2408 The internal variable
2410 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2411 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2412 setting the internal variable
2413 .Va termcap-disable ;
2415 will be queried regardless, even if the \*(OPal support for the
2416 libraries has not been enabled at configuration time.
2419 \*(OP The builtin \*(UA Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2420 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2422 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2423 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2425 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2427 .Va line-editor-disable .
2428 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2429 entries in the internal variable
2431 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2432 The MLE can support a little bit of
2438 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2439 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2440 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2442 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2443 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2447 .Va history-gabby-persist
2452 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2453 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2454 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2455 be generated by holding the
2457 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2461 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2462 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2463 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2465 to establish its builtin key bindings
2466 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2467 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2468 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2469 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2470 notation is used in the following;
2471 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2472 generate a (unique) keycode:
2476 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql Ba"
2478 Go to the start of the line
2480 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2483 Move the cursor backward one character
2485 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2488 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2489 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2493 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2496 Go to the end of the line
2498 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2501 Move the cursor forward one character
2503 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2506 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2507 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2508 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2509 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2511 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2514 Backspace: backward delete one character
2516 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2520 Horizontal tabulator:
2521 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2522 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2524 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2526 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2530 commit the current line
2532 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2535 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2537 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2542 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2545 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2547 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2550 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2554 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2556 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2559 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2562 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2563 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2564 is committed; also see
2568 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2570 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2573 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2575 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2578 Paste the snarf buffer
2580 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2588 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2591 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2593 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2594 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2595 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2596 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2597 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2598 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2600 function immediately.
2603 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2606 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2609 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2611 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2614 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2616 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2619 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2620 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2622 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2623 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2624 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2625 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2627 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2628 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2629 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2632 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2636 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2640 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2644 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2647 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2658 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2663 ring the audible bell.
2667 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2668 .Ss "Coloured display"
2670 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2671 attributes by emitting ANSI / ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic rendition)
2673 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2674 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2675 environment variable
2677 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2681 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2683 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2684 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2685 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2690 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2691 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2692 support those sequences.
2693 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2694 environment it is often enough to simply set
2696 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2701 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2702 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2707 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2708 command family exists:
2710 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2713 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2714 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2715 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2718 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2719 if terminal && $features =@ +colour
2720 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2721 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red "from,subject"
2722 colour iso view-header fg=red
2724 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2725 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2726 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 subject,from
2727 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2728 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2732 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
2735 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
2738 Each command is typed on a line by itself,
2739 and may take arguments following the command word.
2740 An unquoted reverse solidus
2742 at the end of a command line
2744 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
2745 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
2746 once the entire command line is completed, the processing that is
2747 documented in the following begins.
2750 Command names may be abbreviated, in which case the first command that
2751 matches the given prefix will be used.
2754 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
2755 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
2756 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
2757 \*(OPally the command
2761 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
2762 command matching the expanded argument, as in
2764 which should be a shorthand of
2766 Both commands support a more
2768 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command,
2769 and other information which applies; a handy suggestion might be:
2771 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2773 # Be careful to choose sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
2774 # Result status ends up in $!
2775 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
2777 ? ghost xv '\ecall __xv'
2781 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
2782 .Ss "Command modifiers"
2784 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
2789 The modifier reverse solidus
2792 to be placed first, prevents
2794 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
2796 will always evaluate the command
2798 even if a ghost of the same name exists.
2800 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
2801 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
2807 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
2808 ignored by the state machine, via, e.g.,
2809 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
2812 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2813 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
2816 Some commands support the
2819 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
2820 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
2821 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
2822 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
2823 The given name will be tested for being a valid
2825 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
2826 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
2827 a non-portable extension.
2828 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
2829 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2830 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
2831 It is a hard error that is tracked in
2833 if any of these tests fail.
2834 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
2835 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
2836 Some commands may report this as a hard failure in
2838 but most will use the soft exit status
2840 to indicate these failures.
2843 Last, but not least, the modifier
2846 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
2847 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2848 rules over the traditional
2849 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
2853 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
2854 .Ss "Message list arguments"
2856 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
2857 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
2858 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2860 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
2861 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
2862 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
2863 the search proceeds backwards;
2864 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
2865 shown and the command is aborted.
2868 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
2869 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
2871 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
2872 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
2873 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
2874 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2875 may be available even for those via
2878 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
2879 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
2880 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
2881 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
2884 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2886 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
2891 any white space, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
2892 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
2893 part of the argument.
2894 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
2896 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
2897 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
2903 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
2904 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
2908 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
2909 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
2913 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
2914 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
2916 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
2918 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
2920 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
2921 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
2923 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
2926 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
2927 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
2928 Metacharacters are vertical bar
2935 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
2936 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
2938 and less-than and greater-than signs
2942 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
2943 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it also seems
2944 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
2947 Any unquoted number sign
2949 at the beginning of new token starts a comment that extends to the end
2950 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
2951 An unquoted dollar sign
2953 will cause variable expansion of the given name:
2954 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2957 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
2958 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
2961 Whereas the metacharacters
2962 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
2963 only complete an input token, vertical bar
2969 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
2970 For now supported is semicolon
2972 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
2973 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
2974 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
2975 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
2976 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
2979 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2980 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2983 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
2984 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
2985 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
2986 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
2989 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2991 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
2992 with the escape character reverse solidus
2996 Arguments which are enclosed in
2997 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
2998 retain their literal value.
2999 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3002 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3003 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3004 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3006 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3008 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3010 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3012 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3016 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3018 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3019 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3022 Arguments enclosed in
3023 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3024 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3025 expanded as follows:
3027 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3033 an escape character.
3035 an escape character.
3047 emits a reverse solidus character.
3051 double quote (escaping is optional).
3053 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3055 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3057 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3059 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3061 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3062 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3064 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3066 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3067 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3072 This escape is only supported in locales which support Unicode (see
3073 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3074 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3075 point is ASCII compatible or can be represented in the current locale.
3076 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3080 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3082 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3083 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3084 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3085 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3086 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3087 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3088 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3090 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3091 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3093 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3094 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3096 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3098 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO 10646, ISO C) aliases,
3099 as shown above (e.g.,
3103 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3104 The control code NUL
3106 a non-standard extension) ends argument processing without producing
3109 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3110 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3112 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3119 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3120 echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3121 echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3122 echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3126 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3127 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3129 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3131 in their name, e.g.,
3135 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3136 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3137 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3138 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3139 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3140 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3144 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3145 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3147 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3149 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3150 ? eval shcodec d $res
3151 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3155 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3156 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3158 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3159 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3162 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3164 If the given name is a registered
3166 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3169 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3171 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3173 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3175 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3176 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3177 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3179 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3181 if that is set, or a builtin compile-time default otherwise.
3183 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3185 (and never the value of
3187 regardless of its actual setting).
3189 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3190 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3191 secondary mailbox, the
3198 directory (if that variable is set).
3200 Expands to the same value as
3202 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3204 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3208 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3209 session will be moved to the
3211 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3215 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3216 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3217 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3218 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3219 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3221 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3223 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3225 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3226 directory of the given user is used instead.
3232 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3233 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3236 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, and the usual
3237 escape mechanism has to be applied to prevent interpretation.
3239 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3241 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3242 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3244 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3248 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3251 The following commands are available:
3253 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3258 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3259 previously executed command if the internal variable
3265 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3267 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3270 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3271 on a line are not possible.
3275 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3281 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3282 a numeric argument n.
3286 Show the current message number (the
3291 Show a brief summary of commands.
3292 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3293 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3294 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3295 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3300 and see how the output changes.
3301 This mode also supports a more
3303 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3314 \*(NQ Interprets the remainder of the word as a macro name and passes
3319 is a shorter synonym for
3320 .Ql call Ar mymacro .
3324 (ac) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3325 Accounts are special incarnations of
3327 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3328 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3329 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3331 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3336 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted via
3339 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3340 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3342 of that account will be activated (as via
3344 a possibly installed
3346 will be run, and the internal variable
3349 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3351 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3353 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3354 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3355 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3361 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3362 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3366 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3367 The return status is tracked via
3369 The first argument must be either
3373 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3374 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3375 argument, which should be a prepared address.
3376 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3377 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3379 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3380 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3382 Encoding supports three different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3383 chosen by prefixing one or two plus signs: the standard imposes
3384 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3385 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3387 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3388 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3389 Specify one plus sign to remark that double quotation marks are not be
3390 turned into quoted-pairs, and two for also leaving any user-specified
3391 reverse solidus alone.
3392 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported.
3393 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3396 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3397 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3398 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3399 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3400 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3401 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3402 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
3407 (a) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists that
3408 map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3409 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed; to
3410 delete aliases, use the command
3412 With no arguments the command shows all currently defined aliases.
3413 With one argument, shows the expansion of the given alias.
3414 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3415 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3416 Alias names are restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3417 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon, commercial at and
3418 period, the last character can also be the dollar sign:
3419 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@.-]+$? .
3423 (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3424 members of which will be removed from recipient lists when replying to
3427 variable is not set).
3428 Without arguments the current set of alternates is displayed, otherwise
3429 the set of alternate names is replaced by the given arguments, and the
3432 is updated accordingly.
3436 Takes a message list and marks each message as having been answered.
3437 Messages will be marked answered when being
3439 to automatically if the
3443 .Sx "Message states" .
3448 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3449 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3450 with freely configurable key bindings.
3451 With one argument all bindings for the given context are shown,
3452 specifying an asterisk
3454 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3455 produced if either of
3460 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3461 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3462 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3464 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3465 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3466 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3468 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3469 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3470 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3473 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3474 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3475 This is not true for the shared binding
3477 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3478 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3479 The available contexts are the shared
3483 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3485 which applies to compose mode only.
3489 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3490 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3491 \*(OPally a list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3493 also refer to the name of a terminal capability;
3494 several dozen names will be compiled into \*(UA and may be specified
3497 or, if existing, by their
3499 name, regardless of the actually used terminal control library.
3500 It is however possible to use any capability, as long as the name is
3501 resolvable by the control library or defined in the internal variable
3503 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3504 required to update or remove a binding.
3507 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3508 bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3509 bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3510 bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3511 bind default a,b,c rm -rf / @ # Another editable binding
3512 bind default :kf1 File %
3513 bind compose :kf1 ~e
3517 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3518 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3519 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3520 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
3521 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
3522 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3523 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3524 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3525 and using terminal capabilities does so if no terminal control support
3526 is (currently) available.
3529 The following terminal capability names are builtin and can be used in
3531 or (if available) the two-letter
3533 notation regardless of the actually used library.
3534 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3537 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3539 or the given terminal type;
3542 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3545 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3546 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3548 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3550 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3551 \(em shifted variant.
3552 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3553 Clear to end of line.
3554 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3556 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3558 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3559 \(em shifted variant.
3560 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3562 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3563 \(em shifted variant.
3564 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3566 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3568 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3570 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3571 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3572 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3573 \(em shifted variant.
3574 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3575 Right cursor (ditto).
3576 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3577 \(em shifted variant.
3578 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3579 Down cursor (ditto).
3581 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3582 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3585 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3586 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3588 Add one for each function key up to
3593 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3595 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3597 Add one for each function key up to
3605 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3607 For example, the delete key,
3609 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
3611 then a number is appended for the states
3623 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
3625 The same for the left cursor key,
3627 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
3630 Key bindings can be removed with the command
3632 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
3634 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
3635 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
3636 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
3639 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
3644 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
3646 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
3647 may be accessed via the special parameter syntax that is known from the
3654 Positional parameters may be removed by
3656 ing them off the stack.
3657 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
3659 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
3663 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
3664 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3666 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
3669 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
3676 if the given macro has been created via
3678 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
3682 (ch) Change the working directory to
3684 or the given argument.
3690 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
3691 Takes a message list and a file name and saves the certificates
3692 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
3693 human-readable and PEM format.
3694 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
3695 respective message senders by setting
3696 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
3701 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
3702 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
3703 as documented in the section
3704 .Sx "Character sets" .
3705 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
3706 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
3708 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
3709 is not available (i.e., no
3713 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown.
3714 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
3715 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
3716 existing aliases, as necessary.
3718 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
3720 will remove all aliases.
3724 (ch) Change the working directory to
3726 or the given argument.
3732 Only applicable to threaded mode.
3733 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
3734 in header summaries, unless they are in state
3740 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
3741 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3742 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
3743 which must be one of
3745 for 256-colour terminals,
3750 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
3754 for monochrome terminals.
3755 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
3759 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
3760 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
3764 will show the mappings of all types).
3765 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
3766 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
3767 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
3768 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
3769 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
3770 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
3772 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
3773 .Sx "Coloured display"
3774 for some examples), the following of which exist:
3777 Mappings prefixed with
3779 are used for the \*(OPal builtin Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
3780 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3781 and do not support preconditions.
3783 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3785 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
3786 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
3793 Mappings prefixed with
3795 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
3797 (the current message) and
3799 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
3800 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
3802 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3804 This mapping is used for the
3806 that can be created with the
3810 formats of the variable
3813 For the complete header summary line except the
3815 and the thread structure.
3817 For the thread structure which can be created with the
3819 format of the variable
3824 Mappings prefixed with
3826 are used when displaying messages.
3828 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3830 This mapping is used for so-called
3832 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
3835 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
3836 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
3837 available then if any of the
3839 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
3840 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
3842 For the introductional message info line.
3843 .It Ar view-partinfo
3844 For MIME part info lines.
3848 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
3849 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
3859 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
3860 attributes for a single mapping.
3863 foreground colour attribute:
3873 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
3874 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
3876 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
3878 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
3880 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
3882 216 colors in tuples of 6.
3884 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
3886 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3888 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3889 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3891 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3892 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3894 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3895 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3899 background colour attribute (see
3901 for possible values).
3905 Mappings may be removed with the command
3907 For a generic overview see the section
3908 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3913 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
3914 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
3915 otherwise identical to
3920 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
3921 otherwise identical to
3926 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
3931 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3932 The return status is tracked via
3937 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3939 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3943 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3945 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3949 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
3950 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined.
3951 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
3952 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3961 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
3965 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
3967 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
3969 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3972 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
3974 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
3976 switch) the macro is invoked.
3977 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
3981 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
3984 Macros can be deleted via
3989 (d) Marks the given message list as
3991 Deleted messages will neither be saved in
3993 nor will they be available for most other commands.
3996 variable is set, automatically
4009 Superseded by the multiplexer
4015 Delete the given messages and automatically
4019 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4026 up or down by one message when given
4030 argument, respectively.
4034 Takes a message list and marks each given message as a draft.
4036 .Sx "Message states" .
4040 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4041 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4044 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4046 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4047 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4053 except that is echoes to standard error.
4061 but does not write a trailing newline.
4067 but does not write a trailing newline.
4071 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4073 at each message from the given list in turn.
4074 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4081 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4082 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4084 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4085 if it evaluates true.
4090 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4091 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4095 commands was true, the
4101 (en) Marks the end of an
4102 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4103 conditional execution block.
4108 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4109 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4110 and which are managed in the program
4112 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4113 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4114 internal variables via
4118 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4119 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4120 process environment where they normally are not, a
4122 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4125 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB from TZ
4128 Afterwards changing such variables with
4130 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4131 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4132 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4133 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4135 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4136 the knowledge they ever have been
4139 Note this implies that
4141 may cause loss of links.
4146 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4147 Additionally the subcommands
4151 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4155 but (additionally) link the variable(s) with the program environment and
4156 thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4157 respectively, the program environment.
4162 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4163 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4164 Optionally an error message ring queue is available which stores
4165 duplicates of any error message and notifies the user in interactive
4166 sessions whenever a new error has occurred.
4167 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4168 replaces the eldest.
4171 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4173 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4175 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4179 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4180 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4181 This command passes through the status of the evaluated command.
4184 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4186 # Like this, sh(1)ell-stylish from begin to end: works!
4187 # Result status ends up in $!, then
4188 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
4190 ghost xv '\ecall xverbose'
4203 call yyy '~xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4211 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4212 any saving of messages in
4214 as well as a possibly tracked line editor history file.
4220 but open the mailbox read-only.
4225 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4226 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4227 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4228 the user has made and open a new mailbox.
4229 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4230 will be applied to the
4235 If the name ends with
4240 it is treated as being compressed with
4245 respectively, and transparently handled through an intermediate
4246 (un)compression step (using a temporary file) with the according
4247 facility, sufficient support provided.
4248 Likewise, if the named file does not exist, but a file with one of the
4249 mentioned compression extensions does, then the name is automatically
4250 expanded and the compressed file is used.
4253 Otherwise, if the name ends with an extension for which
4254 .Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION
4256 .Va file-hook-save-EXTENSION
4257 variables are set, then the given hooks will be used to load and save
4259 and \*(UA will work with an intermediate temporary file.
4261 MBOX files (flat file-based mailboxes) are generally locked during file
4262 operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent
4264 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4269 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4270 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4271 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4275 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4276 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4277 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4278 the dotlock file in the same directory
4279 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4282 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4283 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4284 complain (even more with
4286 if any is seen: in this case
4288 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4293 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4298 then it is treated as a folder in
4300 format; \*(ID the variable
4302 can be used to control the format of yet non-existent folders.
4306 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4307 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4310 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification.
4311 The \*(OPally supported protocols are
4315 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport).
4318 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4320 Also see the section
4321 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4326 contains special characters, in particular
4330 they must be escaped in URL notation \(en the command
4332 can be used to show the necessary conversion.
4337 Takes a message list and marks the messages as flagged for
4338 urgent/special attention.
4340 .Sx "Message states" .
4349 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
4350 With an existing folder as an argument,
4351 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
4357 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4358 recipient's address (instead of in
4365 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4366 recipient's address (instead of in
4373 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
4378 .It Ic followupsender
4381 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
4397 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
4398 their message headers, exactly as via
4400 An alias of this command is
4403 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4409 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
4410 recipient's address (instead of in
4415 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
4416 and forwards the message to him.
4417 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
4418 with the value of the
4420 variable preceding it.
4421 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
4423 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
4425 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
4426 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
4427 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4428 unless the internal variable
4434 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4439 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4444 Define or list command aliases, so-called ghosts.
4445 A ghost can be used everywhere a normal command can be used, but always
4446 takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command alias are
4447 joined onto the alias content, and the resulting string forms the
4448 command line that is, in effect, executed.
4449 Command ghosts can be removed with
4451 Without arguments a list of all currently known aliases is shown.
4452 With one argument the expansion of the given alias is shown.
4454 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4455 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4456 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4457 A ghost may itself expand to another ghost, but to avoid expansion loops
4458 further expansion will be prevented if a ghost refers to itself or if an
4459 expansion depth limit is reached.
4460 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4463 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4464 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4466 \*(uA: `ghost': no such alias: xx
4469 ghost xx "echo hello,"
4479 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to establish white- and blacklisting
4480 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
4481 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
4482 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
4483 command applies, one of (case-insensitively)
4485 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
4488 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
4494 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
4495 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
4497 for stripping down messages when
4499 ing message (has no effect if
4500 .Va forward-as-attachment
4503 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
4507 The current settings of the given context are displayed if only the
4508 first argument is given.
4509 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
4510 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
4514 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
4515 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
4517 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
4521 With four or more arguments the third denotes the action to be applied,
4526 for addition of fields, and
4530 for removal of fields from the given type of the given context.
4531 The fourth, and any following arguments are expected to specify the
4532 fields of desire, or \*(OPally, regular expression matches ought to
4534 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
4536 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields, or
4537 remove all fields in one operation, respectively.
4542 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
4545 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
4547 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
4548 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
4563 the list of history entries;
4566 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
4567 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
4568 offset to the current command, e.g.,
4570 will select the last command, the history top.
4571 The default mode if no arguments are given is
4578 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
4583 Does not override the
4586 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
4588 command issued after
4590 will display the following message, not the current one.
4595 (i) Part of the nestable
4596 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4597 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
4598 the encapsulated block is executed.
4599 POSIX only supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
4604 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions; note that
4605 falsely specified conditions cause the execution of the entire
4606 conditional construct until the (matching) closing
4608 command to be suppressed.
4609 The syntax of the nestable
4611 conditional execution construct requires that each condition and syntax
4612 element is surrounded by whitespace.
4614 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4623 The (case-insensitive) condition
4625 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
4626 in interactive sessions.
4627 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
4628 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4629 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
4632 .Dq always execute .
4633 It is possible to check
4634 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4637 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
4638 value or another variable by using the
4640 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
4641 conditional trigger character;
4642 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
4644 The variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
4647 Integer operators treat the left and right hand side as integral numbers
4648 and compare them arithmetically.
4649 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
4650 operand is treated as if it were 0.
4651 Available operators are
4655 (less than or equal to),
4661 (greater than or equal to), and
4666 String operators compare the left and right hand side 8-bit byte-wise,
4667 ignoring case according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding
4668 (therefore, dependent on the active locale, possibly producing false
4669 results for strings in the locale encoding).
4670 An unset variable is treated as the empty string.
4671 Available operators are
4675 (less than or equal to),
4681 (greater than or equal to),
4685 (is substring of) and
4687 (is not substring of).
4690 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
4696 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
4697 matched case-insensitively and according to the active
4699 locale, meaning that strings in the locale encoding should be matched
4703 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
4705 and the OR operator is
4707 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
4708 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
4710 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
4711 them in pairs of brackets
4712 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
4713 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
4717 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
4718 via unary operators: the unary operator
4720 will reverse the result.
4722 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4726 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" == UTF8 ]
4727 echo *ttycharset* is set to UTF-8, case-insensitively
4730 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
4731 echo These two variables are equal
4733 # This is a string test, -ge was added for v14.9.0
4734 if [ "$version-major" >= 15 ]
4735 echo Running a new version..
4736 if [ "$features" =@ +regex ]
4737 if [ "$TERM" =~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
4738 echo ..in an X terminal
4741 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
4742 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
4745 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
4746 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
4748 if ! ! true && ! [ ! "$debug" && ! "$verbose" ]
4749 echo Unary operator support
4759 Superseded by the multiplexer
4764 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
4765 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
4766 in which command prefixes are searched.
4767 In conjunction with a set variable
4769 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
4770 type will be indicated, the \*(OPal documentation string will be shown,
4771 and the set of command flags will show up:
4773 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
4774 .It Ql "vput modifier"
4775 command supports the command modifier
4777 .It Ql "status in *!*"
4778 the soft exit status is tracked in
4781 commands needs an active mailbox, a
4783 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
4784 command may only be used in interactive or
4787 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
4788 command can be used in send mode.
4789 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
4790 command is not available when in compose-mode.
4791 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
4792 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
4793 .Sx "Resource files" .
4794 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
4795 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
4796 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
4797 .Va on-compose-splice .
4802 This command can be used to localize changes to variables, meaning that
4803 their state will be reverted to the former one once the covered scope
4805 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
4809 and is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
4810 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ) ;
4813 of an account is left once it is switched off again.
4814 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4815 define temporary_settings {
4816 set possibly_global_option1
4821 set possibly_global_option2
4830 enables change localization and calls
4832 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
4834 will still be reverted by
4836 \*(ID Once the outermost level, the one which enabled localization
4837 first, is left, but no earlier, all adjustments will be unrolled.
4838 \*(ID Likewise worth knowing, if in this example
4840 changes to a different
4842 which sets some variables that are yet covered by localizations, their
4843 scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
4845 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
4846 were defined in a local, private context.
4850 Reply to messages that come in via known
4853 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
4854 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
4855 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
4858 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
4859 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
4861 For example it will also implicitly generate a
4862 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
4863 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
4870 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4871 recipient's address (instead of in
4876 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
4877 or asks on standard input if none were given;
4878 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
4882 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to
4884 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
4887 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
4889 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
4893 Without any arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed.
4894 Otherwise each argument defines a complete MIME type specification of
4895 a type that shall be added (prepended) to the cache.
4896 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
4897 .Va mimetypes-load-control
4898 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
4899 Refer to the section on
4900 .Sx "The mime.types files"
4901 for more on MIME type specifications and this topic in general.
4902 MIME type unregistration and cache resets can be triggered with
4907 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists
4908 (and their attributes, if any) is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4909 produced if either of
4914 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4915 whitespace) will be added and henceforth be recognized as mailing lists.
4916 Mailing lists may be removed via the command
4919 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
4920 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
4926 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists which
4927 have a subscription attribute is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4928 produced if either of
4933 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
4934 newly creating them as necessary (as via
4936 Subscription attributes may be removed via the command
4945 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
4946 sender address of the first message (instead of in
4953 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
4960 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4962 selection, and all MIME parts.
4970 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4971 standard output is a terminal.
4977 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
4979 has been given the content of the
4981 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
4984 then the cache will only be initialized and
4986 will remove its contents.
4987 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
4988 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
4989 to unlock further attempts.
4994 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
4996 .Sx "The .netrc file"
4997 documents the file format in detail.
5001 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5003 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5007 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5008 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5016 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5017 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5031 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5033 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5039 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5041 selection, and all MIME parts.
5049 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5050 standard output is a terminal.
5058 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5060 selection, and all parts of MIME
5061 .Ql multipart/alternative
5066 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5067 and pipes the messages through the command.
5068 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5075 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5096 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5099 preserving all messages marked with
5103 or never referenced in the system
5105 and removing all other messages from the
5107 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5108 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5110 .Dq You have new mail
5112 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5114 then the edit file is rewritten.
5115 A return to the shell is effected,
5116 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5117 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5121 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, and assign the splitted and
5122 trimmed line data to the given variables.
5123 The variable names are check by the same rules as documented for
5125 If there are more fields than variables, assign successive fields to the
5126 last given variable.
5127 If there are less fields than variables, assign the empty string to the
5129 The return status is tracked via
5131 even though variable names are checked errors may still happen if it is
5132 tried to set, e.g., strings to variables which expect number settings;
5133 it thus only happens if names are used which have special meaning to \*(UA.
5134 \*(ID This command will likely be extended towards more
5136 compatibility: for now splitting always occurs at whitespace, reverse
5137 solidus newline escaping is always supported, and the \*(OPal line
5138 editing features are always available when on an interactive terminal.
5139 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5142 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5158 Removes the named files or directories.
5159 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5160 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5161 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5165 Takes the name of an existing folder
5166 and the name for the new folder
5167 and renames the first to the second one.
5168 Both folders must be of the same type.
5172 (R) Reply to originator.
5173 Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
5175 will exchange this command with
5177 Unless the internal variable
5179 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5183 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
5186 .Va followup-to-honour ,
5189 .Va recipients-in-cc
5190 influence response behaviour.
5193 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
5194 Unless the internal variable
5196 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5209 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
5216 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
5223 but does not add any header lines.
5224 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
5225 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
5229 Takes a list of messages and a user name
5230 and sends each message to the named user.
5232 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
5250 .It Ic respondsender
5256 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
5261 Only available inside the scope of a
5265 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
5266 execution control to the caller.
5267 If no arguments are specified, the return value, which will be stored in
5269 as well as the macro command exit status, which is made available in
5272 If only the return value is given the command exit status will be 0.
5273 Both optional parameters must be specified as unsigned (positive)
5276 \*(ID Notes: any non-0 command exit status is treated as a hard error
5277 by the state machinery, and will be propagated up and cause, e.g.,
5278 a file inclusion via
5280 to fail; this two argument form likely is a temporary hack that will
5287 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
5288 sender of the first message instead of (in
5290 and) taking a filename argument.
5294 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
5295 to the end of the file.
5296 If no filename is given, the
5299 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
5300 is echoed on the user's terminal.
5303 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
5304 the messages are marked for deletion.
5305 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5310 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5315 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5320 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5325 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
5326 all matching messages, as via
5328 This command is an alias of
5331 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5335 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
5339 (se) Without arguments this command shows all internal variables which
5340 are currently known to \*(UA (they have been set).
5341 A more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5345 are set, in which case variables may be preceded with a comment line
5346 that gives some context of what \*(UA knows about the given variable.
5348 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
5349 Arguments are of the form
5351 (no space before or after
5355 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
5356 Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
5357 statement to quote blanks or tabs, e.g.,
5359 .Dl set indentprefix='->'
5361 If an argument begins with
5365 the effect is the same as invoking the
5367 command with the remaining part of the variable
5368 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
5372 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
5373 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
5374 environment requires corresponding system support).
5375 Please use the command
5377 for further environmental control.
5382 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5388 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
5392 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5393 The return status is tracked via
5395 The first argument specifies the operation:
5399 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
5400 expanded away thereof, respectively.
5401 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
5402 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
5403 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
5404 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
5408 (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
5412 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
5414 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
5415 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
5417 Shortcuts can be removed with the command
5422 Only available inside the scope of a
5424 ed macro, this will shift the positional parameters (starting at
5426 by the given number (which must be an unsigned, positive, decimal),
5427 or 1 if no argument has been given.
5428 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
5429 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
5435 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
5436 message text is shown.
5440 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
5445 Shows the current sorting criterion when used without an argument.
5446 Otherwise creates a sorted representation of the current folder,
5449 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
5451 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
5455 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
5456 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
5458 variable, as in, e.g.,
5459 .Ql set autosort=thread .
5460 Possible sorting criterions are:
5462 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
5464 Sort the messages by their
5466 field, that is by the time they were sent.
5468 Sort messages by the value of their
5470 field, that is by the address of the sender.
5473 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
5475 Sort the messages by their size.
5477 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
5480 Sort the messages by their message status.
5482 Sort the messages by their subject.
5484 Create a threaded display.
5486 Sort messages by the value of their
5488 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
5491 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
5496 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
5497 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5499 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
5501 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
5502 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
5503 Interpretation of commands read is stopped when an error is encountered.
5506 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
5507 .Va folder-hook Ns s
5510 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
5515 \*(NQ The difference to
5517 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
5518 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
5519 argument cannot be opened successfully.
5523 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
5529 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
5531 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
5532 Unless otherwise noted the
5534 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
5542 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5546 This also clears the
5548 flag of the messages in question.
5552 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
5553 .Va spam-interface ,
5554 without modifying the messages, but setting their
5556 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
5557 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
5558 Refer to the manual section
5560 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
5564 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
5570 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5576 flag of the messages in question.
5585 Create a threaded representation of the current folder,
5586 i.\|e. indent messages that are replies to other messages in the header
5587 display and change the
5589 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in the
5591 Message numbers are the same as in unthreaded mode.
5595 a header summary in threaded order is also displayed.
5604 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
5608 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
5610 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
5611 Unless a special selection has been established for the
5615 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
5626 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
5628 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5633 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in
5635 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
5638 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
5644 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5646 selection, and all parts of MIME
5647 .Ql multipart/alternative
5652 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users'
5656 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
5660 are shown, the other are hidden except for their headers.
5661 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5666 Delete all given accounts.
5667 An error message is shown if a given account is not defined.
5670 will discard all existing accounts.
5674 (una) Takes a list of names defined by alias commands
5675 and discards the remembered groups of users.
5678 will discard all existing aliases.
5682 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been answered.
5688 ing, specified by its context and input sequence, both of which may be
5689 specified as a wildcard (asterisk,
5693 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
5697 Only applicable to threaded mode.
5698 Takes a message list and makes the message and all replies to it visible
5699 in header summaries again.
5700 When a message becomes the current message,
5701 it is automatically made visible.
5702 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
5703 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
5709 mapping for the given colour type (see
5711 for a list of types) and mapping; if the optional precondition argument
5712 is used then only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
5715 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed).
5717 .Sx "Coloured display"
5718 for the general picture.
5722 Undefine all given macros.
5723 An error message is shown if a given macro is not defined.
5726 will discard all existing macros.
5730 (u) Takes a message list and marks each message as not being deleted.
5733 variable is set, the last message restored will be
5735 d automatically; if no message list had been specified then the usual
5736 search for a visible message is performed, as documented for
5738 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
5746 Takes a message list and
5752 Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
5757 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5762 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5767 Remove all the given command
5771 will remove all ghosts.
5775 Superseded by the multiplexer
5780 Delete all given MIME types, e.g.,
5781 .Ql unmimetype text/plain
5782 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5786 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5788 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5789 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5793 Forget about all the given mailing lists.
5796 will remove all lists.
5801 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
5802 Remove the subscription attribute from all given mailing lists.
5805 will clear the attribute from all lists which have it set.
5816 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
5820 Superseded by the multiplexer
5825 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5830 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5835 \*(NQ (uns) Takes a list of internal variable names and discards their
5836 remembered values; the reverse of
5845 s given as arguments, the special argument
5847 will remove all shortcuts.
5851 Disable sorted or threaded mode
5857 return to normal message order and,
5861 displays a header summary.
5871 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
5872 according to RFC 3986.
5876 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5877 The return status is tracked via
5879 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
5880 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current locale, unless
5881 the input solely consists of characters in the portable character set, see
5882 .Sx "Character sets" .
5883 \*(ID This command does not about URLs beside that.
5885 The first argument specifies the operation:
5889 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
5893 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
5894 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
5896 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
5900 as an initial character.
5901 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
5905 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
5907 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
5913 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
5917 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
5921 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
5922 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
5923 verification will fail for it.
5924 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
5926 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
5927 within the certificate,
5928 and if the message content has been altered.
5941 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
5942 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
5943 numeric calculations as well as string operations.
5944 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
5945 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
5946 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
5950 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5951 The return status is tracked via
5953 the result that is shown in case of (soft) errors is
5955 In general only invalid use cases cause hard errors which are reflected in
5957 and affect the state machine.
5960 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
5961 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
5963 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
5964 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
5966 which creates the bitwise complement.
5967 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
5969 subtraction (hyphen-minus
5971 multiplication (asterisk
5975 and modulo (percent sign
5977 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
5980 bitwise and (ampersand
5983 bitwise xor (circumflex
5985 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
5988 as well as for the unsigned right shift
5992 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
5996 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
5997 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are still reflected in
5998 the return status, but the result will linger at the minimum or maximum
5999 possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
6000 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
6001 If in saturated mode the overflow occurs during parsing the numbers,
6002 then the actual operation will not be performed but the given maximum
6003 value is used as the result immediately.
6006 String operations that take one argument are
6008 which queries the length of the given argument,
6010 which calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given string, and
6012 which performs the usual
6013 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6014 on its argument, as well as
6016 which generates a random string of the given length, or of
6018 bytes (a constant from
6020 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
6021 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a file name.
6024 String operations with two or more arguments are
6026 which searches in the first for the second argument, and shows the
6027 resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found,
6029 which is identical to
6031 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
6034 will show a substring of its first argument:
6035 the second argument is the 0-based starting offset, the optional third
6036 argument can be used to specify the length of the desired substring,
6037 by default the entire string is used;
6038 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments, but the (soft)
6039 return status will still reflect them (set
6046 will try to match the first argument with the regular expression given
6047 in the second argument, as does
6049 but which is case-insensitive.
6050 These operators match according to the active
6052 locale and thus should match correctly strings in the locale encoding.
6053 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
6054 the match offset a replacement operation is performed:
6055 the third argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote
6057 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
6058 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
6060 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression.
6062 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6063 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
6064 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama (.*)nana(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
6071 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
6072 Modified contents are discarded unless the
6078 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
6079 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
6081 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
6082 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
6083 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
6084 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
6085 depends on the execution mode.
6086 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
6088 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
6089 the processed parts.
6090 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
6091 value, the same result as writing it to
6093 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
6095 character for the filename is supported.
6096 Other user input undergoes the usual
6097 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6098 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
6101 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
6102 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
6103 URL percent encoded (as via
6105 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
6106 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
6107 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
6108 a dot are appended after a number sign
6110 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
6120 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
6122 fuls as described under the
6125 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
6126 likewise if the argument is
6130 scrolls to the last,
6132 scrolls to the first, and
6137 A number argument prefixed by
6141 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
6142 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
6148 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
6158 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
6159 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6161 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
6162 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
6163 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines.
6164 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
6166 it defaults to the tilde
6170 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
6173 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
6175 (If the escape character has been changed,
6176 that character must be doubled
6177 in order to send it at the beginning of a line.)
6180 .It Ic ~! Ar command
6181 Execute the indicated shell
6183 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
6184 executed command if the internal variable
6186 is set, then return to the message.
6190 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
6193 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
6194 Execute the given \*(UA command.
6195 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
6199 Write a summary of command escapes.
6202 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
6207 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
6209 is executed using the shell.
6210 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
6213 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
6214 Append or edit the list of attachments.
6217 arguments is expected (see
6218 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
6219 any token-separating commas are ignored), to be
6220 interpreted as documented for the command line option
6222 with the message number exception as below.
6225 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
6226 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
6227 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
6228 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
6231 For each mode, if a given file name solely consists of the number sign
6233 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
6234 the given message is attached as a MIME
6236 part (note the number sign is the comment character and must be quoted).
6240 Inserts the string contained in the
6243 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
6248 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6256 Inserts the string contained in the
6259 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
6264 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6271 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
6272 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
6275 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
6276 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
6280 Read the file specified by the
6282 variable into the message.
6286 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
6287 After the editing session is finished,
6288 the user may continue appending text to the message.
6291 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
6292 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
6293 message headers and MIME parts.
6294 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6297 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
6298 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
6299 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6300 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6302 white- and blacklist selection of
6304 For MIME multipart messages,
6305 only the first displayable part is included.
6309 Edit the message header fields
6314 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6315 The default values for these fields originate from the
6323 Edit the message header fields
6329 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6332 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
6333 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message,
6334 adding a newline character at the end.
6335 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
6340 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6347 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
6348 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6351 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6354 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
6355 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6358 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6359 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6361 white- and blacklist selection of
6363 For MIME multipart messages,
6364 only the first displayable part is included.
6368 Display the message collected so far,
6369 prefaced by the message header fields
6370 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
6374 Abort the message being sent,
6375 copying it to the file specified by the
6382 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
6385 but indent each line that has been read by
6389 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
6390 Read the named file into the message.
6392 can also be a hyphen-minus
6394 in which case standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
6395 Only in this latter mode
6397 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
6399 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
6401 is a required argument in non-interactive mode;
6402 note that variables expansion is performed on the delimiter.
6406 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
6407 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
6408 normalized to space (SP) characters.
6411 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
6412 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
6415 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
6416 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
6420 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
6421 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
6425 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
6427 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
6428 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
6429 After the editor is quit,
6430 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
6433 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
6434 Write the message onto the named file.
6436 the message is appended to it.
6442 except that the message is not saved at all.
6445 .It Ic ~| Ar command
6446 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
6447 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
6448 retain the original text of the message.
6451 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
6455 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
6456 Low-level command ment for scripted message access, i.e., for
6457 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
6459 .Va on-compose-splice .
6460 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
6461 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
6462 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
6463 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
6464 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
6465 The status codes are:
6468 .Bl -tag -compact -width _210_
6470 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
6472 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6473 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
6474 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
6475 plain address, e.g.,
6477 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
6478 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
6479 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
6481 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6482 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
6483 terminated by an empty line.
6484 (All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before
6485 further commands can be issued.)
6487 Syntax error; invalid command.
6489 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
6491 Error: an argument fails verification.
6492 For example an invalid address has been specified.
6494 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
6495 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
6496 a single address only.
6500 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
6502 Most commands can fail with
6504 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
6505 The following commands are supported, and, as usual, case-insensitive:
6508 .Bl -hang -width header
6510 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
6511 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6514 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6516 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
6518 this command is the default command of
6520 if no second argument has been given.
6521 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
6524 if no such field is defined.
6527 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
6528 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
6532 any failure results in
6536 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
6541 if no such header can be found.
6544 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
6545 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
6546 (the remains of the line).
6549 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
6550 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
6552 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks, and
6554 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
6556 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
6558 is returned upon success.
6563 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
6564 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6567 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6569 List all attachments via
6573 if no attachments exist.
6574 This command is the default command of
6576 if no second argument has been given.
6579 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
6583 if no such attachment can be found.
6584 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
6585 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
6586 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
6587 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
6588 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
6591 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
6593 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
6594 will be searched for
6596 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
6597 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
6602 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
6603 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
6607 if the argument is not a number or
6609 if no such attachment exists.
6612 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
6613 documented for the command line option
6615 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
6619 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
6621 if the given file cannot be opened,
6623 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
6625 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
6626 requested but not available.
6629 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6631 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
6635 if no such attachment can be found.
6636 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
6637 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
6641 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6643 and is otherwise identical to
6646 .It Ar attribute-set
6647 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6649 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
6650 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
6651 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
6652 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
6653 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
6656 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
6658 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
6660 if no such attachment can be found.
6661 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
6663 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ql filename"
6665 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
6666 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
6667 .It Ql content-description
6668 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
6669 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
6671 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
6672 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
6675 upon address content verification failure.
6677 Specifies the media type and subtype of the part; managed automatically.
6678 .It Ql content-disposition
6679 Automatically set to the string
6683 .It Ar attribute-set-at
6684 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6686 and is otherwise identical to
6696 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
6697 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6699 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
6703 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
6707 has the same effect as using
6713 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
6718 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
6720 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
6721 Both commands support a more
6724 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
6727 implicitly, others can be explicitly imported with the command
6729 and henceforth share said properties.
6732 Two different kind of internal variables exist.
6733 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
6737 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
6738 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
6739 introduction of the section
6741 documents the supported quoting rules.
6743 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6744 wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
6745 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
6746 varshow one two three four; \e
6747 unset one two three four
6751 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
6752 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
6753 a special kind of string value, the
6754 .Dq boolean string ,
6755 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
6759 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
6765 for a false boolean and
6771 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
6773 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
6774 (case-insensitive) term
6778 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
6779 boolean as the default value.
6781 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
6782 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
6783 .Ss "Initial Settings"
6785 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
6791 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
6805 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
6807 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
6809 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
6817 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
6826 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
6828 variable \(en use command line options or
6830 to pass options through to a
6832 And the default global
6834 file, which is loaded unless the
6836 (with according argument) or
6838 command line options have been used, or the
6839 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
6840 environment variable is set (see
6841 .Sx "Resource files" )
6842 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
6847 to name a few, establishes a default
6849 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
6852 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
6855 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
6859 \*(RO The (hard) exit status of the last command.
6860 This exit status has a meaning for the state machine, in parts
6861 prescribed by the POSIX standard, and, e.g., for
6864 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
6865 This is why \*(UA also knows about a
6867 exit status, which is tracked in
6874 exit status of the last command, which, different to
6876 has no meaning for the state machine, and can therefore easily transport
6877 different error-indicating values.
6878 It is directly addressable with the command
6889 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6891 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6893 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6895 are not yet supported.
6899 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6901 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6903 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6905 are not yet supported.
6909 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6911 ed macro, this will expand to the number of positional parameters in
6916 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
6920 ed macro, this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
6921 string if the macro is running from top-level.
6922 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
6924 this expands to the entire matching expression.
6928 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
6932 ed macro, this will access the first positional parameter passed.
6933 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
6936 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
6938 Positional parameters are also accessible in the \*(OPal regular
6939 expression search and replace expression of
6944 \*(RO Is set to the active
6949 \*(RO Is set to the list of
6953 .It Va -folder-resolved
6954 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
6956 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
6959 .It Va -mailbox-display
6960 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
6962 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
6965 .It Va -mailbox-resolved
6966 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
6969 .It Va add-file-recipients
6970 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
6971 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
6972 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
6973 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
6977 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
6978 when comparing addresses.
6982 \*(BO Causes messages saved in
6984 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
6985 This should always be set.
6989 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
6990 If the user responds with simply a newline,
6991 no subject field will be sent.
6995 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
6999 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
7003 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
7004 shall the list be found empty at that time.
7005 An empty line finalizes the list.
7009 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
7010 (at the end of each message if
7014 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7015 An empty line finalizes the list.
7019 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
7020 recipients (at the end of each message if
7024 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7025 An empty line finalizes the list.
7029 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
7030 signed at the end of each message.
7033 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
7037 \*(BO Alternative name for
7042 A sequence of characters to display in the
7046 as shown in the display of
7048 each for one type of messages (see
7049 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
7050 with the default being
7053 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
7056 variable is set, in the following order:
7058 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
7080 start of a collapsed thread.
7082 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
7086 classified as possible spam.
7092 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
7093 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
7097 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
7098 message will be sent automatically.
7102 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
7109 \*(BO Enable automatic
7111 ing of a(n existing)
7117 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
7119 is shown automatically, as via
7126 \*(BO\*(OB Causes threaded mode (see the
7128 command) to be entered automatically when a folder is opened.
7130 .Ql autosort=thread .
7134 Causes sorted mode (see the
7136 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
7137 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
7138 .Ql set autosort=thread .
7142 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
7145 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
7147 shell escape command and
7149 one of the compose mode
7150 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7151 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
7154 .It Va batch-exit-on-error
7155 If the batch mode has been enabled via the
7157 command line option, then this variable will be consulted whenever \*(UA
7158 completes one operation.
7159 It is ment as a convenient alternative to manually testing
7161 If any value is set, a number is expected; if it is
7163 then each failed operation will cause \*(UA to exit.
7165 \*(ID If it is set without a value, then only top-level operations that
7167 .Dq on the command-prompt ,
7168 i.e., neither in running macros nor from within source files etc., are
7169 considered, unless a main operation that directly affects the return
7170 value, like, e.g., a failed
7172 command, is affected; this mode of operation is likely to change in v15,
7173 and tests should be performed to see whether the desired effect is seen.
7177 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
7178 input, for example for function and other special keys.
7179 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
7180 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
7181 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
7182 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
7183 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
7189 \*(BO Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
7191 command, and thus complements the standard variable
7193 which controls header summary display on program startup.
7194 It is only meaningful if
7200 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
7201 has the same affect as setting
7203 and all other variables prefixed with
7205 it also changes the behaviour of
7207 (which does not exist in BSD).
7211 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
7212 summary to traditional BSD style.
7216 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
7221 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
7227 field to appear immediately after the
7229 field in message headers and with the
7231 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7235 The value that should appear in the
7239 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
7241 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
7242 US-ASCII compatible.
7246 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
7247 member of the variable
7249 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
7250 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
7253 and this variable is effectively ignored.
7254 Refer to the section
7255 .Sx "Character sets"
7256 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
7259 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
7260 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
7262 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
7264 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
7265 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
7266 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
7268 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
7269 otherwise the (final) value of
7271 is used for this purpose.
7273 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
7274 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
7275 of a MIME message part that uses the
7277 character set is forcefully treated as text.
7281 The default value for the
7286 .It Va colour-disable
7287 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
7288 Also see the section
7289 .Sx "Coloured display" .
7293 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
7295 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
7303 in order to support colours.
7304 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
7305 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
7307 (see there for more).
7311 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
7312 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
7313 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
7317 can be forced by setting this to the value
7319 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
7320 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
7325 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
7326 format, which, dependent on the
7328 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
7329 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
7333 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
7334 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
7337 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
7338 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
7340 .Va on-compose-splice .
7341 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
7342 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
7344 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
7347 .Dl set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
7351 Controls the appearance of the
7353 date and time format specification of the
7355 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
7357 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
7358 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
7360 It is possible to assign a
7362 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
7364 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
7366 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
7368 .Va datefield-markout-older .
7371 .It Va datefield-markout-older
7372 Only used in conjunction with
7374 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
7375 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
7377 option of the POSIX utility
7379 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
7381 will be displayed, but a
7383 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
7389 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
7390 actual delivery of messages and also implies
7396 .It Va disposition-notification-send
7398 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
7399 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
7403 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
7405 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7406 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
7407 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
7409 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7410 .\"for a specific account.
7414 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
7416 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive) compose mode
7417 will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the normal end-of-file
7426 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
7427 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
7429 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
7430 es (see, e.g., the notes on
7431 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7432 as well as the documentation of
7434 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
7435 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
7436 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
7437 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
7438 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
7439 fatal unless this variable is set.
7443 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
7444 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
7446 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7450 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
7454 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
7455 its header is included in the editable text.
7465 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
7469 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
7470 .Dq \&No mail for user
7471 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
7472 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or nonexistent
7473 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
7480 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
7481 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
7482 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
7485 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7488 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
7489 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
7490 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
7491 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
7492 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
7493 .It Ql quoted-printable
7495 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
7496 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
7497 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
7498 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
7499 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
7500 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
7501 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
7503 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
7504 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
7506 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
7507 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
7508 to four bytes of output.
7509 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
7515 If defined, the first character of the value of this variable
7516 gives the character to use in place of tilde
7519 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7520 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
7524 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
7525 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
7526 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
7527 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
7528 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
7530 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
7531 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7535 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
7537 (it actually acts like
7538 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
7539 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7541 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
7544 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
7545 send error instead of only filtering them out.
7546 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
7547 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
7549 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
7553 addresses all possible address specifications,
7557 command pipeline targets,
7559 plain user names and (MTA) aliases (\*(OB
7561 may be used as an alternative syntax to
7566 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
7567 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
7568 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
7569 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
7573 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
7575 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
7576 To change this and ensure that any encountered invalid email address
7577 instead causes a hard error, ensure the string
7579 is an entry in the above list.
7580 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
7581 (it actually acts like
7582 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
7583 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7587 Unless this variable is set additional
7589 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
7590 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
7592 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
7593 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
7595 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
7596 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
7597 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
7599 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
7600 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7607 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
7609 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
7612 The output of the command
7614 will include this information.
7618 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
7619 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
7620 included in the header of a message
7621 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
7622 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
7623 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
7626 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
7628 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
7629 are not affected by the current setting of
7634 .It Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION , file-hook-save-EXTENSION
7635 It is possible to install file hooks which will be used by the
7637 command in order to be able to transparently handle (through an
7638 intermediate temporary file) files with specific
7640 s: the variable values can include shell snippets and are expected to
7641 write data to standard output / read data from standard input,
7643 \*(ID The variables may not be changed while there is a mailbox
7645 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7646 set file-hook-load-xy='echo >&2 XY-LOAD; gzip -cd' \e
7647 file-hook-save-xy='echo >&2 XY-SAVE; gzip -c' \e
7648 record=+null-sent.xy
7653 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
7654 file names that begin with the plus sign
7656 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
7657 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
7658 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
7661 for more on this topic.
7662 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
7663 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
7667 will be prefixed automatically.
7671 This variable can be set to the name of a
7673 macro which will be called whenever a
7676 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
7677 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
7678 only include newly arrived messages then.
7680 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
7681 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
7684 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
7685 One should be aware of that and possibly embed version checks in the
7686 used resource file(s).
7689 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
7694 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
7695 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
7696 However, if the mailbox resides under
7700 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
7704 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
7705 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
7707 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
7708 first, but then followed by
7709 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
7713 \*(BO Controls whether a
7714 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7715 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
7717 .Va followup-to-honour
7719 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
7724 .It Va followup-to-honour
7726 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7727 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
7731 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
7741 .It Va forward-as-attachment
7742 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
7745 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
7746 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
7748 attachments with all of their parts included.
7752 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
7754 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
7755 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
7756 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
7759 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
7763 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
7764 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
7766 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
7769 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
7773 contains more than one address,
7776 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
7778 If a file-based MTA is used, then
7780 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
7782 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
7783 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
7785 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
7786 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
7787 .Va r-option-implicit .
7791 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
7792 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
7793 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
7794 and comments, names etc. are retained.
7798 The string to put before the text of a message with the
7802 .Va forward-as-attachment
7805 .Dq -------- Original Message --------
7806 if unset; No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
7810 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
7811 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
7812 the current folder; enabled by default.
7813 The command line option
7819 complements this and controls header summary display on folder changes.
7824 A format string to use for the summary of
7826 similar to the ones used for
7829 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
7831 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
7832 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
7833 Valid format specifiers are:
7836 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7838 A plain percent sign.
7841 a space character but for the current message
7843 for which it expands to
7847 a space character but for the current message
7849 for which it expands to
7852 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
7855 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
7857 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
7861 The date found in the
7863 header of the message when
7865 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
7866 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
7871 The indenting level in threaded mode.
7873 The address of the message sender.
7875 The message thread tree structure.
7876 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
7878 The number of lines of the message, if available.
7882 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
7884 Message subject (if any).
7886 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
7888 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
7889 subscribed mailing list \(en see
7894 The position in threaded/sorted order.
7898 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
7900 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
7911 .It Va headline-bidi
7912 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
7913 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
7914 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
7915 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
7916 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
7917 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
7919 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
7920 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
7921 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
7923 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
7924 fields that may occur when displaying
7926 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
7928 with special Unicode control sequences;
7929 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
7931 no value (or any value other than
7936 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
7937 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
7938 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
7940 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
7942 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
7944 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
7945 sequences onto the line).
7950 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
7951 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
7955 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
7956 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
7961 .It Va history-gabby
7962 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
7965 .It Va history-gabby-persist
7966 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
7968 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
7969 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
7970 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
7976 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
7978 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
7979 loading and incorporation of the
7981 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
7982 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
7983 entries saved to permanent storage.
7987 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
7989 and it is set by default.
7993 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
7994 the value obtained from
7998 It is used, e.g., in
8002 fields, as well as when generating
8004 MIME part related unique ID fields.
8005 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
8006 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
8007 \*(IN in conjunction with the builtin SMTP
8010 also influences the results:
8011 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
8020 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
8021 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
8023 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
8025 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
8026 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
8030 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
8031 messages; instead echo them as
8033 characters and discard the current line.
8037 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
8038 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
8039 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
8040 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
8041 explicitly using one of the commands
8045 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
8048 on a line by itself or by using the
8050 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
8052 overrides a setting of
8057 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
8059 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
8062 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
8065 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8068 for more on this topic.
8069 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
8077 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8080 option for indenting messages,
8081 in place of the normal tabulator character
8083 which is the default.
8084 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
8088 \*(BO If set, an empty system (MBOX) mailbox file is not removed.
8089 Note that, in conjunction with
8092 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
8093 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
8094 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
8095 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
8096 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
8097 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
8098 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
8101 .It Va keep-content-length
8102 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing
8104 mailbox files \*(UA can be told to keep the
8108 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
8109 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
8110 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
8111 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
8112 work with with same mailbox files.
8113 Note that, if this is not set but
8114 .Va writebackedited ,
8115 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
8116 fields already marks the message as being modified.
8120 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
8121 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
8122 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
8125 .It Va line-editor-disable
8126 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
8127 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
8131 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
8132 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
8135 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
8136 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
8137 .Sx "Resource files" .
8138 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
8144 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
8145 it is marked as having been
8148 .Sx "Message states" .
8152 \*(BO If this is set then when opening MBOX mailbox files \*(UA will not
8153 use the tolerant POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
8155 lines), as it does by default for compatibility reasons, but the more
8156 strict rules that have been defined in RFC 4155.
8157 When saving to MBOX mailboxes this indicates when so-called
8159 quoting is to be applied \(em note this is never necessary for any
8160 message newly generated by \*(UA, it only applies to messages generated
8161 by buggy or malicious MUAs.
8162 (\*(UA will use a proper
8166 lines cannot be misinterpreted as message boundaries.)
8168 This should not be set normally, but may be handy when \*(UA complains
8169 about having seen invalid
8171 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case temporarily setting this
8172 variable, re-opening the mailbox in question, unsetting this variable
8173 again and then invoking
8174 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE
8175 will perform proper, POSIX-compliant
8177 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
8181 \*(BO Internal development variable.
8184 .It Va message-id-disable
8185 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
8187 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
8189 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
8190 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
8191 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
8193 This variable also affects automatic generation of
8198 .It Va message-inject-head
8199 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
8200 The escape sequences tabulator
8207 .It Va message-inject-tail
8208 A string to put at the end of each new message.
8209 The escape sequences tabulator
8217 \*(BO Usually, when an
8219 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
8220 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
8225 option to be passed through to the
8227 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
8228 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
8232 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
8233 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
8234 in order to classify the
8237 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
8240 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
8241 a computation rather similar to what the
8243 command produces when used with the
8247 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
8248 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
8249 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
8254 .Ql application/octet-stream :
8255 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
8257 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
8258 interpret the contents of the part.
8260 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
8261 text data at first glance (by a
8265 file extension), then the original
8267 will not be overwritten.
8270 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
8271 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
8272 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
8273 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
8274 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
8275 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
8276 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
8277 contains topic subjects.)
8280 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
8283 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
8284 Some MUAs however do not use
8286 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but simply specify
8287 .Ql application/octet-stream ,
8288 even for plain text attachments like
8290 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to classify such MIME
8291 message parts on its own, if possible, for example via a possibly
8292 existing attachment filename.
8293 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
8294 actually a carrier of bits.
8295 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
8296 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8297 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
8298 Value should be set to 14
8301 .Bl -bullet -compact
8303 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
8305 content-type will be carried along with the message and be used for
8307 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8308 is responsible for the MIME part, shall that question arise;
8309 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
8310 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
8313 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
8314 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
8315 overriding the parts given MIME type.
8317 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
8318 .Ql application/octet-stream
8319 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
8324 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
8325 Can be used to control which of the
8327 databases are loaded by \*(UA, as furtherly described in the section
8328 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8331 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
8333 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
8335 controls loading of the system wide
8336 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
8337 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
8339 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
8340 Incorporation of the \*(UA-builtin MIME types cannot be suppressed,
8341 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
8344 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
8345 value string contains an equals sign
8347 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
8350 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
8351 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
8352 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8353 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
8354 the MIME type cache).
8359 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
8360 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
8362 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
8364 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8367 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
8368 The default has been chosen at compie time.
8369 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
8370 run asynchronously, and without supervision, unless either the
8375 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
8382 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
8384 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
8387 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
8390 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
8393 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
8398 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
8399 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
8400 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
8401 (which will also disable passing
8405 (for not treating a line with only a dot
8407 character as the end of input),
8415 variable is set); in conjunction with the
8417 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
8423 \*(OP \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
8424 defined SMTP smarthost, the access URL of which has to be assigned to
8426 To use this mode it is helpful to read
8427 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
8428 It may be necessary to set the
8430 variable in order to use a specific combination of
8435 with some mail providers.
8438 .Bl -bullet -compact
8440 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
8441 server port 25 and requires setting the
8442 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8443 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
8444 Assign a value like \*(IN
8445 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8447 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
8448 to choose this protocol.
8450 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
8451 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
8452 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
8453 be supported by your hosts network service database
8454 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
8457 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
8458 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
8459 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8461 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
8462 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
8467 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
8468 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
8469 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
8470 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8471 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
8472 Assign a value like \*(IN
8473 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8475 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
8480 .It Va mta-arguments
8481 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
8483 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
8484 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
8485 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
8486 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
8488 .Dl wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"'
8491 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
8492 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
8493 standard command line options to a file-based
8495 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
8499 Many systems use a so-called
8501 environment to ensure compatibility with
8503 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
8505 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
8506 actually executed when calling the file-based
8508 will treat its contents as that name.
8513 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
8514 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
8516 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
8517 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
8521 .Sx "The .netrc file"
8522 documents the file format.
8534 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
8536 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
8537 This can be used to, e.g., store
8541 .Dl set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
8545 If this variable has the value
8547 newly created local folders will be in Maildir format.
8551 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
8552 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
8553 If this variable is set to the special value
8555 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
8556 timestamp changes are detected.
8560 .It Va on-compose-splice-shell , on-compose-splice
8561 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
8562 .Va on-compose-leave
8563 macro hook is called, the
8566 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
8567 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
8569 The difference in between them is that the former is a
8571 command, whereas the latter is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
8572 restricted to a small set of commands (the
8576 will indicate said capability), just enough for the purpose of
8577 controlling the real \*(UA instance sufficiently.
8579 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
8580 to be forgotten after the message has been sent.
8582 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
8583 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
8584 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8585 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproduceabilities sake
8587 will be set to its default.
8588 The compose mode command
8590 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
8591 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
8592 version of said command escape, currently
8594 backward incompatible protocol changes are to be expected in the
8595 future, and it is advisable to make use of the protocol version.
8596 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks because of unexpected control
8597 flow: if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
8598 same time, or one doesn't expect more input but the other is stuck
8599 waiting for consumption of its output.
8600 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8601 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
8603 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
8604 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
8605 read status result;\e
8606 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
8609 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
8612 echo Splice protocol version is $ver
8613 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substr "${hl}" 0 1
8615 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'
8617 if [ "$hl" !@ ' cc' ]
8618 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
8619 vput vexpr es substr "${es}" 0 1
8621 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
8629 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
8630 Macro hooks which will be executed before compose mode is entered, and
8631 after composing has been finished (but before the
8633 is injected, etc.), respectively.
8635 are enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be forgotten after
8636 the message has been sent.
8637 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
8638 execution of the macros:
8640 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va compose_subject"
8643 .It Va compose-sender
8645 .It Va compose-to , compose-cc , compose-bcc
8646 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
8647 .It Va compose-subject
8653 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
8656 and the sender-based filenames for the
8660 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
8662 variable rather than to the current directory,
8663 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
8667 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
8669 is followed by a formfeed character
8673 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
8674 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
8675 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
8676 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
8677 the authentication method requires a password.
8678 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8679 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8681 .It Va password-USER@HOST
8682 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
8683 Set the password for
8687 If no such variable is defined for a host,
8688 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
8689 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8690 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8694 \*(BO Send messages to the
8696 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
8700 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8701 When a MIME message part of type
8703 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
8704 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
8708 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
8709 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
8710 will henceforth display XML
8712 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
8715 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
8716 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
8717 \(em corresponding flag strings are shown in parenthesis below.)
8722 can in fact be used to adjust usage and behaviour of a following shell
8723 command specification by appending trigger characters to it, e.g., the
8724 following hypothetical command specification could be used:
8725 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8726 set pipe-X/Y='@*!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
8730 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
8732 Simply by using the special
8734 prefix the MIME type (shell command) handler will only be invoked to
8735 display or convert the MIME part if the message is addressed directly
8736 and alone by itself.
8737 Use this trigger to disable this and always invoke the handler
8738 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-always ) .
8741 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
8742 but only when it will be displayed
8743 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-noquote ) .
8746 The command will be run asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA,
8747 which may be a handy way to display a, e.g., PDF file while also
8748 continuing to read the mail message
8749 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-async ) .
8750 Asynchronous execution implies
8754 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
8755 temporarily release the terminal to it
8756 .Pf ( Cd needsterminal ) .
8757 This flag is mutual exclusive with
8759 will only be used in interactive mode and implies
8763 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
8764 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
8765 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8766 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ) .
8767 If this trigger is given twice then the file will be unlinked
8768 automatically by \*(UA when the command loop is entered again at latest
8769 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink ) .
8770 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
8773 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
8774 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
8775 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8776 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
8777 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
8778 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
8783 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
8784 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
8785 remaining characters.
8786 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
8790 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
8791 the environment of the shell command:
8794 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
8796 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
8797 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
8800 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
8802 .Va mime-counter-evidence
8803 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
8804 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
8805 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
8809 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
8810 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
8813 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
8817 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8818 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
8819 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
8825 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
8826 This is identical to
8827 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8830 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
8831 names a file extension, e.g.,
8833 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
8836 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
8837 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
8838 The only possible value as of now is
8840 which is thus the default.
8843 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
8844 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
8845 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
8846 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
8847 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
8849 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
8850 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
8852 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
8853 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
8854 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
8855 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
8856 but practical experience may vary.
8857 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
8861 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
8864 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
8865 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
8867 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
8871 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
8872 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
8874 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
8877 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
8878 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
8879 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
8881 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
8882 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
8883 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
8885 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
8890 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
8891 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
8892 It will be set implicitly before the
8893 .Sx "Resource files"
8894 are loaded if the environment variable
8896 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
8900 .It Va print-alternatives
8901 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
8902 .Ql multipart/alternative
8903 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
8905 other parts are normally discarded.
8906 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
8907 just as if the surrounding part was of type
8908 .Ql multipart/mixed .
8912 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
8913 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
8914 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
8915 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
8916 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
8917 status information, for example
8922 .Va -mailbox-display .
8924 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
8925 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
8926 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
8928 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
8930 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
8932 .Ql set noprompt ) .
8936 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
8943 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
8947 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
8948 prefixed by the value of the variable
8950 Normally, a heading consisting of
8951 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
8952 is put before the quotation.
8957 variable, this heading is omitted.
8960 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
8963 selection are put above the message body,
8966 acts like an automatic
8968 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8972 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
8973 parts are included, making
8975 act like an automatic
8978 .Va quote-as-attachment .
8981 .It Va quote-as-attachment
8982 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
8984 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
8985 Note this works regardless of the setting of
8990 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
8992 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
8993 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
8995 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
8996 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
8997 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
8999 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
9000 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
9001 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
9003 plus some additional pad.
9004 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
9007 .It Va r-option-implicit
9008 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
9010 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9012 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
9014 option (empty argument case).
9017 .It Va recipients-in-cc
9018 \*(BO On group replies, specify only the sender of the original mail in
9020 and mention the other recipients in the secondary
9022 By default all recipients of the original mail will be addressed via
9027 If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all outgoing
9029 If not defined, then outgoing mail is not saved.
9030 When saving to this folder fails the message is not sent,
9031 but instead saved to
9035 .It Va record-resent
9036 \*(BO If both this variable and the
9043 commands save messages to the
9045 folder as it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
9048 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
9049 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
9050 character set of the original message for replies.
9051 If this fails, the mechanism described in
9052 .Sx "Character sets"
9053 is evaluated as usual.
9056 .It Va reply-strings
9057 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
9058 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
9061 reply message indicators \(en builtin are
9063 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
9068 which often has been seen in the wild;
9069 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
9073 A list of addresses to put into the
9075 field of the message header.
9076 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
9081 .It Va reply-to-honour
9084 header is honoured when replying to a message via
9088 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
9092 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
9093 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
9095 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
9097 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
9101 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
9103 upon interrupt or delivery error.
9107 The number of lines that represents a
9116 line display and scrolling via
9118 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
9119 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
9120 terminal, the more will be shown.
9121 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
9122 environment variables
9130 .It Va searchheaders
9131 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
9133 to all messages containing the substring
9137 The string search is case insensitive.
9141 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
9142 outgoing internet mail.
9143 The value of the variable
9145 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
9146 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
9147 the only supported charset is
9150 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9151 and refer to the section
9152 .Sx "Character sets"
9153 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
9156 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9157 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
9159 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
9161 had been set to the value of the variable
9163 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
9164 character set of the current locale (given that
9166 has not been set manually), i.e., without converting it to the
9168 fallback character set.
9169 Thus, mail message text will be in ISO-8859-1 encoding when send from
9170 within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8 encoding when send from within
9172 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
9173 the only supported character set is
9178 An address that is put into the
9180 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
9181 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
9182 This field should normally not be used unless the
9184 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
9187 address is handled as if it were in the
9191 .Va r-option-implicit .
9195 \*(OB Predecessor of
9199 .It Va sendmail-arguments
9200 \*(OB Predecessor of
9204 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
9205 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
9206 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
9209 .It Va sendmail-progname
9210 \*(OB Predecessor of
9215 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
9217 (including the builtin SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
9219 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
9220 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
9221 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
9225 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
9226 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
9230 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
9231 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
9235 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
9236 summary if the message was sent by the user.
9240 The string to expand
9243 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9247 The string to expand
9250 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9254 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
9255 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
9256 and to the first part of each multipart message.
9257 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
9261 .It Va skipemptybody
9262 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
9263 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
9269 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
9270 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9271 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9272 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
9273 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9274 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9275 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9276 be explicitly turned off by setting
9277 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
9278 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9279 .Va smime-ca-flags .
9282 .It Va smime-ca-flags
9283 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9284 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
9285 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
9289 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
9290 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9291 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
9294 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
9295 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
9296 messages (for the specified account).
9297 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9300 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9308 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
9310 is not available) and
9314 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
9315 library that \*(UA uses.
9316 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
9317 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9318 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
9319 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9322 .It Va smime-crl-dir
9323 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
9324 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
9327 .It Va smime-crl-file
9328 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
9329 verifying S/MIME messages.
9332 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
9333 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
9334 encrypted before sending.
9335 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
9336 contains a certificate in PEM format.
9338 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
9339 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
9340 individually encrypted message;
9341 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
9343 .Va smime-force-encryption
9345 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
9350 .It Va smime-force-encryption
9351 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
9355 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
9356 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
9357 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
9358 a valid certificate,
9359 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
9360 header and that the message content has not been altered.
9361 It does not change the message text,
9362 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
9364 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
9366 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
9368 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
9369 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
9370 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
9371 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
9372 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
9376 is always derived from the value of
9378 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9380 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
9381 (certificate) is expected; the command
9383 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
9384 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
9385 gives some details).
9386 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
9388 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
9393 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
9395 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
9396 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
9397 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
9399 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
9400 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
9401 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
9404 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
9405 for the certificate stored in the same file)
9406 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
9407 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
9408 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9409 For example, the hypothetical address
9411 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
9412 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
9413 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
9414 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
9416 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
9417 To include intermediate certificates, use
9418 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
9420 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
9421 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
9422 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
9423 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
9424 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
9427 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
9428 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
9429 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
9430 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
9431 .Va smime-sign-cert .
9432 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
9433 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
9435 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
9437 refers to the content of the internal variable
9439 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9442 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
9443 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
9444 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
9445 via the mechanisms described in
9446 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9448 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
9449 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
9450 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
9451 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9453 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9461 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
9462 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
9463 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
9464 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9465 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
9466 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9467 Remember that for this
9469 refers to the variable
9471 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9476 \*(OB\*(OP To use the builtin SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
9478 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
9480 is used in preference of
9484 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
9485 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
9487 authentication method, possible values are
9493 as well as the \*(OPal methods
9499 method does not need any user credentials,
9501 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
9509 .Va smtp-auth-password
9511 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
9516 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
9517 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
9520 .It Va smtp-auth-password
9521 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
9522 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
9523 .Va smtp-auth-password
9525 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9527 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
9529 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9531 .Va smtp-auth-password
9532 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9535 .It Va smtp-auth-user
9536 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
9537 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
9540 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9542 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
9544 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9547 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9551 .It Va smtp-hostname
9552 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
9554 to derive the necessary
9556 information in order to issue a
9563 can be used to use the
9565 from the SMTP account
9572 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
9574 or the local hostname as a last resort).
9575 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
9576 a provider other than which (in
9578 is about to send the message.
9579 Setting this variable also influences generated
9585 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
9586 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
9587 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
9589 command to make an SMTP
9591 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
9595 .It Va spam-interface
9596 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
9598 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
9599 Please refer to the manual section
9601 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
9602 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
9604 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
9610 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
9612 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
9613 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
9614 knowledge to parse the program's output.
9617 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
9622 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
9623 using a configuration file for that), the variable
9625 can be used as in, e.g.,
9626 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9627 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
9629 Note that this interface does not inspect the
9631 flag of a message for the command
9635 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
9636 This interface is meant for programs like
9638 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
9639 status for at least the command
9642 meaning a message is spam,
9646 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
9647 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
9648 can be intercepted as necessary.
9650 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
9653 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
9656 contains examples for some programs.
9657 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
9658 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
9660 Note that spam score support for
9662 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
9664 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9671 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
9673 .Va spam-interface .
9674 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
9677 .It Va spamc-command
9678 \*(OP The path to the
9682 .Va spam-interface .
9683 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
9685 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
9686 executable had been found during compilation.
9689 .It Va spamc-arguments
9690 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
9693 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
9694 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
9695 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9699 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
9701 .Va spam-interface .
9702 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
9711 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
9712 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
9713 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
9715 .Va spam-interface .
9718 contains examples for some programs.
9721 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9722 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
9725 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
9726 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
9727 be used to overcome this restriction.
9728 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
9729 must be followed by a semicolon
9731 and an extended regular expression.
9732 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
9734 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
9735 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
9739 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
9740 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9741 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9742 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
9743 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9744 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9745 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9746 be explicitly turned off by setting
9747 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
9748 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9751 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9752 for more information.
9757 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9758 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
9760 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
9761 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
9762 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
9763 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
9764 which are usually defined in a file
9765 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
9766 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
9767 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
9769 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
9772 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
9773 .It Cd no-alt-chains
9774 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
9776 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
9777 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
9778 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
9780 .It Cd no-check-time
9781 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
9782 .It Cd partial-chain
9783 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
9784 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
9785 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
9786 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
9788 The OpenSSL manual page
9789 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9790 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
9792 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
9793 .It Cd trusted-first
9794 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
9795 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
9796 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
9797 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
9803 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
9804 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9805 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
9808 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
9809 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client
9810 certificate required by some servers.
9811 This is a direct interface to the
9815 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9817 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
9818 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
9819 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
9820 This is a direct interface to the
9824 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
9826 for more information.
9827 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
9829 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
9830 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
9831 supports \(en the manual section
9832 .Sx "An example configuration"
9833 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
9836 .It Va ssl-config-file
9837 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
9838 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
9839 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
9841 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
9842 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
9843 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
9844 The application name will always be passed as
9849 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
9850 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
9851 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
9854 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
9855 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for the private key of
9856 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
9857 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
9858 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
9859 This is a direct interface to the
9863 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9866 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
9867 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
9869 instead: if both values are set,
9871 will take precedence!
9872 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
9874 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
9876 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
9878 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
9880 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
9883 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
9888 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
9889 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
9892 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
9893 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
9894 This is a direct interface to the
9898 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
9899 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
9900 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
9906 as well as the special value
9908 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
9909 ignores any whitespace.
9912 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
9914 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
9916 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
9918 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
9919 supported and which protocols are used if
9921 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
9923 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
9925 may be worthwile, see
9926 .Sx "An example configuration" .
9930 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
9932 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
9935 .It Va ssl-rand-file
9936 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
9937 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
9938 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
9939 .Sx "Filename transformations"
9941 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
9942 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
9944 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
9945 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
9946 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
9947 This variable is only used if
9949 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
9952 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
9953 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
9954 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
9955 specified or default trust stores
9958 or the SSL/TLS library builtin defaults (unless usage disallowed via
9959 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
9960 and as fine-tuned via
9962 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
9964 (fail and close connection immediately),
9966 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
9968 (show a warning and continue),
9970 (do not perform validation).
9976 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
9982 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
9983 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
9984 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
9985 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
9986 to track down the originating mail user agent.
9993 suppression does not occur.
9998 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
10003 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
10004 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
10006 Note that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and
10007 can thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10010 String capabilities form
10012 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
10013 Numerics have to be notated as
10015 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
10016 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
10017 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
10018 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
10019 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
10020 for one notations like
10023 .Ql control-LETTER ,
10024 and for clarification purposes
10026 can be used to specify
10028 (the control notation
10030 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
10031 the standard CSI sequence);
10032 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
10035 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
10036 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
10038 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10039 set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
10043 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
10044 operation of the builtin line editor or \*(UA in general:
10047 .Bl -tag -compact -width yay
10049 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
10051 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
10052 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
10053 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
10056 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
10059 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
10060 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen
10062 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
10063 To disable that, set (at least) one to the empty string.
10065 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
10069 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
10070 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
10071 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
10072 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
10074 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
10078 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
10080 clear the screen and home cursor.
10081 (Will be simulated via
10086 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
10091 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
10093 clear to the end of line.
10094 (Will be simulated via
10096 plus repetitions of space characters.)
10098 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
10099 .Cd column_address :
10100 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
10101 (Will be simulated via
10107 .Cd carriage_return :
10108 move to the first column in the current row.
10109 The default builtin fallback is
10112 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
10114 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
10115 The default builtin fallback is
10118 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
10120 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
10121 The default builtin fallback is
10123 which is used by most terminals.
10131 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
10135 .It Va termcap-disable
10136 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
10137 If set only some generic fallback builtins and possibly the content of
10139 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
10141 that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
10142 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10146 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
10149 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
10152 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
10153 unsigned right shifting (see
10161 \*(BO If set then the
10163 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
10167 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
10168 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
10169 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
10170 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
10173 locale environment.
10174 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
10175 Refer to the section
10176 .Sx "Character sets"
10177 for the complete picture about character sets.
10180 .It Va typescript-mode
10181 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
10182 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
10185 .Va colour-disable ,
10186 .Va line-editor-disable
10187 and (before startup completed only)
10188 .Va termcap-disable .
10189 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
10193 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
10197 but this variable can be used to override that:
10198 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting,
10199 otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to the new value.
10200 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
10203 .It Va user-HOST , user
10204 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
10205 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
10207 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
10211 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
10212 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
10213 how they are handled.
10214 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
10215 doing things, respectively.
10219 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
10221 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
10222 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
10223 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
10224 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
10225 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
10228 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
10234 .It Va version , version-major , version-minor , version-update
10235 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
10236 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
10237 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
10238 The output of the command
10240 will include this information.
10243 .It Va writebackedited
10244 If this variable is set messages modified using the
10248 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
10249 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
10250 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
10251 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
10252 performed, and proper RFC 4155
10254 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
10257 .\" }}} (Variables)
10258 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
10261 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
10265 .Dq environment variable
10266 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
10267 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
10268 commonly found in there.
10269 The process environment is inherited from the
10271 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
10272 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
10273 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
10274 from \*(UA's point of view.
10275 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
10279 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
10280 newly created child processes).
10283 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
10284 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
10286 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
10287 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
10288 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
10290 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
10292 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
10294 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10295 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
10297 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
10300 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
10303 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
10305 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10306 processes and the MLE (see
10307 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
10308 in interactive mode thereafter.
10312 The name of the (mailbox)
10314 to use for saving aborted messages if
10316 is set; this defaults to
10323 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
10328 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10332 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10333 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
10337 The user's home directory.
10338 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10345 .It Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_COLLATE , LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES
10349 .Sx "Character sets" .
10353 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
10354 or window size in lines.
10355 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10356 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
10360 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
10362 command when operating on local mailboxes.
10365 (path search through
10370 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
10371 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
10372 name to any newly created child process.
10376 Is used as the users
10378 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10382 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
10386 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
10387 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10388 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
10389 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
10390 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
10391 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
10392 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
10396 Is used as a startup file instead of
10399 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
10400 either this variable should be set to
10404 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
10405 reading their configuration files.
10406 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10409 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
10410 If this variable is set then reading of
10412 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
10413 had been started up with the option
10415 (and according argument) or
10417 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10421 The name of the users mbox file.
10422 A logical subset of the special
10423 .Sx "Filename transformations"
10427 The fallback default is
10434 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
10435 is used as the file to save messages from the
10437 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10438 that have been read.
10440 .Sx "Message states" .
10444 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
10450 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
10454 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
10455 The default paginator is
10457 (path search through
10460 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
10462 then a non-existing environment variable
10469 dependent on whether terminal control support is available and whether
10470 that supports full (alternative) screen mode or not (also see
10471 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ) .
10475 will optionally be set to
10482 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
10483 looking for commands, e.g.,
10484 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
10487 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10488 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
10494 The shell to use for the commands
10499 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10500 and when starting subprocesses.
10501 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
10504 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
10505 If set, this specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch
10506 (1970-01-01) to be used in place of the current time.
10507 This is for the sake of reproduceability of tests, to be used during
10508 development or by software packagers.
10512 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
10513 For extended colour and font control please refer to
10514 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
10515 and for terminal management in general to
10516 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
10520 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
10523 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
10524 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
10525 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
10531 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
10532 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
10536 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10540 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10548 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
10550 File giving initial commands.
10553 System wide initialization file.
10557 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
10558 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10559 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10562 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
10563 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
10564 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10565 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10568 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
10569 Personal MIME types, see
10570 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10573 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
10574 System wide MIME types, see
10575 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10579 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
10581 file \(en the section
10582 .Sx "The .netrc file"
10583 documents the file format.
10586 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
10587 .Ss "The mime.types files"
10589 When sending messages \*(UA tries to determine the content type of all
10591 When displaying message content or attachments \*(UA uses the content
10592 type to decide whether it can directly display data or whether it needs
10593 to deal with content handlers.
10594 It learns about M(ultipurpose) I(nternet) M(ail) E(xtensions) types and
10595 how to treat them by reading
10597 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
10598 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10601 can also be used to deal with MIME types.)
10603 files have the following syntax:
10606 .Dl type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10611 are strings describing the file contents, and one or multiple
10613 s, separated by whitespace, name the part of a filename starting after
10614 the last dot (of interest).
10615 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
10617 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
10619 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in specially
10620 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
10621 .Va mimetypes-load-control
10622 and prepends an optional
10626 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10629 The following type markers are supported:
10632 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
10634 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
10639 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
10640 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
10641 the content as plain text instead.
10645 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
10646 handler to be defined.
10651 for sending messages:
10653 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
10654 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10655 For reading etc. messages:
10656 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
10657 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10659 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
10660 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
10661 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
10662 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
10665 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
10666 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
10668 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
10669 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
10671 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
10672 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports.
10673 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
10674 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
10675 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
10676 etc. MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that includes
10677 multiple possible locations of
10681 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
10682 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
10683 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
10684 the list of MIME type handler directives.
10688 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
10689 Comment lines start with a number sign
10691 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
10692 Empty lines are also ignored.
10693 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
10695 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
10696 follow lines if newline characters are
10698 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
10700 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
10701 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
10705 entries consist of a number of semicolon
10707 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
10709 character can be used to escape any following character including
10710 semicolon and itself.
10711 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
10712 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
10713 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
10716 The first field defines the MIME
10718 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
10719 escaping is possible in this field).
10720 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
10722 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
10724 would match any audio type.
10725 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
10727 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
10734 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
10735 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
10738 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
10739 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
10742 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
10743 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
10745 In any case any given
10747 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
10748 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
10750 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
10751 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
10752 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10754 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10755 flags had been set; see below for more.
10758 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
10759 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
10760 naming the field followed by an equals sign
10762 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
10764 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
10765 Optional fields include the following:
10768 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
10770 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
10772 (Currently unused.)
10774 .It Cd composetyped
10777 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
10779 header field to be applied to the composed data.
10780 (Currently unused.)
10783 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
10785 (Currently unused.)
10788 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
10790 (Currently unused.)
10793 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
10794 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
10795 this mailcap entry applies.
10796 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
10797 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
10799 .It Cd needsterminal
10800 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
10801 an interactive terminal.
10802 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
10803 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
10804 ignored; this flag implies
10805 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
10807 .It Cd copiousoutput
10808 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
10810 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
10811 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
10812 It is mutually exclusive with
10815 .Cd x-mailx-always .
10817 .It Cd textualnewlines
10818 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
10819 that, if encoded in
10821 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
10822 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
10823 (Currently unused.)
10825 .It Cd nametemplate
10826 This field gives a file name format, in which
10828 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
10829 will be used as the filename denoted by
10830 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10831 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
10832 have a name ending in
10835 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
10836 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
10837 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
10838 characters, the underscore and dot only.
10841 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
10842 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
10843 This field is not used by \*(UA.
10846 A textual description that describes this type of data.
10848 .It Cd x-mailx-always
10849 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10851 command shall be executed even if multiple messages will be displayed
10853 Normally messages which require external viewers that produce output
10854 which does not integrate into \*(UA's visual display (i.e., do not have
10856 set) have to be addressed directly and individually.
10857 (To avoid cases where, e.g., a thousand PDF viewer instances are spawned
10860 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
10861 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
10863 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
10864 then their use will be considered.
10865 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
10866 .Cd needsterminal .
10868 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
10869 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
10872 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
10873 (as it would be by default).
10875 .It Cd x-mailx-async
10876 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10878 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
10879 Cannot be used in conjunction with
10880 .Cd needsterminal .
10882 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
10883 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
10885 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
10886 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
10887 .Dq running under the X Window System .
10889 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
10890 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
10891 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
10892 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10893 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10897 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10898 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
10899 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
10901 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
10902 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
10903 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10905 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10909 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10910 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
10911 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
10912 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
10913 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10915 format, or without also setting
10916 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
10918 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
10920 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
10923 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
10925 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
10927 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
10932 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
10933 entry fields, prefixed by
10935 Flag fields apply to the entire
10937 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
10938 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
10939 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
10940 one does not provide enough information.
10943 command needs to specify the
10947 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
10951 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
10953 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10954 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
10955 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
10959 In fields any occurrence of the format string
10961 will be replaced by the
10964 Named parameters from the
10966 field may be placed in the command execution line using
10968 followed by the parameter name and a closing
10971 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
10972 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
10974 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10976 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
10979 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
10980 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
10982 # Executed shell command
10983 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
10987 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
10988 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
10989 shown in this example (as of today).
10990 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
10994 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
10996 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
10997 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
10998 in additional user-provided quotes:
11000 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11002 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
11004 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
11006 application/pdf; \e
11008 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
11009 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
11011 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
11013 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
11014 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
11015 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
11020 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
11021 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
11024 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
11025 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
11026 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
11029 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
11030 .Ss "The .netrc file"
11034 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
11035 The default location in the user's
11037 directory may be overridden by the
11039 environment variable.
11040 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
11041 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
11042 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
11043 of that file format, shall their
11045 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
11048 .Bl -bullet -compact
11050 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
11051 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
11053 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
11054 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
11056 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
11058 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
11060 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
11061 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
11062 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
11064 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
11065 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
11066 whitespace, with a number sign
11068 then the rest of the line is ignored.
11070 Whereas other programs may require that the
11072 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
11074 token for any other
11078 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
11082 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
11087 At runtime the command
11089 can be used to control \*(UA's
11093 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11094 .It Cd machine Ar name
11095 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
11097 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
11102 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
11105 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
11106 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
11108 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11109 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
11110 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
11111 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
11117 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
11121 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
11122 Note that in the example neither
11123 .Ql pop3.example.com
11125 .Ql smtp.example.com
11126 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
11127 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
11130 This is the same as
11132 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
11133 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
11134 and it must be the last first-class token.
11136 .It Cd login Ar name
11137 The user name on the remote machine.
11139 .It Cd password Ar string
11140 The user's password on the remote machine.
11142 .It Cd account Ar string
11143 Supply an additional account password.
11144 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11146 .It Cd macdef Ar name
11148 A macro is defined with the specified
11150 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
11151 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
11154 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
11155 defined following the
11157 they are intended to be used with.)
11160 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
11161 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11168 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
11171 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
11172 .Ss "An example configuration"
11174 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11175 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
11178 # Request strict transport security checks!
11179 set ssl-verify=strict
11181 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
11182 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
11183 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
11184 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
11185 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
11186 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
11187 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
11188 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
11189 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
11191 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
11192 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
11193 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
11194 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
11195 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
11196 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
11198 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
11199 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
11200 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
11201 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
11202 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
11203 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
11204 # TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
11205 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
11206 # ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
11208 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
11209 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
11211 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
11212 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
11213 set reply-in-same-charset
11215 # When replying to or forwarding a message the comment and name
11216 # parts of email addresses are removed unless this variable is set
11219 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
11220 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
11221 # exit status of the MTA (including the builtin SMTP one)!
11224 # Only use builtin MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
11225 set mimetypes-load-control
11227 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
11229 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
11230 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
11231 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox record=+sent.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt
11233 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
11234 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
11236 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
11237 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11239 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
11240 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
11241 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
11242 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
11243 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
11246 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
11248 colour-pager crt= \e
11249 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11250 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
11251 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
11252 prompt='?\e?!\e![\e${-account}#\e${-mailbox-display}]? ' \e
11253 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11256 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
11257 headerpick type retain add from_ date from to cc subject \e
11258 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
11259 # ...when forwarding messages
11260 headerpick forward retain add subject date from to cc
11261 # ...when saving message, etc.
11262 #headerpick save ignore add ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
11264 # Some mailing lists
11265 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
11266 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
11268 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
11270 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11271 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
11272 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
11275 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
11276 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
11277 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
11278 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
11279 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
11280 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
11282 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11283 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11284 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
11285 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
11288 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
11289 wysh ghost lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
11290 wysh ghost llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
11291 wysh ghost ls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFrS'
11292 wysh ghost lS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFS'
11293 wysh ghost lla '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlr'
11294 wysh ghost llA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFl'
11295 wysh ghost la '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFr'
11296 wysh ghost lA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aF'
11297 wysh ghost ll '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFltr'
11298 wysh ghost lL '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlt'
11299 wysh ghost l '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFtr'
11300 wysh ghost L '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFt'
11302 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
11303 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
11306 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
11307 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
11308 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
11310 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
11313 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11314 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
11315 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11319 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
11320 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
11330 !printf 'Key IDs to gpg --recv-keys: ';\e
11332 gpg --recv-keys ${keyids};
11338 When storing passwords in
11340 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
11341 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
11344 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
11346 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
11347 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
11349 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11354 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11355 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11357 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
11358 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
11360 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
11361 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
11362 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
11363 ghost xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
11372 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11373 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
11377 This configuration should now work just fine:
11380 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -vv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
11383 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
11384 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
11386 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
11387 message signing and message encryption.
11388 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
11389 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
11390 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
11391 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
11392 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
11393 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
11397 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
11398 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
11399 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
11400 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
11402 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
11403 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
11405 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
11406 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
11410 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
11411 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
11412 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
11413 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
11415 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
11417 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
11418 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
11420 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
11421 to avoid using the default certificate and point
11425 to a trusted pool of certificates.
11426 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
11427 certificate has been retrieved with.
11430 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message exchange is
11431 your personal certificate, including a private key.
11432 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
11433 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
11434 encrypt messages for you,
11435 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
11436 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
11437 The private key must be kept secret.
11438 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
11439 public key, and to sign messages.
11442 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
11443 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
11444 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
11446 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
11447 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
11448 community for free; their root certificate
11449 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
11450 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
11451 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
11452 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
11455 or as a vivid member of the
11456 .Va smime-ca-file .
11457 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
11458 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
11461 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
11462 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
11463 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
11464 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
11465 entries of the web interface.
11466 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
11467 .Dq client certificate ,
11468 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
11469 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
11473 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
11474 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
11475 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
11478 .Dl openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
11481 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
11483 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
11484 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
11485 .Dq advanced options
11486 to see the corresponding text field).
11487 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
11488 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
11489 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
11490 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
11491 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
11496 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
11497 (certificate) file has to be created:
11500 .Dl cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
11503 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
11504 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
11505 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
11506 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
11508 is of interest for verification only):
11510 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11511 set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
11512 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
11513 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
11518 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
11519 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
11520 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do the same,
11523 command to check the validity of the certificate.
11526 Variables of interest for S/MIME signing:
11528 .Va smime-ca-file ,
11529 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
11530 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
11531 .Va smime-crl-dir ,
11532 .Va smime-crl-file ,
11534 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
11535 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
11537 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
11540 After it has been verified save the certificate via
11542 and tell \*(UA that it should use it for encryption for further
11543 communication with that somebody:
11545 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11547 set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
11548 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
11552 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
11555 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
11558 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted messages
11560 If you do, anybody who has access to your mail folders can read them,
11561 but if you do not, you might be unable to read them yourself later if
11562 you happen to lose your private key.
11565 command saves messages in decrypted form, while the
11569 commands leave them encrypted.
11572 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to message
11573 subjects or other header fields yet.
11574 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
11575 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
11576 When sending signed messages,
11577 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
11581 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
11582 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
11584 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
11585 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
11586 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
11587 declared invalid after they have been issued.
11588 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
11590 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
11591 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
11592 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
11593 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
11594 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
11595 invalidated certificates.
11596 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
11597 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
11600 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
11601 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
11604 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
11607 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
11608 (and no other files) must be created.
11613 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
11614 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
11615 to verify a certificate.
11618 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
11619 .Ss "Handling spam"
11621 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
11622 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
11623 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
11625 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
11626 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
11628 state can be prompted: the
11632 message specifications will address respective messages and their
11634 entries will be used when displaying the
11636 in the header display.
11641 rates the given messages and sets their
11644 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
11645 the header display by including the
11655 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
11656 the given messages as
11660 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
11662 of messages; it adheres to their current
11664 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
11669 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
11671 message flag, without any interface interaction.
11680 requires a running instance of the
11682 server in order to function, started with the option
11684 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
11686 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11687 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
11688 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
11689 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
11693 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
11695 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11696 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11697 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11698 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
11700 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11701 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11702 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
11706 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
11708 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
11711 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11712 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11713 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
11714 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
11715 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
11716 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
11717 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
11718 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
11722 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
11723 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
11724 perform the local spam check last:
11726 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11727 define spamdelhook {
11729 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
11730 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
11731 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
11732 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
11733 move :S +maybe-spam
11736 move :S +maybe-spam
11738 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
11742 See also the documentation for the variables
11743 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
11744 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
11745 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11748 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
11756 In general it is a good idea to turn on
11762 twice) if something does not work well.
11763 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
11764 problems' solution.
11766 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
11767 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
11769 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
11770 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
11772 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
11773 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
11775 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
11779 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
11782 return the expected value?
11783 Does this local hostname has a domain suffix?
11784 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
11786 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
11789 .\" .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away" {{{
11790 .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away"
11792 When this happens even with
11794 set, then this most likely indicates a problem with the creation of
11795 so-called dotlock files: setting
11796 .Va dotlock-ignore-error
11797 should overcome this situation.
11798 This only avoids symptoms, it does not address the problem, though.
11799 Since the output is cleared away \*(UA has support for
11800 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11801 and switches to the
11803 which causes the output clearance: by doing
11804 .Ql set termcap='smcup='
11805 this mode can be suppressed, and by setting
11807 (twice) the actual problem should be reported.
11810 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
11811 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
11813 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
11815 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
11816 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
11817 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
11820 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
11821 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
11822 her- and himself with the locally installed
11824 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
11825 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
11826 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
11827 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
11830 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
11831 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
11832 .Dq less secure app
11833 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
11834 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
11839 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
11842 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
11844 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
11846 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
11847 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
11848 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
11852 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
11853 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
11855 It can happen that the terminal library (see
11856 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
11859 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
11860 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
11861 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
11866 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
11869 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
11871 in conjunction with the command line option
11873 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
11874 by keypresses, and use the variable
11876 to make \*(UA aware of them.
11877 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
11878 an example showing the shifted home key:
11880 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11883 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
11888 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
11897 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
11907 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
11916 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
11921 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
11924 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
11925 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
11926 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
11929 command already appeared in First Edition
11933 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
11934 Electronic mail was there from the start.
11935 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
11936 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
11937 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
11938 freeloaders, or whatever.
11939 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
11940 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
11941 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
11947 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
11950 distribution until 1995.
11951 Mail has then seen further development in open source
11953 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
11955 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
11956 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
11957 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
11958 This man page is derived from
11959 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
11960 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
11966 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
11967 .An "Edward Wang" ,
11968 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
11969 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
11970 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
11971 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq Mt s-nail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
11973 .Mt s-mailx@sdaoden.eu ) .
11976 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
11979 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
11983 is often problematic: many library functions cannot deal with the
11985 that this software (still) performs.
11988 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
11989 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
11990 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
11995 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
11996 that is capable of message queuing.
12002 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
12003 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
12004 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
12006 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
12007 occasionally (this is may and very).
12011 in the source repository lists future directions.