1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2017 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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7 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
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34 .\"@ S-nail v14.9.3 / 2017-08-03
46 .\" If not ~/.mailrc, it breaks POSIX compatibility. And adjust main.c.
51 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
52 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
53 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
64 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
70 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
79 .Op : Ns Fl a Ar attachment Ns \&:
80 .Op : Ns Fl b Ar bcc-addr Ns \&:
81 .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&:
82 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
85 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
88 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
90 .Pf : Ar to-addr Ns \&:
91 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
100 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
102 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
105 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
106 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
115 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
117 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
119 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
121 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
127 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
130 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
133 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
134 .Sy Compatibility note:
135 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2019).
136 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
139 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
140 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
141 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
144 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
145 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
146 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
150 enables obsoletion warnings.
154 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
156 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
158 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
159 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
160 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
161 the user to deal with them in any order.
165 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
166 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
167 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
168 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
169 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
171 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
174 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
177 Explicitly control which of the
181 d (loaded): if the letter
183 is (case-insensitively) part of the
187 is sourced, likewise the letter
189 controls sourcing of the user's personal
191 file, whereas the letters
195 explicitly forbid sourcing of any resource files.
196 Scripts should use this option: to avoid environmental noise they should
198 from any configuration and create a script-specific environment, setting
200 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
203 and running configurating commands via
205 This option overrides
212 command for the given user email
214 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
216 setting is being established; only
218 commands have not been evaluated yet).
219 Being a special incarnation of
221 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived
223 tings, activating such an email account also switches to the accounts
225 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
230 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
233 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
237 .Sx "Filename transformations"
240 will be performed, but shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
244 not be accessible but contain a
246 character, then anything before the
248 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
251 If an input character set is specified,
252 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
253 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
254 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
255 giving the empty string or the special string hyphen-minus
257 will be treated as if
259 has been specified (the default).
261 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
262 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
263 file's type and content.
264 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as the empty
265 string or hyphen-minus
267 then the default conversion algorithm (see
268 .Sx "Character sets" )
269 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
271 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first) \(em
272 without support for character set conversions
274 does not include the term
276 only this argument is supported.
279 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
280 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
285 Send a blind carbon copy to
292 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
294 The option may be used multiple times.
296 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
300 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
302 May be used multiple times.
307 the internal variable
309 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
310 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
316 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
317 This command line option is \*(OB.
321 Just check if mail is present (in the system
323 or the one specified via
325 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
326 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
327 specification can be added with the option
332 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
333 first recipient's address (instead of in
338 Read in the contents of the user's
340 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
342 (or the specified file) for processing;
343 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
349 argument will undergo some special
350 .Sx "Filename transformations"
355 is not an argument to the flag
357 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
361 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
362 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
368 and exit; a configurable summary view is available via the
374 Show a short usage summary.
380 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
386 of all messages that match the given
390 .Sx "Specifying messages"
395 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
396 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
402 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
403 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
408 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
412 and use it as the main message body.
413 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
414 .Va message-inject-head
416 .Va message-inject-tail .
422 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
424 and use it as the main message body.
425 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
426 .Va message-inject-head
428 .Va message-inject-tail .
434 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
439 for the internal variable
444 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
449 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
450 .Sx "Resource files" .
454 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
455 contents of the specified
457 which may be standard input
459 only in non-interactive context.
467 opened will be in read-only mode.
471 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
472 Whereas the source address that appears in the
474 header of a message (or in the
476 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is honoured by the
477 builtin SMTP transport, it is not used by a file-based
479 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) for the RFC 5321 reverse-path used for relaying
480 and delegating a message to its destination(s), for delivery errors
481 etc., but it instead uses the local identity of the initiating user.
484 When this command line option is used the given
486 will be assigned to the internal variable
488 but in addition the command line option
489 .Fl \&\&f Ar from-addr
490 will be passed to a file-based
492 whenever a message is sent.
495 include a user name the address components will be separated and
496 the name part will be passed to a file-based
502 If an empty string is passed as
504 then the content of the variable
506 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
508 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
517 command line options are used when contacting a file-based MTA, unless
518 this automatic deduction is enforced by
520 ing the internal variable
521 .Va r-option-implicit .
524 Remarks: many default installations and sites disallow overriding the
525 local user identity like this unless either the MTA has been configured
526 accordingly or the user is member of a group with special privileges.
530 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
534 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
538 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
542 may be overwritten from within resource files,
543 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
545 (\*(ID In the future such a setting may instead become
547 until the startup is complete.)
551 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
552 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
553 normalized to space (SP) characters.
557 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
558 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
563 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
564 specified on the command line.
565 If a message subject is specified via
567 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
583 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
584 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
585 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
587 Any other custom header field (also see
591 is passed through entirely
592 unchanged, and in conjunction with the options
596 it is possible to embed
597 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
605 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
608 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
609 .Ql Fl \&\&f Ns \0%user .
618 will also show the list of
620 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
625 ting the internal variable
627 enables display of some informational context messages.
628 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
632 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
634 to the list of commands to be executed,
635 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
636 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
637 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
638 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
648 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
649 in compose mode even in non-interactive use cases.
650 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
651 text before sending the message:
652 .Bd -literal -offset indent
653 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.';\e
654 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
655 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d~:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 bob@exam.ple
660 Enables batch mode: standard input is made line buffered, the complete
661 set of (interactive) commands is available, processing of
662 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
663 is enabled in compose mode, and diverse
664 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
665 are adjusted for batch necessities, exactly as if done via
681 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
682 .Bd -literal -offset indent
683 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' |\e
684 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d#:/ -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
689 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
692 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
693 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
699 arguments and all receivers established via
703 are subject to the checks established by
706 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
709 allows their recognition all
711 arguments given at the end of the command line after a
713 separator will be passed through to a file-based
715 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for the entire session.
717 constraints do not apply to the content of
721 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
724 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
726 Mail, itself a successor of the Research
729 .Dq was there from the start
732 It thus represents the user side of the
734 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
735 traditionally taken by
737 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
742 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
746 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
748 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
749 using it is a smooth experience.
750 (Rather complete configuration examples can be found in the section
754 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
755 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
756 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety already.
764 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to the
766 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
768 that would otherwise occur (see
769 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
772 to not remove empty system MBOX mailbox files in order not to mangle
773 file permissions when files eventually get recreated (all empty (MBOX)
774 mailbox files will be removed unless this variable is set whenever
776 .Pf a.k.a.\0 Va posix
777 mode has been enabled).
782 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
789 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
791 to allow editing of headers as well as
793 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
795 to include the message that is being responded to when
801 The file mode creation mask can be explicitly managed via the variable
803 Sufficient system support provided symbolic links will not be followed
804 when files are opened for writing.
805 Files and shell pipe output can be
807 d for evaluation, also during startup from within the
808 .Sx "Resource files" .
811 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
812 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
814 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a built-in
816 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
817 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
818 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
822 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
824 .Bd -literal -offset indent
826 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
828 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
829 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
830 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
832 '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
835 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
836 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=none \e
837 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
843 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
844 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
845 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
847 special \(en these are so-called
848 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
849 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
850 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
852 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
854 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
856 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
859 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
862 will leave compose mode and send the message once it is completed.
866 at the beginning of an empty line has the same effect, whereas typing
869 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
880 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
881 can be used to alter default behavior.
882 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
885 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
890 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
892 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content, whereas
896 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
897 recipients, respectively, whereas (the default)
899 will request confirmation whether the message shall be send.
902 Especially when using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
904 it is often necessary to set
908 (even finer control via
909 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
910 which (even if empty) also causes creation of
917 Saving a copy of sent messages in a
919 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
921 targets the value will undergo
922 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
925 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
926 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
929 has example configurations for some of the well-known public mail
930 providers, and also gives a compact overview on how to setup a secure
931 SSL/TLS environment.)
936 sandbox dry-run tests will prove correctness.
940 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
941 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
942 account credentials, the
944 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
947 goes into the details of character encodings, and how to use them for
948 interpreting the input data given in
950 and representing messages and MIME part contents in
952 and reading the section
953 .Sx "The mime.types files"
954 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
955 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
956 Over the wire a configurable
958 .Pf ( Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding: )
959 may be applied to the message data.
962 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
967 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
968 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
971 is not set then only network addresses (see
973 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
974 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
978 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
980 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
981 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
985 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
986 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
988 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
990 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
991 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
993 or the character sequence dot solidus
995 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
996 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
998 Any other name which contains a commercial at
1000 character is treated as a network address;
1001 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
1003 character specifies a mailbox name;
1004 Any other name which contains a solidus
1006 character but no exclamation mark
1010 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
1011 What remains is treated as a network address.
1013 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1014 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
1015 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
1016 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1017 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
1018 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1023 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1025 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1027 and have it go to a group of people.
1028 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1029 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1033 and are often tracked in a file
1039 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1040 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1041 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1048 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1051 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
1053 .Va on-compose-cleanup
1054 hook variables may be set to
1056 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
1057 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
1058 .Va on-compose-splice
1060 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
1061 variables, the former also to be set to a
1063 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
1064 adjustments, including signature creation, are available.
1065 (\*(ID These hooks work for commands which newly create messages, namely
1066 .Ic forward , mail , reply
1071 for now provide only the hooks
1074 .Va on-resend-cleanup . )
1077 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1079 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1080 environment, ideally with the command line options
1082 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1084 to specify variables:
1086 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1087 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1088 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1089 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1090 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1091 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
1092 -s 'Subject to go' -a attachment_file \e
1094 'Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>' rec2@exam.ple \e
1099 As shown, scripts can
1101 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1104 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1106 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1107 can be sent by calling the
1109 command with a list of recipient addresses:
1111 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1112 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1113 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1114 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1116 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1117 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1121 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1122 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1124 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1126 When used like that the user's system
1128 (for more on mailbox types please see the command
1130 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed if
1134 The visual style of this summary of
1136 can be adjusted through the variable
1138 and the possible sorting criterion via
1144 can be performed with the command
1146 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1147 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1156 will give a listing of all available commands and
1158 will give a summary of some common ones.
1159 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1162 and see the actual expansion of
1164 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1165 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1166 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1167 however possible to define overwrites with
1168 .Ic commandalias ) .
1169 These commands can also produce a more
1174 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1175 messages; the current message \(en the
1177 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1178 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1180 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1185 ful of header summaries containing the
1189 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1193 Message content can be displayed with the command
1200 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1202 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1204 the sole difference to the command
1206 which will always use the
1210 will instead only show the first
1212 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1215 Message display experience may improve by setting and adjusting
1216 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
1218 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" .
1221 By default the current message
1223 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1224 a fancy message specification (see
1225 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1228 will display all unread messages,
1233 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1235 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1239 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1242 (a more substantial alias for
1244 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1245 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1248 .Dl ? from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1251 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1253 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1254 applications by using the command
1256 e.g., to restrict their display to a very restricted set for
1258 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain Ar \:from to cc subject .
1259 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1260 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1265 will show the raw message content.
1266 Note that historically the global
1268 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1272 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1273 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1274 aims at making the user experience with the many
1277 When reading the system
1283 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1285 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1287 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1288 then messages which have been read will be automatically moved to a
1290 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1293 file, when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1294 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1295 .Sx "Message states" )
1296 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1297 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1300 Messages can also be explicitly
1302 d to other mailboxes, whereas
1304 keeps the original message.
1306 can be used to write out data content of specific parts of messages.
1309 After examining a message the user can
1311 to the sender and all recipients (which will also be placed in
1314 .Va recipients-in-cc
1317 exclusively to the sender(s).
1319 ing a message will allow editing the new message: the original message
1320 will be contained in the message body, adjusted according to
1326 messages: the former will add a series of
1328 headers, whereas the latter will not; different to newly created
1329 messages editing is not possible and no copy will be saved even with
1331 unless the additional variable
1334 When sending, replying or forwarding messages comments and full names
1335 will be stripped from recipient addresses unless the internal variable
1338 Of course messages can be
1340 and they can spring into existence again via
1342 or when the \*(UA session is ended via the
1347 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1349 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1350 automatic moving of read messages to the
1352 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1354 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1358 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1361 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1362 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1364 Messages which are HTML-only become more and more common and of course
1365 many messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME (Multipurpose Internet
1366 Mail Extensions) parts for, e.g., attachments.
1367 To get a notion of MIME types, \*(UA will first read
1368 .Sx "The mime.types files"
1369 (as configured and allowed by
1370 .Va mimetypes-load-control ) ,
1371 and then add onto that types registered directly with
1373 It (normally) has a default set of types built-in, too.
1374 To improve interaction with faulty MIME part declarations which are
1375 often seen in real-life messages, setting
1376 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1377 will allow \*(UA to verify the given assertion and possibly provide
1378 an alternative MIME type.
1381 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter for
1382 HTML messages, it cannot handle MIME types other than plain text itself.
1383 Instead programs need to become registered to deal with specific MIME
1384 types or file extensions.
1385 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input in
1386 order to enable \*(UA to integrate their output neatlessly in its own
1387 message visualization (a mode which is called
1388 .Cd copiousoutput ) ,
1389 or display the content themselves, for example in an external graphical
1390 window: such handlers will only be considered by and for the command
1394 To install a handler program for a specific MIME type an according
1395 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1396 variable needs to be set; to instead define a handler for a specific
1397 file extension the respective
1399 variable can be used \(en these handlers take precedence.
1400 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1401 RFC 1524; this mechanism (see
1402 .Sx "The Mailcap files" )
1403 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1404 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1405 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1406 A last source for handlers is the MIME type definition itself, when
1407 a (\*(UA specific) type-marker was registered with the command
1409 (which many built-in MIME types do).
1412 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1413 fancy plain text representation than the built-in converter is capable to
1414 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1418 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1419 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1420 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1422 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1423 ? if [ "$features" !% +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1424 ? #set pipe-text/html='@* elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1425 ? set pipe-text/html='@* lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1426 ? # Display HTML as plain text instead
1427 ? #set pipe-text/html=@
1429 ? mimetype @ application/mathml+xml mathml
1430 ? wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1431 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1432 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1433 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1437 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1440 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1443 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1445 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1450 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1451 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1452 currently defined mailing lists.
1457 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1458 in the header display.
1461 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1462 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1464 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1465 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1466 (are) matched sequentially.
1468 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1469 ? set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
1470 reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1471 ? wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1472 ? mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1477 .Va followup-to-honour
1479 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1480 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1486 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1487 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1489 .Dq mailing list specific
1494 is used to respond to a message with its
1495 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1499 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1500 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1501 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1502 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1503 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1504 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1506 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1507 address that is presented in the
1509 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1511 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1513 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1516 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1517 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1518 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1522 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
1523 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
1525 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
1526 message signing and message encryption.
1527 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
1528 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
1529 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
1530 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
1531 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
1532 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
1534 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
1537 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
1538 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
1539 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
1541 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
1542 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
1544 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
1545 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
1549 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
1550 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
1551 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
1552 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
1554 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
1556 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
1557 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
1559 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
1560 to avoid using the default certificates and point
1564 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1565 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
1566 certificate has been retrieved with.
1569 This trusted pool of certificates is used by the command
1571 to ensure that the given S/MIME messages can be trusted.
1572 If so, verified sender certificates that were embedded in signed
1573 messages can be saved locally with the command
1575 and used by \*(UA to encrypt further communication with these senders:
1577 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1579 ? set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
1580 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
1584 To sign outgoing messages in order to allow receivers to verify the
1585 origin of these messages a personal S/MIME certificate is required.
1586 \*(UA supports password-protected personal certificates (and keys),
1587 for more on this, and its automatization, please see the section
1588 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
1590 .Sx "S/MIME step by step"
1591 shows examplarily how such a private certificate can be obtained.
1592 In general, if such a private key plus certificate
1594 is available, all that needs to be done is to set some variables:
1596 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1597 ? set smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
1598 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
1603 Variables of interest for S/MIME in general are
1606 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
1607 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
1609 .Va smime-crl-file .
1610 For S/MIME signing of interest are
1612 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
1613 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
1615 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
1616 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
1619 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
1622 \*(ID Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to
1623 message subjects or other header fields yet.
1624 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
1625 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
1626 When sending signed messages,
1627 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
1631 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
1632 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1634 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
1635 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
1636 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
1639 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
1640 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
1641 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
1643 is used by the local maildir and the IMAP protocol, but not by POP3);
1648 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
1654 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
1657 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
1658 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
1659 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
1660 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
1661 a well-known notation.
1664 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
1665 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
1670 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
1677 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
1683 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
1686 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
1687 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
1688 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1689 must not be URL percent encoded.
1692 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
1693 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
1694 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
1695 .Ql smtp://our.house
1696 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
1697 .Va smtp-use-starttls
1698 \*(UA first looks for whether
1699 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
1700 is defined, then whether
1701 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
1702 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
1705 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
1706 necessary credential information of an account:
1712 has been given in the URL the variables
1716 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
1717 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
1718 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
1725 specific entry which provides a
1727 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
1730 It is possible to load encrypted
1735 If there is still no
1737 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
1738 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
1739 known to be a valid user on the current host.
1742 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
1743 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
1744 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
1750 has been given in the URL, then if the
1752 has been found through the \*(OPal
1754 that may have already provided the password, too.
1755 Otherwise the variable chain
1756 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
1757 is looked up and used if existent.
1759 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
1760 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
1764 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
1765 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
1766 but with a password).
1768 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
1769 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
1770 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
1775 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
1779 header field(s), which means that the values of
1780 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
1782 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
1783 will not be looked up using the
1787 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
1788 message that is being worked on.
1789 In unusual cases multiple and different
1793 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
1794 unusual cases become possible.
1795 The usual case is as short as:
1797 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1798 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
1799 smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
1805 contains complete example configurations.
1808 .\" .Ss "Encrypted network communication" {{{
1809 .Ss "Encrypted network communication"
1811 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a.k.a. its successor TLS (Transport Layer
1812 Security) are protocols which aid in securing communication by providing
1813 a safely initiated and encrypted network connection.
1814 A central concept to SSL/TLS is that of certificates: as part of each
1815 network connection setup a (set of) certificates will be exchanged, and
1816 by using those the identity of the network peer can be cryptographically
1818 SSL/TLS works by using a locally installed pool of trusted certificates,
1819 and verifying the connection peer succeeds if that provides
1820 a certificate which has been issued or is trusted by any certificate in
1821 the trusted local pool.
1824 The local pool of trusted so-called CA (Certification Authority)
1825 certificates is usually delivered with the used SSL/TLS library (e.g.,
1826 OpenSSL), and will be selected automatically.
1827 It is also possible to create and use an own pool of trusted certificates.
1828 If this is desired, set
1829 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
1830 to avoid using the default certificate pool, and point
1834 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1835 A certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA certificate
1836 has been retrieved with.
1839 It depends on the used protocol whether encrypted communication is
1840 possible, and which configuration steps have to be taken to enable it.
1841 Some protocols, e.g., POP3S, are implicitly encrypted, others, like
1842 POP3, can upgrade a plain text connection if so requested: POP3 offers
1844 which will be used if the variable
1845 .Va pop3-use-starttls
1846 (which is a variable chain, as documented in
1847 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup")
1850 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1851 shortcut encpop1 pop3s://pop1.exam.ple
1853 shortcut encpop2 pop3://pop2.exam.ple
1854 set pop3-use-starttls-pop2.exam.ple
1856 set mta=smtps://smtp.exam.ple:465
1857 set mta=smtp://smtp.exam.ple smtp-use-starttls
1861 Normally that is all there is to do, however plenty of knobs exist to
1862 adjust settings shall the necessity or desire arise.
1863 E.g., it is possible to fine-tune certificate verification via
1865 Also interesting may be the possibility to configure the allowed
1867 s that a communication channel may use: whereas in the past hints of
1868 how to restrict the set of protocols to highly secure ones were
1869 indicated, as of the time of this writing the allowed protocols, or at
1871 .Va ssl-cipher-list ,
1872 may need to become relaxed in order to be able to connect to some
1874 E.g., the following example settings allows connection of a
1876 which uses OpenSSL 0.9.8za from June 2014:
1878 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1879 set ssl-protocol-LION=ALL,-SSLv3,-TLSv1
1880 set ssl-cipher-list-LION=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
1881 ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
1882 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
1888 can be used and should be referred to when creating a custom cipher list.
1889 Variables of interest for SSL/TLS in general are
1893 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
1895 .Va ssl-cipher-list ,
1896 .Va ssl-config-file ,
1907 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1908 .Ss "Character sets"
1910 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1911 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1913 environment variable
1918 in that order, see there).
1919 The internal variable
1921 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly,
1922 and will thus show up in the output of commands like, e.g.,
1928 However, the user may give a value for
1930 during startup, so that it is possible to send mail in a completely
1932 locale environment, an option which can be used to generate and send,
1933 e.g., 8-bit UTF-8 input data in a pure 7-bit US-ASCII
1935 environment (an example of this can be found in the section
1936 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ) .
1937 Changing the value does not mean much beside that, because several
1938 aspects of the real character set are implied by the locale environment
1939 of the system, which stays unaffected by
1943 Messages and attachments which consist of 7-bit clean data will be
1944 classified as consisting of
1947 This is a problem if the
1949 character set is a multibyte character set that is also 7-bit clean.
1950 For example, the Japanese character set ISO-2022-JP is 7-bit clean but
1951 capable to encode the rich set of Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana
1952 characters: in order to notify receivers of this character set the mail
1953 message must be MIME encoded so that the character set ISO-2022-JP can
1955 To achieve this, the variable
1957 must be set to ISO-2022-JP.
1958 (Today a better approach regarding email is the usage of UTF-8, which
1959 uses 8-bit bytes for non-US-ASCII data.)
1962 If the \*(OPal character set conversion capabilities are not available
1964 does not include the term
1968 will be the only supported character set,
1969 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1970 (over the wire an intermediate, configurable
1973 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1974 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1975 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to
1976 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./config.h:CHARSET_*!)
1977 LATIN1 a.k.a. ISO-8859-1.
1980 \*(OP When reading messages, their text is converted into
1982 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1983 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1984 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1985 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1988 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1989 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1990 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1992 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1993 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1996 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1997 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1998 appear to be binary data,
1999 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
2000 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
2001 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
2002 Permissible values for character sets used in outgoing messages can be
2007 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
2008 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
2012 When replying to a message and the variable
2013 .Va reply-in-same-charset
2014 is set, then the character set of the message being replied to
2015 is tried first (still being a subject of
2016 .Ic charsetalias ) .
2017 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
2018 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
2019 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
2020 please see there for more information.
2023 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
2024 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
2025 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
2026 content of the part or attachment,
2027 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
2031 In general, if a message saying
2032 .Dq cannot convert from a to b
2033 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
2034 selected (terminal) character set,
2035 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
2036 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
2038 locale and/or the variable
2042 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
2043 locale on an UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
2044 spectrum of characters is available.
2045 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
2046 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
2047 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
2050 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
2051 .Dq portable character set
2052 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
2053 restricted subset named
2054 .Dq portable filename character set
2055 consists of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
2063 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
2064 .Ss "Message states"
2066 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
2067 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
2069 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
2071 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
2073 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
2074 When operating on the system
2078 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
2079 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
2081 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2083 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
2084 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
2086 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
2089 mail-user-agents, the default global
2095 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
2097 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
2099 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
2100 Such messages are retained even in the
2102 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2105 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
2106 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
2107 Such messages are retained even in the
2109 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2112 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2131 will always try to automatically
2137 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
2139 command will do so if the internal variable
2144 command is used, messages that are in a
2146 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2149 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in the
2151 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2153 unless the internal variable
2158 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2164 can be used to access such messages.
2167 The message has been processed by a
2169 command and it will be retained in its current location.
2172 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2178 command is used, messages that are in a
2180 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2183 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in the
2185 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2187 when the internal variable
2193 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
2194 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
2195 addressing them when
2196 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2197 can be set on messages.
2198 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
2199 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
2201 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
2203 Mark messages as having been answered.
2205 Mark messages as being a draft.
2207 Mark messages which need special attention.
2211 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
2212 .Ss "Specifying messages"
2219 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
2220 of messages at once.
2223 deletes messages 1 and 2,
2226 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
2227 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
2231 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
2232 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
2235 The following special message names exist:
2238 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
2240 The current message, the so-called
2244 The message that was previously the current message.
2247 The parent message of the current message,
2248 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
2250 field or the last entry of the
2252 field of the current message.
2255 The next previous undeleted message,
2256 or the next previous deleted message for the
2259 In sorted/threaded mode,
2260 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2263 The next undeleted message,
2264 or the next deleted message for the
2267 In sorted/threaded mode,
2268 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2271 The first undeleted message,
2272 or the first deleted message for the
2275 In sorted/threaded mode,
2276 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2280 In sorted/threaded mode,
2281 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
2285 selects the message addressed with
2289 is any other message specification,
2290 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
2291 Otherwise it is identical to
2296 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
2301 All messages that were included in the
2302 .Sx "Message list arguments"
2303 of the previous command.
2306 An inclusive range of message numbers.
2307 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
2312 .Dq any substring matches
2315 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
2317 is set (and POSIX says
2318 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
2321 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
2322 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
2324 is completely ignored.
2325 For finer control and match boundaries use the
2329 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
2330 All messages that contain
2332 in the subject field (case ignored).
2339 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
2341 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
2344 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
2346 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
2348 support is available
2350 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
2352 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
2353 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
2357 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
2358 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
2361 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
2363 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
2365 In order to search for a string that includes a
2367 (commercial at) character the
2369 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
2370 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
2384 respectively and case-insensitively.
2389 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2398 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2399 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2401 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2402 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2403 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2404 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2405 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2406 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2407 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2410 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2413 All messages of state
2417 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2419 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2424 Old messages (any not in state
2446 messages (cf. the variable
2447 .Va markanswered ) .
2452 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2453 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2455 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2461 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2462 This addressing mode is available with all types of mailbox
2464 s; \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2465 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2467 in their entirety if they contain whitespace or parentheses;
2468 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2470 is recognized as an escape character.
2471 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2472 When the description indicates that the
2474 representation of an address field is used,
2475 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2478 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2479 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2484 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2485 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2489 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2490 .It Ar ( criterion )
2491 All messages that satisfy the given
2493 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2494 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2496 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2497 All messages that satisfy either
2502 To connect more than two criteria using
2504 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2506 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2510 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2513 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2514 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2518 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2519 All messages that do not satisfy
2521 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2522 All messages that contain
2524 in the envelope representation of the
2527 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2528 All messages that contain
2530 in the envelope representation of the
2533 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2534 All messages that contain
2536 in the envelope representation of the
2539 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2540 All messages that contain
2545 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2546 All messages that contain
2548 in the envelope representation of the
2551 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2552 All messages that contain
2557 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2558 All messages that contain
2561 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2562 All messages that contain
2564 in their header or body.
2565 .It Ar ( larger size )
2566 All messages that are larger than
2569 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2570 All messages that are smaller than
2574 .It Ar ( before date )
2575 All messages that were received before
2577 which must be in the form
2581 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2583 is the name of the month \(en one of
2584 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2587 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2591 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2592 .It Ar ( since date )
2593 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2594 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2595 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2596 .It Ar ( senton date )
2597 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2598 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2599 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2601 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2602 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2603 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2604 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2608 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2609 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2611 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2613 libraries, either the
2615 or, alternatively, the
2617 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2619 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2620 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2621 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2622 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys.
2625 The internal variable
2627 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2628 \*(UA may also become a fullscreen application by entering the
2629 so-called ca-mode and switching to an alternative exclusive screen
2630 (content) shall the terminal support it and the internal variable
2632 has been set explicitly.
2633 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2634 setting the internal variable
2635 .Va termcap-disable ;
2637 will be queried regardless, which is true even if the \*(OPal library
2638 support has not been enabled at configuration time as long as some other
2639 \*(OP which (may) query terminal control sequences has been enabled.
2642 \*(OP The built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2643 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2645 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2646 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2648 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2650 .Va line-editor-disable .
2651 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2652 entries in the internal variable
2654 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2655 The MLE can support a little bit of
2661 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2662 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2663 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2665 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2666 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2670 .Va history-gabby-persist
2675 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2676 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2677 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2678 be generated by holding the
2680 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2684 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2685 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2686 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2688 to establish its built-in key bindings
2689 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2690 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2691 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2692 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2693 notation is used in the following;
2694 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2695 generate a (unique) keycode:
2699 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql \eBa"
2701 Go to the start of the line
2703 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2706 Move the cursor backward one character
2708 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2711 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2712 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2716 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2719 Go to the end of the line
2721 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2724 Move the cursor forward one character
2726 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2729 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2730 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2731 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2732 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2734 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2737 Backspace: backward delete one character
2739 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2743 Horizontal tabulator:
2744 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2745 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2747 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2749 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2753 commit the current line
2755 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2758 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2760 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2765 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2768 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2770 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2773 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2777 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2779 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2782 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2785 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2786 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2787 is committed; also see
2791 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2793 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2796 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2798 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2801 Paste the snarf buffer
2803 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2811 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2814 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2816 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2817 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2818 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2819 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2820 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2821 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2823 function immediately.
2826 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2829 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2832 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2834 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2837 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2839 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2842 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2843 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2845 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2846 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2847 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2848 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2850 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2851 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2852 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2855 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2859 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2863 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2867 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2870 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2881 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2886 ring the audible bell.
2890 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2891 .Ss "Coloured display"
2893 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2894 attributes by emitting ANSI a.k.a. ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic
2895 rendition) escape sequences.
2896 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2897 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2898 environment variable
2900 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2904 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2906 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2907 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2908 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2913 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2914 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2915 support those sequences.
2916 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2917 environment it is often enough to simply set
2919 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2924 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2925 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2930 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2931 command family exists:
2933 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2936 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2937 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2938 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2941 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2942 if terminal && [ "$features" =% +colour ]
2943 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2944 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject
2945 colour iso view-header fg=red
2947 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2948 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2949 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 "subject,from"
2950 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2951 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2956 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
2959 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
2960 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
2961 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
2963 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
2964 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
2966 state can be prompted: the
2970 message specifications will address respective messages and their
2972 entries will be used when displaying the
2974 in the header display.
2979 rates the given messages and sets their
2982 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
2983 the header display by including the
2993 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
2994 the given messages as
2998 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
3000 of messages; it adheres to their current
3002 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
3007 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
3009 message flag, without any interface interaction.
3018 requires a running instance of the
3020 server in order to function, started with the option
3022 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
3024 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3025 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
3026 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
3027 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
3031 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
3033 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3034 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3035 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3036 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
3038 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3039 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3040 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
3044 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
3046 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
3049 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3050 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3051 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
3052 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
3053 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
3054 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
3055 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
3056 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
3060 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
3061 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
3062 perform the local spam check last.
3063 Spam can be checked automatically when opening specific folders by
3064 setting a specialized form of the internal variable
3067 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3068 define spamdelhook {
3070 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
3071 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
3072 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
3073 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
3079 set folder-hook-SOMEFOLDER=spamdelhook
3083 See also the documentation for the variables
3084 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
3085 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
3086 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
3089 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
3092 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
3095 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
3098 \*(UA reads input in lines.
3099 An unquoted reverse solidus
3101 at the end of a command line
3103 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
3104 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
3105 once an entire line is completed, the whitespace characters
3106 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3107 as well as those defined by the variable
3109 are removed from the beginning and end.
3110 Placing any whitespace characters at the beginning of a line will
3111 prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
3115 The beginning of such input lines is then scanned for the name of
3116 a known command: command names may be abbreviated, in which case the
3117 first command that matches the given prefix will be used.
3118 .Sx "Command modifiers"
3119 may prefix a command in order to modify its behaviour.
3120 A name may also be a
3122 which will become expanded until no more expansion is possible.
3123 Once the command that shall be executed is known, the remains of the
3124 input line will be interpreted according to command-specific rules,
3125 documented in the following.
3128 This behaviour is different to the
3130 ell, which is a programming language with syntactic elements of clearly
3131 defined semantics, and therefore capable to sequentially expand and
3132 evaluate individual elements of a line.
3133 \*(UA will never be able to handle
3134 .Ql ? set one=value two=$one
3135 in a single statement, because the variable assignment is performed by
3143 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
3144 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
3145 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
3146 \*(OPally the command
3150 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
3151 command matching the expanded argument, as in
3153 which should be a shorthand of
3155 with these documentation strings both commands support a more
3157 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command and other
3158 information which applies; a handy suggestion might thus be:
3160 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3162 # Before v15: need to enable sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
3163 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
3165 ? commandalias xv '\ecall __xv'
3169 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
3170 .Ss "Command modifiers"
3172 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
3176 The modifier reverse solidus
3179 to be placed first, prevents
3181 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
3183 will always evaluate the command
3185 even if an (command)alias of the same name exists.
3187 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
3188 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
3194 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
3195 ignored by the state machine and not cause a program exit with enabled
3197 or for the standardized exit cases in
3202 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3203 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
3206 Some commands support the
3209 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
3210 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
3211 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
3212 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
3214 The given name will be tested for being a valid
3216 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
3217 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
3218 a non-portable extension; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
3219 may not be used as last characters.
3220 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
3221 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3222 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
3223 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
3224 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
3225 Any error during these operations causes the command as such to fail,
3226 and the error number
3229 .Va ^ERR Ns -NOTSUP ,
3236 Last, but not least, the modifier
3239 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
3240 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3241 rules over the traditional
3242 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
3246 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
3247 .Ss "Message list arguments"
3249 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
3250 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
3251 .Sx "Specifying messages"
3253 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
3254 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
3255 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
3256 the search proceeds backwards;
3257 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
3258 shown and the command is aborted.
3261 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
3262 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
3264 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
3265 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
3266 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
3267 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3268 may be available even for those via
3271 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
3272 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
3273 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
3274 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
3277 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3279 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
3284 any whitespace, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
3285 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
3286 part of the argument.
3287 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
3289 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
3290 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
3296 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
3297 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
3301 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
3302 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
3306 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
3307 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
3309 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
3311 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
3313 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
3314 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
3316 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
3319 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
3320 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
3321 Metacharacters are vertical bar
3327 as well as all characters from the variable
3330 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
3331 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
3333 and less-than and greater-than signs
3337 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
3338 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it seems
3339 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
3341 .Bd -filled -offset indent
3342 .Sy Compatibility note:
3343 \*(ID Please note that even many new-style commands do not yet honour
3345 to parse their arguments: whereas the
3347 ell is a language with syntactic elements of clearly defined semantics,
3348 \*(UA parses entire input lines and decides on a per-command base what
3349 to do with the rest of the line.
3350 This also means that whenever an unknown command is seen all that \*(UA
3351 can do is cancellation of the processing of the remains of the line.
3353 It also often depends on an actual subcommand of a multiplexer command
3354 how the rest of the line should be treated, and until v15 we are not
3355 capable to perform this deep inspection of arguments.
3356 Nonetheless, at least the following commands which work with positional
3357 parameters fully support
3359 for an almost shell-compatible field splitting:
3360 .Ic call , call_if , read , vpospar , xcall .
3364 Any unquoted number sign
3366 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
3367 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
3368 An unquoted dollar sign
3370 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
3372 ell-style variable name (see
3374 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3377 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
3378 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
3381 Whereas the metacharacters
3382 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3383 only complete an input token, vertical bar
3389 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
3390 For now supported is semicolon
3392 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
3393 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
3394 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
3395 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
3396 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
3399 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3400 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3403 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
3404 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
3405 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
3406 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
3409 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3411 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
3412 with the escape character reverse solidus
3416 Arguments which are enclosed in
3417 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3418 retain their literal value.
3419 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3422 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3423 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3424 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3426 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3428 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3430 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3432 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3436 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3438 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3439 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3442 Arguments enclosed in
3443 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3444 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3445 expanded as follows:
3447 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3449 bell control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BEL).
3451 backspace control characer (ASCII and ISO-10646 BS).
3453 escape control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 ESC).
3457 form feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 FF).
3459 line feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 LF).
3461 carriage return control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 CR).
3463 horizontal tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 HT).
3465 vertical tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 VT).
3467 emits a reverse solidus character.
3471 double quote (escaping is optional).
3473 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3475 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3477 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3479 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3481 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3482 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3484 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3486 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3487 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3492 This escape is only supported in locales that support Unicode (see
3493 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3494 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3495 point is ASCII compatible or (if the \*(OPal character set conversion is
3496 available) can be represented in the current locale.
3497 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3501 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3503 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3504 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3505 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3506 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3507 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3508 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3509 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3511 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3512 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3514 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3515 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3517 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3519 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO-10646, ISO C) aliases,
3520 as shown above (e.g.,
3524 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3525 The control code NUL
3527 a non-standard extension) will suppress further output for the remains
3528 of the token (which may extend beyond the current quote), or, depending
3529 on the context, the remains of all arguments for the current command.
3531 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3532 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3534 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3541 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3542 ? echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3543 ? echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3544 ? echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3548 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3549 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3551 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3553 in their name, e.g.,
3557 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3558 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3559 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3560 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3561 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3562 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3566 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3567 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3569 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3571 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3572 ? eval shcodec d $res
3573 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3577 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3578 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3580 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3581 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3584 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3586 If the given name is a registered
3588 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3591 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3593 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3595 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3597 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3598 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3599 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3601 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3603 if that is set, or a built-in compile-time default otherwise.
3605 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3607 (and never the value of
3609 regardless of its actual setting).
3611 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3612 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3613 secondary mailbox, the
3620 directory (if that variable is set).
3622 Expands to the same value as
3624 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3626 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3630 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3631 session will be moved to the
3633 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3637 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3638 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3639 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3640 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3641 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3643 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3645 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3647 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3648 directory of the given user is used instead.
3650 In addition a shell expansion as if specified in double-quotes (see
3651 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
3652 is applied, so that any occurrence of
3656 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3657 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3660 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism.
3662 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3664 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3665 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3667 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3671 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3674 The following commands are available:
3676 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3683 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3684 previously executed command if the internal variable
3687 This command supports
3690 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
3691 and manages the error number
3693 A 0 or positive exit status
3695 reflects the exit status of the command, negative ones that
3696 an error happened before the command was executed, or that the program
3697 did not exit cleanly, but, e.g., due to a signal: the error number is
3698 .Va ^ERR Ns -CHILD ,
3702 In conjunction with the
3704 modifier the following special cases exist:
3705 a negative exit status occurs if the collected data could not be stored
3706 in the given variable, which is a
3708 error that should otherwise not occur.
3709 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED
3710 indicates that no temporary file could be created to collect the command
3711 output at first glance.
3712 In case of catchable out-of-memory situations
3714 will occur and \*(UA will try to store the empty string, just like with
3715 all other detected error conditions.
3720 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3722 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3725 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3726 on a line are not possible.
3730 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3736 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3737 a numeric argument n.
3741 Show the current message number (the
3746 Show a brief summary of commands.
3747 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3748 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3749 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3750 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3755 and see how the output changes.
3756 This mode also supports a more
3758 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3769 .It Ic account , unaccount
3770 (ac, una) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3771 Accounts are special incarnations of
3773 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3774 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3775 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3777 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3782 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted by the
3783 latter command, and in one operation with the special name
3785 Also for all but it a possibly set
3786 .Va on-account-cleanup
3787 hook is called once they are left.
3789 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3790 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3792 of that account will be activated (as via
3794 a possibly installed
3796 will be run, and the internal variable
3799 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3801 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3803 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3804 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3805 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3812 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3813 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3817 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
3818 and manages the error number
3820 The first argument must be either
3821 .Ar [+[+[+]]]e[ncode] ,
3825 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3828 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3829 argument, which should be an email address.
3830 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3831 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3833 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3834 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3837 Skinning is identical to decoding but only outputs the plain address,
3838 without any string, comment etc. components.
3839 Another difference is that it may fail with the error number
3843 if decoding fails to find a(n) (valid) email address, in which case the
3844 unmodified input will be output again.
3847 Encoding supports four different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3848 chosen by prefixing one, two or three plus signs: the standard imposes
3849 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3850 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3852 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3853 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3854 Specify one plus sign to remark that parenthesis shall be left alone,
3855 two for not turning double quotation marks into quoted-pairs, and three
3856 for also leaving any user-specified reverse solidus alone.
3857 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported.
3858 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3861 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3862 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3864 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3865 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3866 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3867 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3868 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
3869 ? addrc s "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3876 .It Ic alias , unalias
3877 (a, una) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists
3878 that map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3879 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed.
3880 The latter command removes the given list of aliases, the special name
3882 will discard all existing aliases.
3884 The former command shows all currently defined aliases when used without
3885 arguments, and with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
3886 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3887 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3888 Alias names adhere to the Postfix MTA
3890 rules and are thus restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3891 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon and commercial at,
3892 the last character can also be the dollar sign; the regular expression:
3893 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@-]+$? .
3894 As extensions the exclamation mark
3899 .Dq any character that has the high bit set
3904 .It Ic alternates , unalternates
3905 \*(NQ (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3906 members of which will be removed from recipient lists.
3907 The latter command removes the given list of alternates, the special name
3909 will discard all existing aliases.
3910 The former command manages the error number
3912 and shows the current set of alternates when used without arguments; in
3913 this mode it supports
3916 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3917 Otherwise the given arguments (after being checked for validity) are
3918 appended to the list of alternate names; in
3920 mode they replace that list instead.
3921 There is a set of implicit alternates which is formed of the values of
3930 .It Ic answered , unanswered
3931 Take a message lists and mark each message as having been answered,
3932 having not been answered, respectively.
3933 Messages will be marked answered when being
3935 to automatically if the
3939 .Sx "Message states" .
3944 .It Ic bind , unbind
3945 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3946 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3947 with freely configurable key bindings.
3948 The latter command removes from the given context the given key binding,
3949 both of which may be specified as a wildcard
3953 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
3954 Due to initialization order unbinding will not work for built-in key
3955 bindings upon program startup, however: please use
3956 .Va line-editor-no-defaults
3957 for this purpose instead.
3960 With one argument the former command shows all key bindings for the
3961 given context, specifying an asterisk
3963 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3964 produced if either of
3969 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3970 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3971 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3973 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3974 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3975 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3977 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3978 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3979 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3982 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3983 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3984 This is not true for the shared binding
3986 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3987 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3988 The available contexts are the shared
3992 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3994 which applies to compose mode only.
3998 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3999 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
4000 A list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
4002 also refer to the name of a terminal capability; several dozen names
4003 will be compiled in and may be specified either by their
4005 or, if existing, by their
4007 name, regardless of the actually used \*(OPal terminal control library.
4008 It is possible to use any capability, as long as the name is resolvable
4009 by the \*(OPal control library or was defined via the internal variable
4011 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
4012 required to update or remove a binding.
4015 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4016 ? bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
4017 ? bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
4018 ? bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
4019 ? bind default a,b,c rm -irf / @ # Another editable binding
4020 ? bind default :kf1 File %
4021 ? bind compose :kf1 ~e
4025 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
4026 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
4027 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
4028 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
4029 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
4030 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
4031 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
4032 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
4033 and using terminal capabilities does so if no (corresponding) terminal
4034 control support is (currently) available.
4037 The following terminal capability names are built-in and can be used in
4039 or (if available) the two-letter
4042 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
4045 can be used to show all the capabilities of
4047 or the given terminal type;
4050 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
4053 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
4054 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
4056 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
4058 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
4059 \(em shifted variant.
4060 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
4061 Clear to end of line.
4062 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
4064 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
4066 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
4067 \(em shifted variant.
4068 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
4070 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
4071 \(em shifted variant.
4072 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
4074 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
4076 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
4078 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
4079 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
4080 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
4081 \(em shifted variant.
4082 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
4083 Right cursor (ditto).
4084 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
4085 \(em shifted variant.
4086 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
4087 Down cursor (ditto).
4089 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4090 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
4093 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4094 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
4096 Add one for each function key up to
4101 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
4103 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
4105 Add one for each function key up to
4113 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
4115 For example, the delete key,
4117 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
4119 then a number is appended for the states
4131 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
4133 The same for the left cursor key,
4135 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
4138 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
4140 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
4141 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
4142 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
4145 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
4150 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
4155 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
4156 may be accessed via special (positional) parameters, e.g.,
4161 The positional parameters may be removed by
4163 ing them off the stack (exceeding the supported number of arguments
4165 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW ) ,
4166 and are otherwise controllable via
4171 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4172 can be reverted before the current level regains control by setting
4174 for called macro(s) (or in them, of course).
4175 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
4179 Calling macros recursively will at some time excess the stack size
4180 limit, causing a hard program abortion; if recursively calling a macro
4181 is the last command of the current macro, consider to use the command
4183 which will first release all resources of the current macro before
4184 replacing the current macro with the called one.
4185 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
4189 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
4191 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4193 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
4196 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
4204 if the given macro has been created via
4206 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
4210 (ch) Change the working directory to
4212 or the given argument.
4218 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
4219 Takes a message list and a filename and saves the certificates
4220 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
4221 human-readable and PEM format.
4222 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
4223 respective message senders by setting
4224 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
4229 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
4230 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
4231 as documented in the section
4232 .Sx "Character sets" .
4233 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
4234 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
4236 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
4237 is not available (i.e., no
4241 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown,
4242 with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4243 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
4244 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
4245 existing aliases, as necessary.
4247 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
4249 will remove all aliases.
4253 (ch) Change the working directory to
4255 or the given argument.
4261 .It Ic collapse , uncollapse
4262 Only applicable to threaded mode.
4263 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
4264 in header summaries, except for
4268 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
4269 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
4270 The latter command undoes collapsing.
4275 .It Ic colour , uncolour
4276 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
4277 .Sx "Coloured display" .
4278 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
4279 which must be one of
4281 for 256-colour terminals,
4286 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
4290 for monochrome terminals.
4291 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
4295 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
4296 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
4300 will show the mappings of all types).
4301 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
4302 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
4303 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
4304 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
4305 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
4306 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
4308 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
4309 .Sx "Coloured display"
4310 for some examples), the following of which exist:
4313 Mappings prefixed with
4315 are used for the \*(OPal built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
4316 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4317 and do not support preconditions.
4319 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4321 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
4322 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
4329 Mappings prefixed with
4331 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
4333 (the current message) and
4335 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
4336 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
4338 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4340 This mapping is used for the
4342 that can be created with the
4346 formats of the variable
4349 For the complete header summary line except the
4351 and the thread structure.
4353 For the thread structure which can be created with the
4355 format of the variable
4360 Mappings prefixed with
4362 are used when displaying messages.
4364 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4366 This mapping is used for so-called
4368 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
4371 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
4372 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
4373 available then if any of the
4375 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
4376 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
4378 For the introductional message info line.
4379 .It Ar view-partinfo
4380 For MIME part info lines.
4384 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
4385 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
4395 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
4396 attributes for a single mapping.
4399 foreground colour attribute:
4409 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
4410 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
4412 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
4414 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
4416 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
4418 216 colors in tuples of 6.
4420 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
4422 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4424 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4425 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4427 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4428 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4430 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4431 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4435 background colour attribute (see
4437 for possible values).
4443 will remove for the given colour type (the special type
4445 selects all) the given mapping; if the optional precondition argument is
4446 given only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
4449 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed), thus
4451 will remove all established mappings.
4456 .It Ic commandalias , uncommandalias
4457 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, command aliases.
4458 An (command)alias can be used everywhere a normal command can be used,
4459 but always takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command
4460 alias are joined onto the alias expansion, and the resulting string
4461 forms the command line that is, in effect, executed.
4462 The latter command removes all given aliases, the special name
4464 will remove all existing aliases.
4465 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4466 known aliases, with one argument only the expansion of the given one.
4468 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4469 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4470 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4471 An alias may itself expand to another alias, but to avoid expansion loops
4472 further expansion will be prevented if an alias refers to itself or if
4473 an expansion depth limit is reached.
4474 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4477 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4478 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4480 \*(uA: `commandalias': no such alias: xx
4481 ? commandalias xx echo hello,
4483 commandalias xx 'echo hello,'
4492 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
4493 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
4494 otherwise identical to
4499 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
4500 otherwise identical to
4505 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
4510 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4511 The return status is tracked via
4516 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4518 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4522 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4524 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4528 .It Ic define , undefine
4529 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
4530 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined, replacing an existing macro of
4532 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
4533 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4542 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
4547 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
4549 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
4551 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
4554 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
4556 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
4558 switch) the macro is invoked.
4559 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
4563 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
4565 ed, or become completely replaced, removed etc. via
4568 The latter command deletes the given macro, the special name
4570 will discard all existing macros.
4571 Creation and deletion of (a) macro(s) can be performed from within
4576 .It Ic delete , undelete
4577 (d, u) Marks the given message list as being or not being
4579 respectively; if no argument has been specified then the usual search
4580 for a visible message is performed, as documented for
4581 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
4582 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
4583 Deleted messages will neither be saved in the
4585 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4587 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4590 variable is set, the new
4592 or the last message restored, respectively, is automatically
4602 Superseded by the multiplexer
4608 Delete the given messages and automatically
4612 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4619 up or down by one message when given
4623 argument, respectively.
4627 .It Ic draft , undraft
4628 Take message lists and mark each given message as being draft, or not
4629 being draft, respectively, as documented in the section
4630 .Sx "Message states" .
4634 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4635 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4638 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4640 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4641 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4647 except that is echoes to standard error.
4650 In interactive sessions the \*(OPal message ring queue for
4652 will be used instead, if available.
4658 but does not write a trailing newline.
4664 but does not write a trailing newline.
4668 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4670 at each message from the given list in turn.
4671 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4673 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
4674 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
4679 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4680 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4682 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4683 if it evaluates true.
4688 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4689 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4693 commands was true, the
4699 (en) Marks the end of an
4700 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4701 conditional execution block.
4706 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4707 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4708 and which are managed in the program
4710 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4711 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4712 internal variables via
4716 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4717 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4718 process environment where they normally are not, a
4720 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4723 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB TZ
4726 Afterwards changing such variables with
4728 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4729 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4730 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4731 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4733 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4734 the knowledge they ever have been
4737 Note that this implies that
4739 may cause loss of such links.
4744 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4745 Additionally the subcommands
4749 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4753 but (additionally un)link the variable(s) with the program environment
4754 and thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4755 respectively, the program environment.
4760 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4761 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4762 An error message ring queue is available which stores duplicates of any
4763 error message and notifies the user in interactive sessions whenever
4764 a new error has occurred.
4765 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4766 replaces the eldest.
4769 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4771 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4773 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4777 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4778 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4779 This command passes through the exit status
4783 of the evaluated command; also see
4785 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4796 call yyy '\ecall xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4804 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4805 any saving of messages in the
4807 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4809 as well as a possibly tracked line editor
4811 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
4813 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
4814 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
4815 otherwise success indicating status.
4821 but open the mailbox read-only.
4826 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4827 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4828 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4829 the user has made, open a new mailbox, update the internal variables
4830 .Va mailbox-resolved
4832 .Va mailbox-display ,
4833 and optionally display a summary of
4840 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4841 will be applied to the
4845 prefixes are, i.e., URL syntax is understood, e.g.,
4846 .Ql maildir:///tmp/mdirbox :
4847 if a protocol prefix is used the mailbox type is fixated and neither
4848 the auto-detection (read on) nor the
4851 \*(OPally URLs can also be used to access network resources, which may
4852 be accessed securely via
4853 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
4854 if so supported, and it is possible to proxy all network traffic over
4855 a SOCKS5 server given via
4859 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4860 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4863 \*(OPally supported network protocols are
4867 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport),
4873 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4875 Network URLs require a special encoding as documented in the section
4876 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4879 If the resulting file protocol (MBOX database)
4881 is located on a local filesystem then the list of all registered
4883 s is traversed in order to see whether a transparent intermediate
4884 conversion step is necessary to handle the given mailbox, in which case
4885 \*(UA will use the found hook to load and save data into and from
4886 a temporary file, respectively.
4887 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes.
4888 For example, the following creates hooks for the
4890 compression tool and a combined compressed and encrypted format:
4892 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4894 gzip 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' \e
4895 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
4899 MBOX database files are generally locked during file operations in order
4900 to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent modifications.
4901 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4906 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4907 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4908 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4912 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4913 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4914 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4915 the dotlock file in the same directory
4916 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4919 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4920 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4921 complain (even more with
4923 if any is seen: in this case
4925 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4928 If no protocol has been fixated, and
4930 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4935 then it is treated as a folder in
4938 The maildir format stores each message in its own file, and has been
4939 designed so that file locking is not necessary when reading or writing
4943 \*(ID If no protocol has been fixated and no existing file has
4944 been found, the variable
4946 controls the format of mailboxes yet to be created.
4951 .It Ic filetype , unfiletype
4952 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, file handler hooks,
4953 which provide (shell) commands that enable \*(UA to load and save MBOX
4954 files from and to files with the registered file extensions;
4955 it will use an intermediate temporary file to store the plain data.
4956 The latter command removes the hooks for all given extensions,
4958 will remove all existing handlers.
4960 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4961 defined file hooks, with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4962 Otherwise three arguments are expected, the first specifying the file
4963 extension for which the hook is meant, and the second and third defining
4964 the load- and save commands, respectively, to deal with the file type,
4965 both of which must read from standard input and write to standard
4967 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes (\*(ID except below).
4968 \*(ID For now too much work is done, and files are oftened read in twice
4969 where once would be sufficient: this can cause problems if a filetype is
4970 changed while such a file is opened; this was already so with the
4971 built-in support of .gz etc. in Heirloom, and will vanish in v15.
4972 \*(ID For now all handler strings are passed to the
4973 .Ev SHELL for evaluation purposes; in the future a
4975 prefix to load and save commands may mean to bypass this shell instance:
4976 placing a leading space will avoid any possible misinterpretations.
4977 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4978 ? filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
4979 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
4980 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
4981 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
4982 ? set record=+sent.zst.pgp
4987 .It Ic flag , unflag
4988 Take message lists and mark the messages as being flagged, or not being
4989 flagged, respectively, for urgent/special attention.
4991 .Sx "Message states" .
5000 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
5001 With an existing folder as an argument,
5002 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
5008 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5009 recipient's address (instead of in
5016 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5017 recipient's address (instead of in
5024 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
5029 .It Ic followupsender
5032 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
5040 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
5041 recipient's address (instead of in
5046 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
5047 and forwards the message to him.
5048 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
5049 with the value of the
5050 .Va forward-inject-head
5051 variable preceding it.
5052 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
5054 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
5056 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
5057 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
5058 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names
5059 etc. unless the internal variable
5063 This may generate the errors
5064 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5065 if no receiver has been specified,
5067 if some addressees where rejected by
5070 if no applicable messages have been given,
5072 if multiple messages have been specified,
5074 if an I/O error occurs,
5076 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5082 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
5083 their message headers, exactly as via
5085 An alias of this command is
5088 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5099 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5103 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5106 .It Ic ghost , unghost
5109 .Ic uncommandalias .
5113 .It Ic headerpick , unheaderpick
5114 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to manage white- and blacklisting
5115 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
5116 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
5117 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
5118 command applies, one of (case-insensitive)
5120 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
5123 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
5129 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
5130 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
5132 for stripping down messages when
5134 ing message (has no effect if
5135 .Va forward-as-attachment
5138 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
5141 The current settings of the given context are displayed if it is the
5143 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
5144 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
5148 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
5149 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
5152 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
5153 will be displayed, otherwise the remaining arguments specify header
5154 fields, which \*(OPally may be given as regular expressions, to be added
5156 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
5158 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields.
5160 The latter command always takes three or more arguments and can be used
5161 to remove selections, i.e., from the given context, the given type of
5162 list, all the given headers will be removed, the special argument
5164 will remove all headers.
5168 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
5171 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
5173 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
5174 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
5187 (this mode also supports a more
5191 the list of history entries;
5194 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
5195 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
5196 offset to the current command, e.g.,
5198 will select the last command, the history top.
5199 The default mode if no arguments are given is
5202 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
5203 for more on this topic.
5209 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
5214 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5216 Does not override the
5219 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
5221 command issued after
5223 will display the following message, not the current one.
5228 (i) Part of the nestable
5229 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
5230 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
5231 the encapsulated block is executed.
5232 The POSIX standards supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
5237 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions.
5238 \*(ID These commands do not yet use
5239 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5240 and therefore do not know about input tokens, so that syntax
5241 elements have to be surrounded by whitespace; in v15 \*(UA will inspect
5242 all conditions bracket group wise and consider the tokens, representing
5243 values and operators, therein, which also means that variables will
5244 already have been expanded at that time (just like in the shell).
5246 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5255 The (case-insensitive) condition
5257 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
5258 in interactive sessions.
5259 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
5260 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5261 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
5264 .Dq always execute .
5265 (It shall be remarked that a faulty condition skips all branches until
5270 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5271 will be used, and this command will simply interpret expanded tokens.)
5272 It is possible to check
5273 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5276 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
5277 value or another variable by using the
5279 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
5280 conditional trigger character;
5281 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
5283 Variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
5284 When this mode has been triggered, several operators are available:
5287 Integer operators treat the arguments on the left and right hand side of
5288 the operator as integral numbers and compare them arithmetically.
5289 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
5290 argument (which implies it had been quoted) is treated as if it were 0.
5291 Available operators are
5295 (less than or equal to),
5301 (greater than or equal to), and
5306 String data operators compare the left and right hand side according to
5307 their textual content.
5308 Unset variables are treated as the empty string.
5309 The behaviour of string operators can be adjusted by prefixing the
5310 operator with the modifier trigger commercial at
5312 followed by none to multiple modifiers: for now supported is
5314 which turns the comparison into a case-insensitive one: this is
5315 implied if no modifier follows the trigger.
5318 Available string operators are
5322 (less than or equal to),
5328 (greater than or equal to),
5332 (is substring of) and
5334 (is not substring of).
5335 By default these operators work on bytes and (therefore) do not take
5336 into account character set specifics.
5337 If the case-insensitivity modifier has been used, case is ignored
5338 according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding, i.e., bytes are
5342 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
5348 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
5349 matched according to the active locale (see
5350 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
5351 i.e., character sets should be honoured correctly.
5354 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
5356 and the OR operator is
5358 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
5359 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
5361 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
5362 them in pairs of brackets
5363 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
5364 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
5368 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
5369 via unary operators: the unary operator
5371 will reverse the result.
5373 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5374 # (This not in v15, there [ -n "$debug"]!)
5378 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" @i== UTF8 ]
5379 echo *ttycharset* is UTF-8, the former case-sensitive!
5382 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
5383 echo These two variables are equal
5385 if [ "$features" =% +regex ] && [ "$TERM" @i=~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
5386 echo ..in an X terminal
5388 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
5389 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
5392 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
5393 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
5402 Superseded by the multiplexer
5407 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
5408 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
5409 in which command prefixes are searched.
5410 \*(OP In conjunction with a set variable
5412 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
5413 type will be indicated, the documentation string will be shown,
5414 and the set of command flags will show up:
5416 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
5417 .It Ql "vput modifier"
5418 command supports the command modifier
5420 .It Ql "errno in *!*"
5421 the error number is tracked in
5424 commands needs an active mailbox, a
5426 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
5427 command may only be used in interactive or
5430 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
5431 command can be used in send mode.
5432 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
5433 command is not available when in compose mode.
5434 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
5435 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
5436 .Sx "Resource files" .
5437 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
5438 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
5439 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
5440 .Va on-compose-splice .
5446 This command can be used to localize changes to (linked)
5449 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
5450 meaning that their state will be reverted to the former one once the
5453 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
5457 The covered scope of an
5459 is left once a different account is activated, and some macros, notably
5460 .Va folder-hook Ns s ,
5461 use their own specific notion of covered scope, here it will be extended
5462 until the folder is left again.
5465 This setting stacks up: i.e., if
5467 enables change localization and calls
5469 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
5471 will still be reverted when the scope of
5474 (Caveats: if in this example
5476 changes to a different
5478 which sets some variables that are already covered by localizations,
5479 their scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
5481 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
5482 were defined in a local, macro private context!)
5485 This command takes one or two arguments, the optional first one
5486 specifies an attribute that may be one of
5488 which refers to the current scope and is thus the default,
5490 which causes any macro that is being
5492 ed to be started with localization enabled by default, as well as
5494 which (if enabled) disallows any called macro to turn off localization:
5495 like this it can be ensured that once the current scope regains control,
5496 any changes made in deeper levels have been reverted.
5497 The latter two are mutually exclusive.
5498 The (second) argument is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
5499 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" )
5500 and states whether the given attribute shall be turned on or off.
5502 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5503 define temporary_settings {
5504 set possibly_global_option1
5509 set possibly_global_option2
5516 Reply to messages that come in via known
5519 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
5520 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
5521 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
5524 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
5525 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
5527 For example it will also implicitly generate a
5528 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
5529 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
5531 For more documentation please refer to
5532 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5534 This may generate the errors
5535 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5536 if no receiver has been specified,
5538 if some addressees where rejected by
5541 if no applicable messages have been given,
5543 if an I/O error occurs,
5545 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5548 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5554 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5555 recipient's address (instead of in
5560 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
5561 or asks on standard input if none were given;
5562 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
5563 Unless the internal variable
5565 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5566 For more documentation please refer to
5567 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5569 This may generate the errors
5570 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5571 if no receiver has been specified,
5573 if some addressees where rejected by
5576 if no applicable messages have been given,
5578 if multiple messages have been specified,
5580 if an I/O error occurs,
5582 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5588 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to the
5590 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5592 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
5595 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
5597 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5601 .It Ic mimetype , unmimetype
5602 Without arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed;
5603 a more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5608 When given arguments they will be joined, interpreted as shown in
5609 .Sx "The mime.types files"
5611 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) ,
5612 and the resulting entry will be added (prepended) to the cache.
5613 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
5614 .Va mimetypes-load-control
5615 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
5617 The latter command deletes all specifications of the given MIME type, thus
5618 .Ql ? unmimetype text/plain
5619 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5623 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5625 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5626 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5630 .It Ic mlist , unmlist
5631 The latter command removes all given mailing-lists, the special name
5633 can be used to remove all registered lists.
5634 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists (and their
5635 attributes, if any) when used without arguments; a more verbose listing
5636 will be produced if either of
5641 Otherwise all given arguments will be added and henceforth be recognized
5643 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
5644 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
5650 \*(ID Only available in interactive mode, this command allows to display
5651 MIME parts which require external MIME handler programs to run which do
5652 not integrate in \*(UAs normal
5655 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
5656 (\*(ID No syntax to directly address parts, this restriction may vanish.)
5657 The user will be asked for each non-text part of the given message in
5658 turn whether the registered handler shall be used to display the part.
5662 .It Ic mlsubscribe , unmlsubscribe
5663 The latter command removes the subscription attribute from all given
5664 mailing-lists, the special name
5666 can be used to do so for any registered list.
5667 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists which have
5668 a subscription attribute when used without arguments; a more verbose
5669 listing will be produced if either of
5674 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
5675 newly creating them as necessary (as via
5684 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
5685 sender address of the first message (instead of in
5692 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
5699 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5701 selection, and all MIME parts.
5709 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5710 standard output is a terminal.
5716 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
5718 has been given the content of the
5720 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
5723 then the cache will only be initialized and
5725 will remove its contents.
5726 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
5727 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
5728 to unlock further attempts.
5733 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5735 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5736 documents the file format in detail.
5740 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5742 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5746 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5747 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5755 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5756 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5770 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5772 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5778 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5780 selection, and all MIME parts.
5788 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5789 standard output is a terminal.
5797 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5799 selection, and all parts of MIME
5800 .Ql multipart/alternative
5805 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5806 and pipes the messages through the command.
5807 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5814 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5835 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5838 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5840 preserving all messages marked with
5844 or never referenced in the system
5846 and removing all other messages from the
5848 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5849 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5851 .Dq You have new mail
5853 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5855 then the edit file is rewritten.
5856 A return to the shell is effected,
5857 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5858 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5859 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
5861 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
5862 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
5863 otherwise success indicating status.
5867 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, or the channel set active via
5869 and assign the data, which will be splitted as indicated by
5871 to the given variables.
5872 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
5874 and the same error codes will be seen in
5878 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
5880 with the error number
5884 in case of I/O errors, or
5887 If there are more fields than variables, assigns successive fields to the
5888 last given variable.
5889 If there are less fields than variables, assigns the empty string to the
5891 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5894 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5896 ? wysh set ifs=:; read a b c;unset ifs
5897 hey2.0,:"'you ",:world!:mars.:
5898 ? echo $?/$^ERRNAME / <$a><$b><$c>
5899 0/NONE / <hey2.0,><"'you ",><world!:mars.:><><>
5904 \*(NQ Read anything from standard input, or the channel set active via
5906 and assign the data to the given variable.
5907 The variable name is checked by the same rules as documented for
5909 and the same error codes will be seen in
5913 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
5915 with the error number
5919 in case of I/O errors, or
5922 \*(ID The input data length is restricted to 31-bits.
5926 \*(NQ Manages input channels for
5930 to be used to avoid complicated or impracticable code, like calling
5932 from within a macro in non-interactive mode.
5933 Without arguments, or when the first argument is
5935 a listing of all known channels is printed.
5936 Channels can otherwise be
5938 d, and existing channels can be
5942 d by giving the string used for creation.
5944 The channel name is expected to be a file descriptor number, or,
5945 if parsing the numeric fails, an input file name that undergoes
5946 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
5947 E.g. (this example requires a modern shell):
5948 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5949 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enyou\enecho $a' |\e
5952 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enecho $a' |\e
5953 LC_ALL=C 6<<< 'you' \*(uA -R#X'readctl create 6'
5967 Removes the named files or directories.
5968 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5969 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5970 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5974 Takes the name of an existing folder
5975 and the name for the new folder
5976 and renames the first to the second one.
5977 Both folders must be of the same type.
5981 (R) Replies to only the sender of each message of the given message
5982 list, by using the first message as the template to quote, for the
5986 will exchange this command with
5988 Unless the internal variable
5990 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5992 headers will be inspected if
5996 This may generate the errors
5997 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5998 if no receiver has been specified,
6000 if some addressees where rejected by
6003 if no applicable messages have been given,
6005 if an I/O error occurs,
6007 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6013 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
6014 and all recipients, subject to
6018 .Va followup-to-honour ,
6021 .Va recipients-in-cc
6022 influence response behaviour.
6023 Unless the internal variable
6025 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
6035 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
6036 For more documentation please refer to
6037 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
6039 This may generate the errors
6040 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6041 if no receiver has been specified,
6043 if some addressees where rejected by
6046 if no applicable messages have been given,
6048 if an I/O error occurs,
6050 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6053 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6059 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
6066 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
6073 but does not add any header lines.
6074 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
6075 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
6079 Takes a list of messages and a user name
6080 and sends each message to the named user.
6082 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
6085 is only performed if
6089 This may generate the errors
6090 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6091 if no receiver has been specified,
6093 if some addressees where rejected by
6096 if no applicable messages have been given,
6098 if an I/O error occurs,
6100 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6103 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6121 .It Ic respondsender
6127 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
6132 Only available inside the scope of a
6136 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
6137 execution control to the caller.
6138 The two optional parameters must be specified as positive decimal
6139 numbers and default to the value 0:
6140 the first argument specifies the signed 32-bit return value (stored in
6142 \*(ID and later extended to signed 64-bit),
6143 the second the signed 32-bit error number (stored in
6147 a non-0 exit status may cause the program to exit.
6153 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
6154 sender of the first message instead of (in
6156 and) taking a filename argument; the variable
6158 is inspected to decide on the actual storage location.
6162 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
6163 to the end of the file.
6164 If no filename is given, the
6166 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6169 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
6170 is echoed on the user's terminal.
6173 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
6174 the messages are marked for deletion.
6175 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6177 To filter the saved header fields to the desired subset use the
6179 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
6183 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6187 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6191 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6196 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
6197 all matching messages, as via
6199 This command is an alias of
6202 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
6206 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
6212 (se, \*(NQ uns) The latter command will delete all given variables,
6213 the former, when used without arguments, will show all variables which
6214 are currently known to \*(UA.
6215 A more verbose listing will be produced if
6221 Remarks: the list mode will not automatically link-in known
6223 variables, but only explicit addressing will, e.g., via
6225 using a variable in an
6227 condition or a string passed to
6231 ting, as well as some program-internal use cases.
6234 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
6235 Arguments are of the form
6237 (no space before or after
6241 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
6242 \*(ID In conjunction with the
6245 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
6246 can be used to quote arguments as necessary.
6247 \*(ID Otherwise quotation marks may be placed around any part of the
6248 assignment statement to quote blanks or tabs.
6251 .Dl ? wysh set indentprefix=' -> '
6254 If an argument begins with
6258 the effect is the same as invoking the
6260 command with the remaining part of the variable
6261 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
6266 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
6267 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
6268 environment requires corresponding system support) \(em use the command
6270 for further environmental control.
6275 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6282 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
6286 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6287 The first argument specifies the operation:
6291 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
6292 expanded away thereof, respectively.
6293 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
6294 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
6295 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
6296 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
6297 If the coding operation fails the error number
6300 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6301 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6302 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6306 \*(NQ (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell,
6307 and returns its exit status.
6311 .It Ic shortcut , unshortcut
6312 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
6313 shown, with one argument the expansion of the given shortcut.
6314 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
6315 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
6317 The latter command will remove all given shortcuts, the special name
6319 will remove all registered shortcuts.
6323 \*(NQ Shift the positional parameter stack (starting at
6325 by the given number (which must be a positive decimal),
6326 or 1 if no argument has been given.
6327 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
6328 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
6329 The stack as such can be managed via
6331 Note this command will fail in
6333 and hook macros unless the positional parameter stack has been
6334 explicitly created in the current context via
6341 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
6342 message text is shown.
6346 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
6351 \*(NQ Sleep for the specified number of seconds (and optionally
6352 milliseconds), by default interruptably.
6353 If a third argument is given the sleep will be uninterruptible,
6354 otherwise the error number
6358 if the sleep has been interrupted.
6359 The command will fail and the error number will be
6360 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6361 if the given duration(s) overflow the time datatype, and
6363 if the given durations are no valid integers.
6368 .It Ic sort , unsort
6369 The latter command disables sorted or threaded mode, returns to normal
6370 message order and, if the
6373 displays a header summary.
6374 The former command shows the current sorting criterion when used without
6375 an argument, but creates a sorted representation of the current folder
6376 otherwise, and changes the
6378 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
6380 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
6384 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
6385 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
6387 variable, as in, e.g.,
6388 .Ql set autosort=thread .
6389 Possible sorting criterions are:
6392 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
6394 Sort the messages by their
6396 field, that is by the time they were sent.
6398 Sort messages by the value of their
6400 field, that is by the address of the sender.
6403 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
6405 Sort the messages by their size.
6407 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
6410 Sort the messages by their message status.
6412 Sort the messages by their subject.
6414 Create a threaded display.
6416 Sort messages by the value of their
6418 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
6421 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
6427 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
6428 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6430 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
6432 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
6433 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
6434 Dependent on the settings of
6438 and also dependent on whether the command modifier
6440 had been used, encountering errors will stop sourcing of the given input.
6443 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
6444 .Va folder-hook Ns s
6447 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
6452 \*(NQ The difference to
6454 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
6455 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
6456 argument cannot be opened successfully.
6460 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
6466 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
6468 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
6469 Unless otherwise noted the
6471 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
6479 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6483 This also clears the
6485 flag of the messages in question.
6489 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
6490 .Va spam-interface ,
6491 without modifying the messages, but setting their
6493 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
6494 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
6495 Refer to the manual section
6497 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
6501 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
6507 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6513 flag of the messages in question.
6529 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
6533 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
6535 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
6536 Unless a special selection has been established for the
6540 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
6551 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
6553 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6558 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
6560 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6562 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
6565 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
6571 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
6573 selection, and all visualizable parts of MIME
6574 .Ql multipart/alternative
6579 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users terminal.
6580 The display of message headers is selectable via
6582 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
6584 all parts which have a registered MIME type handler (see
6585 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
6586 which produces plain text output, and all
6588 parts are shown, others are hidden except for their headers.
6589 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6593 can be used to display parts which are not displayable as plain text.
6636 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6640 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6645 Superseded by the multiplexer
6656 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
6667 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
6671 Superseded by the multiplexer
6675 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6679 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6701 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
6702 according to RFC 3986.
6706 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
6707 and manages the error number
6709 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
6710 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current
6712 \*(ID This command does not know about URLs beside that.
6714 The first argument specifies the operation:
6718 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
6722 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
6723 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
6725 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
6729 as an initial character.
6730 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
6731 If the coding operation fails the error number
6734 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6735 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6736 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6740 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
6742 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
6748 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
6752 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
6756 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
6757 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
6758 verification will fail for it.
6759 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
6761 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
6762 within the certificate,
6763 and if the message content has been altered.
6776 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
6777 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
6778 numeric calculations as well as byte string and string operations.
6779 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
6780 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
6781 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
6785 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6788 The result that is shown in case of errors is always
6790 for usage errors and numeric operations, and the empty string for byte
6791 string and string operations;
6792 if the latter two fail to provide result data for
6794 errors, e.g., when a search operation failed, they also set the
6797 .Va ^ERR Ns -NODATA .
6798 Except when otherwise noted numeric arguments are parsed as signed 64-bit
6799 numbers, and errors will be reported in the error number
6801 as the numeric error
6802 .Va ^ERR Ns -RANGE .
6805 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
6806 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
6808 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
6809 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
6811 which creates the bitwise complement.
6812 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
6814 subtraction (hyphen-minus
6816 multiplication (asterisk
6820 and modulo (percent sign
6822 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
6825 bitwise and (ampersand
6828 bitwise xor (circumflex
6830 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
6833 as well as for the unsigned right shift
6837 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
6841 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
6842 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are no longer reported
6843 via the exit status, but the result will linger at the minimum or
6844 maximum possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
6845 This is true also for the argument parse step.
6846 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
6847 Any catched overflow will be reported via the error number
6850 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6853 Character set agnostic string functions have no notion of locale
6854 settings and character sets.
6856 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm random"
6859 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6862 Generates a random string of the given length, or of
6864 bytes (a constant from
6866 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
6867 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a (portable) filename.
6871 Byte string operations work on 8-bit bytes and have no notion of locale
6872 settings and character sets, effectively assuming ASCII data.
6875 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm length"
6877 Queries the length of the given argument.
6880 Calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given argument.
6883 Byte-searches in the first for the second argument.
6884 Shows the resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found.
6889 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
6893 Creates a substring of its first argument.
6894 The second argument is the 0-based starting offset, a negative one
6895 counts from the end;
6896 the optional third argument specifies the length of the desired result,
6897 a negative length leaves off the given number of bytes at the end of the
6898 original string, by default the entire string is used;
6899 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments (set
6901 for error logs), but reports them via the error number
6904 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6907 Trim away whitespace characters from both ends of the argument.
6910 Trim away whitespace characters from the begin of the argument.
6913 Trim away whitespace characters from the end of the argument.
6918 String operations work, sufficient support provided, according to the
6919 active user's locale encoding and character set (see
6920 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
6923 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm regex"
6925 (One-way) Converts the argument to something safely printable on the
6929 \*(OP A string operation that will try to match the first argument with
6930 the regular expression given as the second argument.
6931 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
6932 the match offset a replacement operation is performed: the third
6933 argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote (see
6934 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
6935 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
6937 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression:
6938 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6939 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
6940 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama \e
6941 (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
6946 On otherwise identical case-insensitive equivalent to
6953 \*(NQ Manage the positional parameter stack (see
6957 If the first argument is
6959 then the positional parameter stack of the current context, or the
6960 global one, if there is none, is cleared.
6963 then the remaining arguments will be used to (re)create the stack,
6964 if the parameter stack size limit is excessed an
6965 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6969 If the first argument is
6971 a round-trip capable representation of the stack contents is created,
6972 with each quoted parameter separated from each other with the first
6975 and followed by the first character of
6977 if that is not empty and not identical to the first.
6978 If that results in no separation at all a
6984 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6985 I.e., the subcommands
6989 can be used (in conjunction with
6991 to (re)create an argument stack from and to a single variable losslessly.
6993 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6994 ? vpospar set hey, "'you ", world!
6995 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6996 ? vput vpospar x quote
6998 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6999 ? eval vpospar set ${x}
7000 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7006 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
7007 Modified contents are discarded unless the
7009 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
7010 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
7014 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
7015 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
7017 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
7018 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
7019 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
7020 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
7021 depends on the execution mode.
7022 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
7024 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
7025 the processed parts.
7026 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
7027 value, the same result as writing it to
7029 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
7031 character for the filename is supported.
7032 Other user input undergoes the usual
7033 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7034 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
7037 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
7038 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
7039 URL percent encoded (as via
7041 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
7042 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
7043 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
7044 a dot are appended after a number sign
7046 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
7051 \*(NQ The sole difference to
7053 is that the new macro is executed in place of the current one, which
7054 will not regain control: all resources of the current macro will be
7056 This implies that any setting covered by
7058 will be forgotten and covered variables will become cleaned up.
7059 If this command is not used from within a
7061 ed macro it will silently be (a more expensive variant of)
7071 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
7073 fuls as described under the
7076 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
7077 likewise if the argument is
7081 scrolls to the last,
7083 scrolls to the first, and
7088 A number argument prefixed by
7092 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
7093 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
7099 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
7110 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
7111 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7113 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
7114 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
7115 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines, and
7116 consist of a trigger (escape) and a command character.
7117 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
7119 it defaults to the tilde
7121 Otherwise ignored whitespace characters following the escape character
7122 will prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
7126 Unless otherwise noted all compose mode command escapes ensure proper
7127 updates of the variables which represent the error number
7133 is set they will, unless stated otherwise, error out message compose
7134 mode and cause a progam exit if an operation fails.
7135 It is however possible to place the character hyphen-minus
7137 after (possible whitespace following) the escape character, which has an
7138 effect equivalent to the command modifier
7140 If the \*(OPal key bindings are available it is possible to create
7142 ings specifically for the compose mode.
7145 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
7148 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
7150 (If the escape character has been changed,
7151 that character must be doubled instead.)
7154 .It Ic ~! Ar command
7155 Execute the indicated shell
7157 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
7158 executed command if the internal variable
7160 is set, then return to the message.
7164 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
7167 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
7168 Execute the given \*(UA command.
7169 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
7172 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
7177 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
7179 is executed using the shell.
7180 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
7184 Write a summary of command escapes.
7187 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
7188 Append or edit the list of attachments.
7189 Does not manage the error number
7195 instead if this is a concern).
7198 arguments is expected as shell tokens (see
7199 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
7200 token-separating commas are ignored, too), to be
7201 interpreted as documented for the command line option
7203 with the message number exception as below.
7207 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
7208 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
7209 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
7210 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
7214 For all mode, if a given filename solely consists of the number sign
7216 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
7217 the given message is attached as a
7220 As the shell comment character the number sign must be quoted.
7223 .It Ic ~| Ar command
7224 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
7225 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
7226 retain the original text of the message.
7229 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
7233 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
7234 Low-level command meant for scripted message access, i.e., for
7235 .Va on-compose-splice
7237 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
7238 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
7239 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
7240 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
7241 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
7242 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
7243 Does not manage the error number
7247 because errors are reported via the protocol
7248 (hard errors like I/O failures cannot be handled).
7249 This command has read-only access to several virtual pseudo headers in
7250 the \*(UA private namespace, which may not exist (except for the first):
7254 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7255 .It Ql Mailx-Command:
7256 The name of the command that generates the message, one of
7264 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-To:
7265 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Cc:
7266 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Bcc:
7267 Represent the frozen initial state of these headers before any
7268 transformation (e.g.,
7271 .Va recipients-in-cc
7274 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-From:
7275 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-To:
7276 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Cc:
7277 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Bcc:
7278 The values of said headers of the original message which has been
7280 .Ic reply , forward , resend .
7284 The status codes are:
7288 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql 210"
7290 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
7293 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7294 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
7295 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
7296 plain address, e.g.,
7298 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
7299 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
7300 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
7301 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7302 commands can be issued.
7305 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7306 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
7307 terminated by an empty line.
7308 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7309 commands can be issued.
7312 Syntax error; invalid command.
7315 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
7318 Error: an argument fails verification.
7319 For example an invalid address has been specified, or an attempt was
7320 made to modify anything in \*(UA's own namespace.
7323 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
7324 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
7325 a single address only.
7330 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
7332 Most commands can fail with
7334 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
7335 The following (case-insensitive) commands are supported:
7338 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm header"
7340 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
7341 Header name case is not normalized, and case-insensitive comparison
7342 should be used when matching names.
7343 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7345 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7347 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
7349 this command is the default command of
7351 if no second argument has been given.
7352 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
7355 if no such field is defined.
7358 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
7359 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
7363 any failure results in
7367 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
7372 if no such header can be found, and
7374 on \*(UA namespace violations.
7377 This will remove from the header given as the third argument the
7378 instance at the list position (counting from one!) given with the fourth
7383 if the list position argument is not a number or on \*(UA namespace
7386 if no such header instance exists.
7389 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
7390 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
7391 (the remains of the line).
7394 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
7395 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
7397 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks or
7398 on \*(UA namespace violations, and
7400 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
7402 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
7405 is returned upon success, followed by the name of the header and the list
7406 position of the newly inserted instance.
7407 The list position is always 1 for single-instance header fields.
7408 All free-form header fields are managed in a single list.
7413 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
7414 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7416 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7418 List all attachments via
7422 if no attachments exist.
7423 This command is the default command of
7425 if no second argument has been given.
7428 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
7432 if no such attachment can be found.
7433 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
7434 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
7435 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
7436 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
7437 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
7440 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
7442 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
7443 will be searched for
7445 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
7446 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
7451 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
7452 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
7456 if the argument is not a number or
7458 if no such attachment exists.
7461 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
7462 documented for the command line option
7464 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
7468 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
7470 if the given file cannot be opened,
7472 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
7474 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
7475 requested but not available.
7478 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7480 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
7484 if no such attachment can be found.
7485 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
7486 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
7490 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7492 and is otherwise identical to
7495 .It Cm attribute-set
7496 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7498 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
7499 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
7500 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
7501 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
7502 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
7506 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
7508 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
7510 if no such attachment can be found.
7511 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
7513 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".It Ql filename"
7515 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
7516 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
7517 .It Ql content-description
7518 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
7519 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
7521 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
7522 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
7525 upon address content verification failure.
7527 Defines the media type/subtype of the part, which is managed
7528 automatically, but can be overwritten.
7529 .It Ql content-disposition
7530 Automatically set to the string
7534 .It Cm attribute-set-at
7535 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7537 and is otherwise identical to
7546 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \| Va Sign .
7551 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \| Va sign .
7554 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
7555 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
7558 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
7559 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
7563 Read the file specified by the
7565 variable into the message.
7569 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
7570 After the editing session is finished,
7571 the user may continue appending text to the message.
7574 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
7575 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
7576 message headers and MIME parts.
7577 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7581 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
7582 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
7583 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7585 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7587 white- and blacklist selection of
7589 For MIME multipart messages,
7590 only the first displayable part is included.
7594 Edit the message header fields
7599 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7600 The default values for these fields originate from the
7608 Edit the message header fields
7614 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7617 .It Ic ~I Ar variable
7618 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message.
7619 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7620 Any embedded character sequences
7622 horizontal tabulator and
7624 line feed are expanded in
7626 mode; otherwise the expansion should occur at
7628 time by using the command modifier
7632 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
7633 Insert the value of the specified variable followed by a newline
7634 character into the message.
7635 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7636 Any embedded character sequences
7638 horizontal tabulator and
7640 line feed are expanded in
7642 mode; otherwise the expansion should occur at
7644 time by using the command modifier
7648 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
7649 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7652 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7656 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
7657 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7660 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7662 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7664 white- and blacklist selection of
7666 For MIME multipart messages,
7667 only the first displayable part is included.
7671 Display the message collected so far,
7672 prefaced by the message header fields
7673 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
7677 Abort the message being sent,
7678 copying it to the file specified by the
7685 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
7688 but indent each line that has been read by
7692 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
7693 Read the named file, object to the usual
7694 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7695 into the message; if (the expanded)
7699 then standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
7700 Only in this latter mode
7702 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
7704 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
7706 is a required argument in non-interactive mode; if it is single-quote
7707 quoted then the pasted content will not be expanded, \*(ID otherwise
7708 a future version of \*(UA may perform shell-style expansion on the content.
7712 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
7713 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
7714 normalized to space (SP) characters.
7717 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
7718 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
7721 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
7722 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
7726 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
7727 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
7731 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
7733 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
7734 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
7735 After the editor is quit,
7736 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
7739 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
7740 Write the message onto the named file, which is object to the usual
7741 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
7743 the message is appended to it.
7749 except that the message is not saved at all.
7755 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
7756 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
7758 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
7762 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
7766 has the same effect as using
7772 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
7777 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
7779 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
7780 Both commands support a more
7783 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
7786 implicitly, others can be imported explicitly with the command
7788 and henceforth share said properties.
7791 Two different kinds of internal variables exist.
7792 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
7796 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
7797 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
7798 introduction of the section
7800 documents the supported quoting rules.
7802 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7803 ? wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
7804 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
7805 varshow one two three four; \e
7806 unset one two three four
7810 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
7811 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
7812 a special kind of string value, the
7813 .Dq boolean string ,
7814 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
7818 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
7824 for a false boolean and
7830 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
7832 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
7833 (case-insensitive) term
7837 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
7838 boolean as the default value.
7840 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
7841 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
7842 .Ss "Initial settings"
7844 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
7850 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
7864 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
7866 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
7868 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
7876 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
7885 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
7887 variable \(en use command line options or
7889 to pass options through to a
7891 And the default global
7893 file, which is loaded unless the
7895 (with according argument) or
7897 command line options have been used, or the
7898 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
7899 environment variable is set (see
7900 .Sx "Resource files" )
7901 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
7906 to name a few, establishes a default
7908 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
7911 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
7914 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
7918 \*(RO The exit status of the last command, or the
7923 This status has a meaning in the state machine: in conjunction with
7925 any non-0 exit status will cause a program exit, and in
7927 mode any error while loading (any of the) resource files will have the
7931 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
7932 can be used to instruct the state machine to ignore errors.
7936 \*(RO The current error number
7937 .Pf ( Xr errno 3 ) ,
7938 which is set after an error occurred; it is also available via
7940 and the error name and documentation string can be queried via
7944 \*(ID This machinery is new and the error number is only really usable
7945 if a command explicitly states that it manages the variable
7947 for others errno will be used in case of errors, or
7949 if that is 0: it thus may or may not reflect the real error.
7950 The error number may be set with the command
7956 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
7957 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
7960 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7964 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
7965 The number, documentation, and name of the current
7967 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
7968 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
7969 explicitly states that it manages the variable
7971 which is effectively identical to
7973 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
7974 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
7975 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
7976 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7978 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1: \e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
7979 vput vexpr i + "$1" 1
7991 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
7993 separated by a space character.
7994 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
7996 are not yet supported.
8000 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
8002 separated by a space character.
8003 If placed in double quotation marks, each positional parameter is
8004 properly quoted to expand to a single parameter again.
8008 \*(RO Expands to the number of positional parameters, i.e., the size of
8009 the positional parameter stack in decimal.
8013 \*(RO Inside the scope of a
8017 ed macro this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
8018 string if the macro is running from top-level.
8019 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
8021 this expands to the entire matching expression.
8022 It represents the program name in global context.
8026 \*(RO Access of the positional parameter stack.
8027 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
8030 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
8032 The parameter stack contains, e.g., the arguments of a
8036 d macro, the matching groups of the \*(OPal regular expression search
8037 and replace expression of
8039 and can be explicitly created or overwritten with the command
8044 \*(RO Is set to the active
8048 .It Va add-file-recipients
8049 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
8050 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
8051 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
8052 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
8056 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
8057 when comparing addresses.
8061 \*(BO Causes messages saved in the
8063 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
8065 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
8066 This should always be set.
8070 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
8074 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
8078 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message.
8079 An empty line finalizes the list.
8083 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
8084 (at the end of each message if
8092 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
8093 recipients (at the end of each message if
8101 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for confirmation to send the
8102 message or reenter compose mode after having been shown an envelope
8104 This is by default enabled.
8108 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
8109 signed at the end of each message.
8112 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
8116 .\" The alternative *ask* is not documented on purpose
8117 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject upon entering compose mode
8118 unless a subject already exists.
8122 A sequence of characters to display in the
8126 as shown in the display of
8128 each for one type of messages (see
8129 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
8130 with the default being
8133 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
8136 variable is set, in the following order:
8138 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
8160 start of a collapsed thread.
8162 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
8166 classified as possible spam.
8172 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
8173 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
8177 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
8178 message will be sent automatically.
8182 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
8189 \*(BO Enable automatic
8191 ing of a(n existing)
8197 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
8199 is shown automatically, as via
8206 Causes sorted mode (see the
8208 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
8209 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
8210 .Ql set autosort=thread .
8214 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
8217 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
8219 shell escape command and
8221 one of the compose mode
8222 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8223 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
8227 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
8228 input, for example for function and other special keys.
8229 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
8230 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
8231 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
8232 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8233 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
8239 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
8240 has the same affect as setting
8242 and all other variables prefixed with
8244 it also changes the behaviour of
8246 (which does not exist in BSD).
8250 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
8251 summary to traditional BSD style.
8255 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
8260 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
8266 field to appear immediately after the
8268 field in message headers and with the
8270 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8274 .It Va build-os , build-osenv
8275 \*(RO The operating system \*(UA has been build for, usually taken from
8281 respectively, the former being lowercased.
8285 The value that should appear in the
8289 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
8291 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
8292 US-ASCII compatible.
8296 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
8297 member of the variable
8299 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
8300 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
8303 and this variable is effectively ignored.
8304 Refer to the section
8305 .Sx "Character sets"
8306 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
8309 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
8310 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
8312 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
8314 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
8315 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
8316 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
8318 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
8319 otherwise the (final) value of
8321 is used for this purpose.
8323 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
8324 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
8325 of a MIME message part that uses the
8327 character set is forcefully treated as text.
8331 The default value for the
8336 .It Va colour-disable
8337 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
8338 Also see the section
8339 .Sx "Coloured display" .
8343 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
8345 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
8353 in order to support colours.
8354 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
8355 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
8357 (see there for more).
8361 .It Va contact-mail , contact-web
8362 \*(RO Addresses for contact per email and web, respectively, e.g., for
8363 bug reports, suggestions, or help regarding \*(UA.
8364 The former can be used directly:
8365 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
8369 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
8370 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
8371 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
8375 can be forced by setting this to the value
8377 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
8378 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
8383 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
8384 format, which, dependent on the
8386 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
8387 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
8391 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
8392 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
8395 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
8396 .Va on-compose-splice
8398 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
8399 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
8400 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
8402 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
8405 .Dl ? set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
8409 Controls the appearance of the
8411 date and time format specification of the
8413 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
8415 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
8416 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
8418 It is possible to assign a
8420 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
8422 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
8424 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
8426 .Va datefield-markout-older .
8429 .It Va datefield-markout-older
8430 Only used in conjunction with
8432 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
8433 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
8435 option of the POSIX utility
8437 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
8439 will be displayed, but a
8441 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
8447 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
8448 actual delivery of messages and also implies
8454 .It Va disposition-notification-send
8456 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
8457 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
8461 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
8463 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8464 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
8465 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
8467 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8468 .\"for a specific account.
8472 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
8474 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive or batch
8476 compose mode will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the
8477 normal end-of-file condition).
8478 This behaviour is implied in
8484 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
8485 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
8487 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
8488 es (see, e.g., the notes on
8489 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
8490 as well as the documentation of
8492 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
8493 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
8494 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
8495 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
8496 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
8497 fatal unless this variable is set.
8501 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
8502 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
8504 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8508 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
8512 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
8513 its header is included in the editable text.
8517 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
8518 .Dq \&No mail for user
8519 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
8520 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or non-existent
8521 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
8527 \*(BO Let each command with a non-0 exit status, including every
8531 s a non-0 status, cause a program exit unless prefixed by
8534 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
8536 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
8537 but which use a different modifier for ignoring the error.
8538 Please refer to the variable
8540 for more on this topic.
8544 The first character of this value defines the escape character for
8545 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8547 The default value is the character tilde
8549 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
8553 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
8554 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
8555 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
8556 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
8557 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
8559 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
8560 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8564 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
8566 (it actually acts like
8567 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
8568 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8570 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
8573 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
8574 send error instead of only filtering them out.
8575 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
8576 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
8578 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
8582 addresses all possible address specifications,
8586 command pipeline targets,
8588 plain user names and (MTA) aliases and
8591 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
8592 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
8593 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
8594 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
8598 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
8600 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
8601 To change this so that any encountered invalid email address causes
8602 a hard error it must be ensured that
8604 is an entry in the above list.
8605 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
8606 (it actually acts like
8607 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
8608 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8612 Unless this variable is set additional
8614 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
8615 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
8617 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
8618 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
8620 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
8621 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
8622 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
8624 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
8625 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8632 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
8634 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
8637 The output of the command
8639 will include this information in a more pleasant output.
8643 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
8644 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
8645 included in the header of a message
8646 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
8647 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
8648 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
8651 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
8653 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
8654 are not affected by the current setting of
8659 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
8660 filenames that begin with the plus sign
8662 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
8663 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
8664 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8667 for more on this topic.
8668 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
8669 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
8673 will be prefixed automatically.
8674 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
8676 will be updated for caching purposes.
8679 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER , Va folder-hook
8682 macro which will be called whenever a
8685 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
8686 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
8687 only include newly arrived messages then.
8689 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
8690 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
8692 The specialized form will override the generic one if
8694 matches the file that is opened.
8695 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
8696 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
8697 However, if the mailbox resides under
8701 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
8705 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
8706 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
8708 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
8709 first, but then followed by
8710 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
8713 .It Va folder-resolved
8714 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
8716 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
8720 \*(BO Controls whether a
8721 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
8722 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
8724 .Va followup-to-honour
8726 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
8731 .It Va followup-to-honour
8733 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
8734 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
8738 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
8748 .It Va forward-as-attachment
8749 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
8752 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
8753 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
8755 attachments with all of their parts included.
8758 .It Va forward-inject-head
8759 The string to put before the text of a message with the
8761 command instead of the default
8762 .Dq -------- Original Message -------- .
8763 No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
8764 This variable is ignored if the
8765 .Va forward-as-attachment
8770 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
8772 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
8773 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
8774 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
8777 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
8781 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
8782 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
8784 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
8787 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
8791 contains more than one address,
8794 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
8796 If a file-based MTA is used, then
8798 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8800 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
8801 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
8803 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
8804 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
8805 .Va r-option-implicit .
8809 \*(BO Due to historical reasons comments and name parts of email
8810 addresses are removed by default when sending mail, replying to or
8811 forwarding a message.
8812 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed.
8815 \*(OB Predecessor of
8816 .Va forward-inject-head .
8820 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
8821 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
8826 mode a header summary will also be displayed on folder changes.
8827 The command line option
8835 A format string to use for the summary of
8837 similar to the ones used for
8840 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
8842 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
8843 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
8844 Valid format specifiers are:
8847 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
8849 A plain percent sign.
8852 a space character but for the current message
8854 for which it expands to
8858 a space character but for the current message
8860 for which it expands to
8863 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
8866 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
8868 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
8872 The date found in the
8874 header of the message when
8876 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
8877 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
8882 The indenting level in threaded mode.
8884 The address of the message sender.
8886 The message thread tree structure.
8887 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
8889 The number of lines of the message, if available.
8893 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
8895 Message subject (if any).
8897 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
8899 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
8900 subscribed mailing list \(en see
8905 The position in threaded/sorted order.
8909 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
8911 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
8922 .It Va headline-bidi
8923 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
8924 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
8925 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
8926 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
8927 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
8928 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
8930 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
8931 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
8932 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
8934 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
8935 fields that may occur when displaying
8937 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
8939 with special Unicode control sequences;
8940 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
8942 no value (or any value other than
8947 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
8948 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
8949 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
8951 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
8953 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
8955 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
8956 sequences onto the line).
8961 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
8962 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
8966 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
8967 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
8972 .It Va history-gabby
8973 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
8976 .It Va history-gabby-persist
8977 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
8979 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
8980 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
8981 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
8987 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
8989 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
8990 loading and incorporation of the
8992 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
8993 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
8994 entries saved to permanent storage.
8998 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
9000 and it is set by default.
9004 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
9005 the value obtained from
9009 It is used, e.g., in
9013 fields, as well as when generating
9015 MIME part related unique ID fields.
9016 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
9017 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
9018 \*(IN in conjunction with the built-in SMTP
9021 also influences the results:
9022 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
9031 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
9032 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
9034 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
9036 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
9037 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
9041 The input field separator that is used (\*(ID by some functions) to
9042 determine where to split input data.
9044 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9046 Unsetting is treated as assigning the default value,
9049 If set to the empty value, no field splitting will be performed.
9051 If set to a non-empty value, all whitespace characters are extracted
9052 and assigned to the variable
9056 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9059 will be ignored at the beginning and end of input.
9060 Diverging from POSIX shells default whitespace is removed in addition,
9061 which is owed to the entirely different line content extraction rules.
9063 Each occurrence of a character of
9065 will cause field-splitting, any adjacent
9067 characters will be skipped.
9072 \*(RO Automatically deduced from the whitespace characters in
9077 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
9078 messages; instead echo them as
9080 characters and discard the current line.
9084 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
9085 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
9086 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
9087 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
9088 explicitly using one of the commands
9092 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
9095 on a line by itself or by using the
9097 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
9098 Setting this implies the behaviour that
9106 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
9108 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
9111 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
9114 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
9117 for more on this topic.
9118 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
9126 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9129 option for indenting messages,
9130 in place of the normal tabulator character
9132 which is the default.
9133 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
9137 \*(BO If set, an empty
9139 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
9140 file is not removed.
9141 Note that, in conjunction with
9143 mode any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
9144 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
9145 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
9146 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
9147 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
9148 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
9151 .It Va keep-content-length
9152 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing MBOX mailbox files \*(UA can
9157 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
9158 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
9159 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
9160 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
9161 work with with same mailbox files.
9162 Note that, if this is not set but
9163 .Va writebackedited ,
9164 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
9165 fields already marks the message as being modified.
9166 \*(ID At some future time \*(UA will be capable to rewrite and apply an
9168 to modified messages, and then those fields will be stripped silently.
9172 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
9173 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
9174 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
9177 .It Va line-editor-disable
9178 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
9179 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
9183 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
9184 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
9188 Error log message prefix string
9189 .Pf ( Ql "\*(uA: " ) .
9192 .It Va mailbox-display
9193 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
9195 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
9198 .It Va mailbox-resolved
9199 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
9202 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
9203 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
9204 .Sx "Resource files" .
9205 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
9207 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
9208 .Sx "Initial settings" .
9212 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
9213 it is marked as having been
9216 .Sx "Message states" .
9220 \*(BO When opening MBOX mailbox databases \*(UA by default uses tolerant
9221 POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
9223 lines) due to compatibility reasons, instead of the stricter rules that
9224 have been standardized in RFC 4155.
9225 This behaviour can be switched to the stricter RFC 4155 rules by
9226 setting this variable.
9227 (This is never necessary for any message newly generated by \*(UA,
9228 it only applies to messages generated by buggy or malicious MUAs, or may
9229 occur in old MBOX databases: \*(UA itself will choose a proper
9231 to avoid false interpretation of
9233 content lines in the MBOX database.)
9235 This may temporarily be handy when \*(UA complains about invalid
9237 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case setting this variable and
9238 re-opening the mailbox in question may correct the result.
9239 If so, copying the entire mailbox to some other file, as in
9240 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE ,
9241 will perform proper, all-compatible
9243 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
9244 Finally the variable can be unset again:
9245 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9247 localopts yes; wysh set mbox-rfc4155;\e
9248 wysh File "${1}"; eval copy * "${2}"
9250 call mboxfix /tmp/bad.mbox /tmp/good.mbox
9255 \*(BO Internal development variable.
9258 .It Va message-id-disable
9259 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
9261 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
9263 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
9264 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
9265 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
9267 This variable also affects automatic generation of
9272 .It Va message-inject-head
9273 A string to put at the beginning of each new message, followed by a newline.
9274 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
9278 are understood (use the
9282 ting the variable(s) instead).
9285 .It Va message-inject-tail
9286 A string to put at the end of each new message, followed by a newline.
9287 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
9291 are understood (use the
9295 ting the variable(s) instead).
9299 \*(BO Usually, when an
9301 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
9302 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
9307 option to be passed through to the
9309 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
9310 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
9314 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
9315 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
9316 in order to classify the
9319 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
9322 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
9323 a computation rather similar to what the
9325 command produces when used with the
9329 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
9330 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
9331 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
9336 .Ql application/octet-stream :
9337 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
9339 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
9340 interpret the contents of the part.
9342 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
9343 text data at first glance (by a
9347 file extension), then the original
9349 will not be overwritten.
9352 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
9353 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
9354 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
9355 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
9356 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9357 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
9358 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
9359 contains topic subjects.)
9362 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
9365 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
9366 Some MUAs, however, do not use
9367 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9369 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
9370 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but specify an
9371 unspecific MIME type
9372 .Pf ( Ql application/octet-stream )
9373 even for plain text attachments.
9374 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to re-classify such MIME
9375 message parts, if possible, for example via a possibly existing
9376 attachment filename.
9377 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
9378 actually a carrier of bits.
9379 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
9380 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9381 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
9382 Value should be set to 14
9385 .Bl -bullet -compact
9387 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
9389 will be carried along with the message and be used for deciding which
9390 MIME handler is to be used, for example;
9391 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
9392 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
9395 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
9396 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
9397 overriding the parts given MIME type.
9399 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
9400 .Ql application/octet-stream
9401 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
9406 .It Va mime-encoding
9408 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
9409 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
9410 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
9413 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9416 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
9417 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
9418 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
9419 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
9420 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
9421 .It Ql quoted-printable
9423 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
9424 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
9425 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
9426 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
9427 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
9428 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
9429 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
9431 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
9432 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
9434 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
9435 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
9436 to four bytes of output.
9437 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
9442 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
9443 Can be used to control which of
9444 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9445 are loaded: if the letter
9447 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
9449 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
9451 controls loading of the system wide
9452 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
9453 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
9455 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
9456 Incorporation of the \*(UA-built-in MIME types cannot be suppressed,
9457 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
9460 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
9461 value string contains an equals sign
9463 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
9466 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
9467 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
9468 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9469 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
9470 the MIME type cache).
9475 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
9476 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
9478 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
9480 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9483 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
9484 The default has been chosen at compile time.
9485 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
9486 run asynchronously and without supervision unless either the
9491 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
9498 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
9500 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
9503 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
9506 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
9509 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
9514 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
9515 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
9516 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
9517 (which will also disable passing
9521 (for not treating a line with only a dot
9523 character as the end of input),
9531 variable is set); in conjunction with the
9533 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
9539 \*(OPally \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
9540 defined SMTP smart host by specifying a SMTP URL as the value (see
9541 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
9542 Encrypted network connections are \*(OPally available, the section
9543 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
9544 should give an overview and provide links to more information on this.
9545 \*(UA also supports forwarding of all network traffic over a specified
9547 Note that with some mail providers it may be necessary to set the
9549 variable in order to use a specific combination of
9554 The following SMTP variants may be used:
9558 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
9559 server port 25 and requires setting the
9560 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9561 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
9562 Assign a value like \*(IN
9563 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9565 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
9566 to choose this protocol.
9568 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
9569 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
9570 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
9571 be supported by your hosts network service database
9572 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
9575 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
9576 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
9577 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9579 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
9580 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
9585 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
9586 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
9587 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
9588 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9589 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
9590 Assign a value like \*(IN
9591 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9593 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
9598 .It Va mta-arguments
9599 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
9601 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
9602 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
9603 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
9604 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
9605 .Ql ? wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"' .
9608 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
9609 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
9610 standard command line options to a file-based
9612 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
9616 Many systems use a so-called
9618 environment to ensure compatibility with
9620 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
9622 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
9623 actually executed when calling the file-based
9625 will treat its contents as that name.
9628 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
9629 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
9631 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
9632 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
9636 .Sx "The .netrc file"
9637 documents the file format.
9649 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
9651 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
9652 This can be used to, e.g., store
9655 .Ql ? set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp' .
9659 If this variable has the value
9661 newly created local folders will be in Maildir instead of MBOX format.
9665 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
9666 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
9667 If this variable is set to the special value
9669 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
9670 timestamp changes are detected.
9674 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
9677 and the sender-based filenames for the
9681 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
9683 variable rather than to the current directory,
9684 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
9686 .Mx Va on-account-cleanup
9687 .It Va on-account-cleanup-ACCOUNT , Va on-account-cleanup
9688 Macro hook which will be called once an
9690 is left, as the very last step before unrolling per-account
9692 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
9693 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
9696 The specialized form is used in favour of the generic one if found.
9699 .It Va on-compose-cleanup
9700 Macro hook which will be called after the message has been sent (or not,
9701 in case of failures), as the very last step before unrolling compose mode
9703 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
9704 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
9708 For compose mode hooks that may affect the message content please see
9709 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave , on-compose-splice .
9710 \*(ID This hook exists because
9711 .Ic alias , alternates , commandalias , shortcut ,
9712 to name a few, are not covered by
9714 changes applied in compose mode will continue to be in effect thereafter.
9719 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
9720 Macro hooks which will be called once compose mode is entered,
9721 and after composing has been finished, but before a set
9722 .Va message-inject-tail
9723 has been injected etc., respectively.
9725 are enabled for these hooks, and changes on variables will be forgotten
9726 after the message has been sent.
9727 .Va on-compose-cleanup
9728 can be used to perform other necessary cleanup steps.
9730 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
9731 execution of the macros to represent the according message headers, or
9732 the empty string for non-existent; they correspond to accoding virtual
9733 temporary message headers that can be accessed (also from within
9734 .Va on-compose-splice
9738 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" :
9741 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va mailx_subject"
9742 .It Va mailx-command
9743 The command that generates the message.
9744 .It Va mailx-subject
9750 .It Va mailx-to , mailx-cc , mailx-bcc
9751 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
9752 .It Va mailx-raw-to , mailx-raw-cc , mailx-raw-bcc
9753 The list of receiver addresses before any mangling (due to, e.g.,
9756 .Va recipients-in-cc )
9757 as a space-separated list.
9758 .It Va mailx-orig-from
9759 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
9761 of the given message.
9762 .It Va mailx-orig-to , mailx-orig-cc , mailx-orig-bcc
9763 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
9764 receivers of the given message.
9768 Here is am example that injects a signature via
9769 .Va message-inject-tail ;
9771 .Va on-compose-splice
9772 to simply inject the file of desire via
9776 may be a better approach.
9778 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9780 vput ! i cat ~/.mysig
9782 vput vexpr message-inject-tail trim-end $i
9786 readctl create ~/.mysig
9790 vput vexpr message-inject-tail trim-end $i
9792 readctl remove ~/.mysig
9795 set on-compose-leave=t_ocl
9801 .It Va on-compose-splice , on-compose-splice-shell
9802 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
9803 .Va on-compose-leave
9804 macro hook is called, the
9805 .Va message-inject-tail
9807 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
9808 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
9810 The difference in between them is that the latter is a
9812 command, whereas the former is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
9813 restricted to a small set of commands (the
9817 will indicate said capability).
9819 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
9820 to be forgotten after the message has been sent;
9821 .Va on-compose-cleanup
9822 can be used to perform other cleanup as necessary.
9825 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
9826 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
9827 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9828 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproducibilities sake
9832 will be set to their defaults.
9833 The compose mode command
9835 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
9836 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
9837 version of said command escape, currently
9839 backward incompatible protocol changes have to be expected.
9842 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks and other false control flow:
9843 if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
9844 same time, or one does not expect more input but the other is stuck
9845 waiting for consumption of its output, etc.
9846 There is no automatic synchronization of the hook: it will not be
9847 stopped automatically just because it, e.g., emits
9849 The hooks will however receive a termination signal if the parent enters
9851 \*(ID Protection against and interaction with signals is not yet given;
9852 it is likely that in the future these scripts will be placed in an
9853 isolated session, which is signalled in its entirety as necessary.
9855 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9856 define ocs_signature {
9858 echo '~< ~/.mysig' # '~<! fortune pathtofortunefile'
9860 set on-compose-splice=ocs_signature
9862 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
9864 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
9865 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
9866 read status result;\e
9867 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
9872 echo Splice protocol version is $version
9873 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substring "${hl}" 0 1
9875 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'; xit
9877 if [ "$hl" @i!% ' cc' ]
9878 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
9879 vput vexpr es substring "${es}" 0 1
9881 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
9882 # (no xit, macro finishs anyway)
9886 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
9891 .It Va on-resend-cleanup
9893 .Va on-compose-cleanup ,
9894 but is only triggered by
9898 .It Va on-resend-enter
9900 .Va on-compose-enter ,
9901 but is only triggered by
9906 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
9908 is followed by a formfeed character
9912 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
9913 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
9914 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
9915 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
9916 the authentication method requires a password.
9917 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
9918 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
9920 .It Va password-USER@HOST
9921 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
9922 Set the password for
9926 If no such variable is defined for a host,
9927 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
9928 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
9929 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
9933 \*(BO Send messages to the
9935 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
9939 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
9940 When a MIME message part of type
9942 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
9943 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
9945 Note that only parts which can be displayed inline as plain text (see
9947 are displayed unless otherwise noted, other MIME parts will only be
9948 considered by and for the command
9952 The special value commercial at
9954 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
9955 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
9956 will henceforth display XML
9958 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
9961 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
9962 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
9963 \(em these directives,
9965 has already been used, should be referred to for further documentation.
9970 can in fact be used as a trigger character to adjust usage and behaviour
9971 of a following shell command specification more thoroughly by appending
9972 more special characters which refer to further mailcap directives, e.g.,
9973 the following hypothetical command specification could be used:
9975 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9976 ? set pipe-X/Y='@!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
9980 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
9982 The command produces plain text to be integrated in \*(UAs output:
9986 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
9987 but only when it will be displayed:
9988 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
9991 Run the command asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA:
9995 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
9996 temporarily release the terminal to it:
10000 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
10001 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
10002 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY :
10003 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
10004 If given twice then the file will be unlinked automatically by \*(UA
10005 when the command loop is entered again at latest:
10006 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
10009 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
10010 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
10011 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
10012 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
10013 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
10014 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
10019 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
10020 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
10021 remaining characters.
10022 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
10026 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
10027 the environment of the shell command:
10030 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
10032 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
10033 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
10036 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
10038 .Va mime-counter-evidence
10039 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
10040 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
10041 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
10045 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
10046 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
10049 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
10053 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
10054 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
10055 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
10061 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
10062 This is identical to
10063 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
10066 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
10067 names a file extension, e.g.,
10069 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
10072 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
10073 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
10074 The only possible value as of now is
10076 which is thus the default.
10078 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
10079 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
10080 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
10081 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
10082 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
10084 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
10085 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
10087 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
10088 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
10089 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
10090 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
10091 but practical experience may vary.
10092 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
10096 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
10098 .Mx Va pop3-no-apop
10099 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
10100 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
10102 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
10103 advertises support.
10106 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
10107 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
10109 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
10112 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
10113 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
10114 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10116 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
10117 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
10118 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
10120 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
10126 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
10127 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
10128 It will be set implicitly before the
10129 .Sx "Resource files"
10130 are loaded if the environment variable
10131 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10132 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
10134 The following behaviour is covered and enforced by this mechanism:
10137 .Bl -bullet -compact
10139 In non-interactive mode, any error encountered while loading resource
10140 files during program startup will cause a program exit, whereas in
10141 interactive mode such errors will stop loading of the currently loaded
10142 (stack of) file(s, i.e., recursively).
10143 These exits can be circumvented on a per-command base by using
10146 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
10147 for each command which shall be allowed to fail.
10151 will replace the list of alternate addresses instead of appending to it.
10154 The variable inserting
10155 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10161 will expand embedded character sequences
10163 horizontal tabulator and
10166 \*(ID For compatibility reasons this step will always be performed.
10169 Upon changing the active
10173 will be displayed even if
10180 implies the behaviour described by
10186 is extended to cover any empty mailbox, not only empty
10188 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
10189 es: they will be removed when they are left in empty state otherwise.
10194 .It Va print-alternatives
10195 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
10196 .Ql multipart/alternative
10197 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
10199 other parts are normally discarded.
10200 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
10201 just as if the surrounding part was of type
10202 .Ql multipart/mixed .
10206 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
10207 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
10208 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
10209 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
10210 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
10211 status information, for example
10216 .Va mailbox-display .
10218 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
10219 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
10220 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
10222 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
10224 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
10226 .Ql set noprompt ) .
10230 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
10237 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
10241 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
10242 prefixed by the value of the variable
10244 Normally, a heading consisting of
10245 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
10246 is put before the quotation.
10251 variable, this heading is omitted.
10254 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
10257 selection are put above the message body,
10260 acts like an automatic
10262 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10266 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
10267 parts are included, making
10269 act like an automatic
10272 .Va quote-as-attachment .
10275 .It Va quote-as-attachment
10276 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
10278 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
10279 Note this works regardless of the setting of
10284 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
10286 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
10287 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
10289 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
10290 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
10291 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
10293 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
10294 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
10295 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
10297 plus some additional pad.
10298 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
10301 .It Va r-option-implicit
10302 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
10304 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10306 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
10308 option (empty argument case).
10311 .It Va recipients-in-cc
10318 are by default merged into the new
10320 If this variable is set, only the original
10324 the rest is merged into
10329 Unless this variable is defined, no copies of outgoing mail will be saved.
10330 If defined it gives the pathname, subject to the usual
10331 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
10332 of a folder where all new, replied-to or forwarded messages are saved:
10333 when saving to this folder fails the message is not sent, but instead
10337 The standard defines that relative (fully expanded) paths are to be
10338 interpreted relative to the current directory
10340 to force interpretation relative to
10343 needs to be set in addition.
10346 .It Va record-files
10347 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10349 will be extended to cover messages which target only file and pipe
10352 These address types will not appear in recipient lists unless
10353 .Va add-file-recipients
10357 .It Va record-resent
10358 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10360 will be extended to also cover the
10367 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
10368 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
10369 character set of the original message for replies.
10370 If this fails, the mechanism described in
10371 .Sx "Character sets"
10372 is evaluated as usual.
10375 .It Va reply-strings
10376 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
10377 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
10378 built-in strings as
10380 reply message indicators \(en built-in are
10382 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
10387 which often has been seen in the wild;
10388 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
10392 A list of addresses to put into the
10394 field of the message header.
10395 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
10404 .It Va reply-to-honour
10407 header is honoured when replying to a message via
10411 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
10415 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
10416 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
10418 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
10420 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
10424 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
10426 upon interrupt or delivery error.
10430 The number of lines that represents a
10439 line display and scrolling via
10441 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
10442 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
10443 terminal, the more will be shown.
10444 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
10445 environment variables
10453 .It Va searchheaders
10454 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
10456 to all messages containing the substring
10458 in the header field
10460 The string search is case insensitive.
10463 .It Va sendcharsets
10464 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
10465 outgoing internet mail.
10466 The value of the variable
10468 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
10469 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
10470 the only supported charset is
10473 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10474 and refer to the section
10475 .Sx "Character sets"
10476 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
10479 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10480 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
10482 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
10484 had been set to the value of the variable
10486 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
10487 character set of the current locale encoding:
10488 therefore mail message text will be (assumed to be) in ISO-8859-1
10489 encoding when send from within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8
10490 encoding when send from within an UTF-8 locale.
10494 never comes into play as
10496 is implicitly assumed to be 8-bit and capable to represent all files the
10497 user may specify (as is the case when no character set conversion
10498 support is available in \*(UA and the only supported character set is
10500 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
10501 This might be a problem for scripts which use the suggested
10503 setting, since in this case the character set is US-ASCII by definition,
10504 so that it is better to also override
10510 An address that is put into the
10512 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
10513 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
10514 This field should normally not be used unless the
10516 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
10519 address is handled as if it were in the
10523 .Va r-option-implicit .
10526 \*(OB Predecessor of
10529 .It Va sendmail-arguments
10530 \*(OB Predecessor of
10531 .Va mta-arguments .
10533 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
10534 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
10535 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
10537 .It Va sendmail-progname
10538 \*(OB Predecessor of
10543 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
10545 (including the built-in SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
10547 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
10548 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
10549 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
10553 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
10554 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
10558 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
10559 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
10563 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
10564 summary if the message was sent by the user.
10571 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10573 .Va message-inject-tail ,
10574 .Va on-compose-leave
10576 .Va on-compose-splice .
10583 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10585 .Va message-inject-tail ,
10586 .Va on-compose-leave
10588 .Va on-compose-splice .
10593 .Va on-compose-splice
10595 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
10597 .Va on-compose-leave
10599 .Va message-inject-tail
10603 .It Va skipemptybody
10604 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
10605 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
10606 command line option
10611 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
10612 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
10613 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
10614 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
10615 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
10616 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
10617 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
10618 be explicitly turned off by setting
10619 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
10620 and further fine-tuning is possible via
10621 .Va smime-ca-flags .
10624 .It Va smime-ca-flags
10625 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
10626 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
10627 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
10631 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
10632 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
10633 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
10635 .Mx Va smime-cipher
10636 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
10637 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
10638 messages (for the specified account).
10639 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
10642 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
10650 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
10652 is not available) and
10654 (DES CBC, 56 bits).
10656 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
10657 library that \*(UA uses.
10658 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
10659 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
10660 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
10661 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
10664 .It Va smime-crl-dir
10665 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
10666 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
10669 .It Va smime-crl-file
10670 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
10671 verifying S/MIME messages.
10674 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
10675 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
10676 encrypted before sending.
10677 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
10678 contains a certificate in PEM format.
10680 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
10681 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
10682 individually encrypted message;
10683 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
10685 .Va smime-force-encryption
10687 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
10692 .It Va smime-force-encryption
10693 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
10697 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
10698 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
10699 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
10700 a valid certificate,
10701 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
10702 header and that the message content has not been altered.
10703 It does not change the message text,
10704 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
10706 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
10708 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
10710 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
10711 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
10712 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
10713 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
10714 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
10716 For message signing
10718 is always derived from the value of
10720 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10722 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
10723 (certificate) is expected; the command
10725 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
10726 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
10727 gives some details).
10728 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
10730 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
10735 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
10737 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
10738 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
10739 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
10741 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
10742 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
10743 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
10744 for the private key
10746 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
10747 for the certificate stored in the same file)
10748 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
10749 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
10750 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
10751 For example, the hypothetical address
10753 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
10754 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
10755 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
10756 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
10758 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
10759 To include intermediate certificates, use
10760 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
10762 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
10763 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
10764 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
10765 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
10766 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
10767 .Va smime-sign-cert
10769 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
10770 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
10771 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
10772 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
10773 .Va smime-sign-cert .
10774 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
10775 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
10777 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
10779 refers to the content of the internal variable
10781 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10784 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
10785 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
10786 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
10787 via the mechanisms described in
10788 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
10790 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
10791 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
10792 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
10793 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
10795 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
10803 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
10804 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
10805 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
10806 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
10807 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
10808 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
10809 Remember that for this
10811 refers to the variable
10813 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10817 \*(OB\*(OP To use the built-in SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
10819 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
10821 is used in preference of
10825 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
10826 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
10828 authentication method, possible values are
10834 as well as the \*(OPal methods
10840 method does not need any user credentials,
10842 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
10850 .Va smtp-auth-password
10852 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
10857 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
10858 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
10861 .It Va smtp-auth-password
10862 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
10863 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
10864 .Va smtp-auth-password
10866 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
10868 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
10870 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
10872 .Va smtp-auth-password
10873 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
10876 .It Va smtp-auth-user
10877 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
10878 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
10881 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
10883 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
10885 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
10888 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
10892 .It Va smtp-hostname
10893 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
10895 to derive the necessary
10897 information in order to issue a
10904 can be used to use the
10906 from the SMTP account
10913 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
10915 or the local hostname as a last resort).
10916 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
10917 a provider other than which (in
10919 is about to send the message.
10920 Setting this variable also influences generated
10926 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
10927 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
10928 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10930 command to make an SMTP
10932 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
10935 .It Va socks-proxy-USER@HOST , socks-proxy-HOST , socks-proxy
10936 \*(OP If this is set to the hostname (SOCKS URL) of a SOCKS5 server then
10937 \*(UA will proxy all of its network activities through it.
10938 This can be used to proxy SMTP, POP3 etc. network traffic through the
10939 Tor anonymizer, for example.
10940 The following would create a local SOCKS proxy on port 10000 that
10941 forwards to the machine
10943 and from which the network traffic is actually instantiated:
10944 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10945 # Create local proxy server in terminal 1 forwarding to HOST
10946 $ ssh -D 10000 USER@HOST
10947 # Then, start a client that uses it in terminal 2
10948 $ \*(uA -Ssocks-proxy-USER@HOST=localhost:10000
10952 .It Va spam-interface
10953 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
10955 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
10956 Please refer to the manual section
10957 .Sx "Handling spam"
10958 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
10959 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
10961 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
10967 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
10969 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
10970 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
10971 knowledge to parse the program's output.
10972 A default value for
10974 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
10978 during compilation.
10979 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
10980 using a configuration file for that), the variable
10981 .Va spamc-arguments
10982 can be used as in, e.g.,
10983 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
10984 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
10986 Note that this interface does not inspect the
10988 flag of a message for the command
10992 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
10993 This interface is meant for programs like
10995 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
10996 status for at least the command
10999 meaning a message is spam,
11003 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
11004 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
11005 can be intercepted as necessary.
11007 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11010 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
11012 .Sx "Handling spam"
11013 contains examples for some programs.
11014 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
11015 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
11017 Note that spam score support for
11019 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
11021 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
11027 .It Va spam-maxsize
11028 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
11030 .Va spam-interface .
11031 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
11034 .It Va spamc-command
11035 \*(OP The path to the
11039 .Va spam-interface .
11040 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
11042 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
11043 executable had been found during compilation.
11046 .It Va spamc-arguments
11047 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
11050 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
11051 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
11052 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
11056 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
11058 .Va spam-interface .
11059 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
11068 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
11069 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
11070 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
11072 .Va spam-interface .
11074 .Sx "Handling spam"
11075 contains examples for some programs.
11078 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
11079 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
11082 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
11083 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
11084 be used to overcome this restriction.
11085 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
11086 must be followed by a semicolon
11088 and an extended regular expression.
11089 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
11090 .Va spamfilter-rate
11091 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
11092 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
11096 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
11097 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
11098 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
11099 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
11100 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
11101 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
11102 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
11103 be explicitly turned off by setting
11104 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
11105 and further fine-tuning is possible via
11108 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11109 for more information.
11110 \*(UA will try to use the TLS/SNI (ServerNameIndication) extension when
11111 establishing TLS connections to servers identified with hostnames.
11115 .It Va ssl-ca-flags
11116 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
11117 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
11119 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
11120 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
11121 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
11122 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
11123 which are usually defined in a file
11124 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
11125 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
11126 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
11128 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
11131 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11132 .It Cd no-alt-chains
11133 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
11135 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
11136 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
11137 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
11138 .Cd trusted-first .
11139 .It Cd no-check-time
11140 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
11141 .It Cd partial-chain
11142 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
11143 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
11144 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
11145 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
11147 The OpenSSL manual page
11148 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11149 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
11151 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
11152 .It Cd trusted-first
11153 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
11154 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
11155 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
11156 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
11157 .Cd no-alt-chains .
11162 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
11163 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
11164 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
11167 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
11168 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the filename for a SSL/TLS client
11169 certificate required by some servers.
11170 This is a direct interface to the
11174 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
11176 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
11177 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
11178 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
11179 This is a direct interface to the
11183 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
11186 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list 3
11187 for more information.
11188 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
11190 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
11191 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
11192 supports \(en the manual section
11193 .Sx "An example configuration"
11194 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
11197 .It Va ssl-config-file
11198 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
11199 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
11200 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
11202 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
11203 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
11204 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
11205 The application name will always be passed as
11209 .It Va ssl-curves-USER@HOST , ssl-curves-HOST , ssl-curves
11210 \*(OP Specifies a list of supported curves for SSL/TLS connections.
11211 This is a direct interface to the
11215 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
11216 .Xr SSL_CTX_set1_curves_list 3
11217 for more information.
11218 By default \*(UA does not set a list of curves.
11222 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
11223 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
11224 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
11227 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
11228 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the filename for the private key of
11229 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
11230 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
11231 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
11232 This is a direct interface to the
11236 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
11238 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
11239 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
11241 instead: if both values are set,
11243 will take precedence!
11244 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
11246 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
11248 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
11250 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
11252 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
11255 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
11260 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
11261 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
11263 .Mx Va ssl-protocol
11264 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
11265 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
11266 This is a direct interface to the
11270 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
11271 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
11272 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
11278 as well as the special value
11280 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
11281 ignores any whitespace.
11284 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
11286 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
11288 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
11290 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
11291 supported and which protocols are used if
11293 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
11295 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
11296 .Va ssl-cipher-list
11297 may be worthwile, see
11298 .Sx "An example configuration" .
11301 .It Va ssl-rand-egd
11302 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
11304 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
11307 .It Va ssl-rand-file
11308 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
11309 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
11310 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
11311 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11313 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
11314 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
11316 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
11317 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
11318 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
11319 This variable is only used if
11321 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
11324 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
11325 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
11326 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
11327 specified or default trust stores
11330 or the SSL/TLS library built-in defaults (unless usage disallowed via
11331 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
11332 and as fine-tuned via
11334 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
11336 (fail and close connection immediately),
11338 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
11340 (show a warning and continue),
11342 (do not perform validation).
11348 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
11354 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
11355 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
11356 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
11357 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
11358 to track down the originating mail user agent.
11359 If set to the value
11365 suppression does not occur.
11370 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
11375 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11376 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
11379 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11380 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11383 String capabilities form
11385 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
11386 Numerics have to be notated as
11388 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
11389 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
11390 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
11391 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
11392 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
11393 for one notations like
11396 .Ql control-LETTER ,
11397 and for clarification purposes
11399 can be used to specify
11401 (the control notation
11403 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
11404 the standard CSI sequence);
11405 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
11408 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
11409 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
11411 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11412 ? set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
11416 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
11417 operation of the built-in line editor or \*(UA in general:
11420 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd yay"
11422 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
11424 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
11425 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
11426 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
11429 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
11432 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
11433 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen ca-mode,
11434 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
11435 This must be enabled explicitly by setting
11436 .Va termcap-ca-mode .
11438 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
11442 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
11443 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
11444 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
11445 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
11447 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
11451 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
11453 clear the screen and home cursor.
11454 (Will be simulated via
11459 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
11464 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
11466 clear to the end of line.
11467 (Will be simulated via
11469 plus repetitions of space characters.)
11471 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
11472 .Cd column_address :
11473 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
11474 (Will be simulated via
11480 .Cd carriage_return :
11481 move to the first column in the current row.
11482 The default built-in fallback is
11485 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
11487 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
11488 The default built-in fallback is
11491 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
11493 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
11494 The default built-in fallback is
11496 which is used by most terminals.
11504 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
11509 .It Va termcap-ca-mode
11510 \*(OP Allow usage of the
11514 terminal capabilities, effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen
11515 application, as documented for
11518 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11519 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11522 .It Va termcap-disable
11523 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
11524 If set only some generic fallback built-ins and possibly the content of
11526 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
11528 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11529 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11533 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
11536 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
11539 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
11540 unsigned right shifting (see
11548 \*(BO If set then the
11550 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
11554 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
11555 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
11556 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
11557 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
11558 from the locale specified in the
11560 environment variable (if supported, see there for more).
11561 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
11562 Refer to the section
11563 .Sx "Character sets"
11564 for the complete picture about character sets.
11567 .It Va typescript-mode
11568 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
11569 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
11572 .Va colour-disable ,
11573 .Va line-editor-disable
11574 and (before startup completed only)
11575 .Va termcap-disable .
11576 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
11580 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
11584 but this variable can be used to override that:
11585 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting (on
11586 startup), otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to
11588 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
11591 .It Va user-HOST , user
11592 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
11593 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
11595 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
11599 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
11600 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
11601 how they are handled.
11602 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
11603 doing things, respectively.
11607 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
11609 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
11610 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
11611 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
11612 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
11613 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
11616 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
11623 .It Va version , version-date , version-major , version-minor , version-update
11624 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
11625 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
11626 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
11627 The date is in ISO 8601 notation.
11628 The output of the command
11630 will include this information.
11633 .It Va writebackedited
11634 If this variable is set messages modified using the
11638 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
11639 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
11640 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
11641 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
11642 performed, and proper RFC 4155
11644 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
11647 .\" }}} (Variables)
11649 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
11652 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
11656 .Dq environment variable
11657 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
11658 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
11659 commonly found in there.
11660 The process environment is inherited from the
11662 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
11663 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
11664 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
11665 from \*(UA's point of view.
11666 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
11670 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
11671 newly created child processes).
11674 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
11675 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
11677 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
11678 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
11679 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
11681 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
11683 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
11685 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11686 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
11688 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
11691 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
11694 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
11696 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
11697 processes and the MLE (see
11698 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
11699 in interactive mode thereafter.
11700 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 80 columns, unless in
11706 The name of the (mailbox)
11708 to use for saving aborted messages if
11710 is set; this defaults to
11717 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
11722 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
11726 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11727 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
11731 The user's home directory.
11732 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11733 The calling user's home directory will be used instead if this directory
11734 does not exist, is not accessible or cannot be read.
11735 (No test for being writable is performed to allow usage by
11736 non-privileged users within read-only jails, but dependent on the
11737 variable settings this directory is a default write target, e.g. for
11745 .It Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , LANG
11746 \*(OP The (names in lookup order of the)
11750 which indicates the used
11751 .Sx "Character sets" .
11752 Runtime changes trigger automatic updates of the entire locale system,
11753 updating and overwriting also a
11759 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
11760 or window size in lines.
11761 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
11762 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
11763 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 24 lines, unless in
11769 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
11771 command when operating on local mailboxes.
11774 (path search through
11779 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
11780 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
11781 name to any newly created child process.
11785 Is used as the users
11787 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
11791 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
11795 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
11796 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
11797 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
11798 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
11799 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
11800 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
11801 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
11805 Is used as a startup file instead of
11808 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
11809 either this variable should be set to
11813 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
11814 reading their configuration files.
11815 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11818 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
11819 If this variable is set then reading of
11821 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
11822 had been started up with the option
11824 (and according argument) or
11826 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11830 The name of the users
11832 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
11834 A logical subset of the special
11835 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11841 Traditionally this MBOX is used as the file to save messages from the
11843 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
11844 that have been read.
11846 .Sx "Message states" .
11850 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
11856 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
11860 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
11861 The default paginator is
11863 (path search through
11866 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
11868 then a non-existing environment variable
11875 will optionally be set to
11882 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
11883 looking for commands, e.g.,
11884 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
11887 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
11888 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
11894 The shell to use for the commands
11899 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
11900 and when starting subprocesses.
11901 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
11904 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
11905 This specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch (1970-01-01) to be
11906 used in place of the current time.
11907 This variable is looked up upon program startup, and its existence will
11908 switch \*(UA to a completely reproducible mode which causes
11909 deterministic random numbers, a special fixed (non-existent?)
11911 and more to be used and set.
11912 It is to be used during development or by software packagers.
11913 \*(ID Currently an invalid setting is only ignored, rather than causing
11914 a program abortion.
11916 .Dl $ SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=`date +%s` \*(uA
11920 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
11921 For extended colour and font control please refer to
11922 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
11923 and for terminal management in general to
11924 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
11928 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
11930 if set, existent, accessible as well as read- and writable.
11931 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
11932 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
11933 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
11939 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
11940 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
11944 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
11948 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11958 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
11960 File giving initial commands, one of the
11961 .Sx "Resource files" .
11964 System wide initialization file, one of the
11965 .Sx "Resource files" .
11969 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
11970 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
11971 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
11972 a configuration option and can be overridden via
11976 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
11977 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
11978 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
11979 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
11980 a configuration option and can be overridden via
11984 The default value for
11986 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11989 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
11990 Personal MIME types, see
11991 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
11992 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11995 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
11996 System wide MIME types, see
11997 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
11998 The actually used path is a configuration option.
12002 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
12004 file \(en the section
12005 .Sx "The .netrc file"
12006 documents the file format.
12007 The actually used path is a configuration option and can be overridden via
12014 The actually used path is a compile-time constant.
12018 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
12019 .Ss "Resource files"
12021 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
12023 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
12026 System wide initialization file.
12027 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
12029 (and according argument) or
12031 command line options, or by setting the
12034 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
12038 File giving initial commands.
12039 A different file can be chosen by setting the
12043 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
12045 command line option.
12047 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
12048 Defines a startup file to be read after all other resource files.
12049 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
12051 implementations, for example.
12052 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
12054 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
12058 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
12061 .Bl -bullet -compact
12063 The whitespace characters space, tabulator and newline,
12064 as well as those defined by the variable
12066 are removed from the beginning and end of input lines.
12068 Empty lines are ignored.
12070 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
12071 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
12073 by placing a reverse solidus character
12075 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
12076 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
12077 remains in the input.
12079 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
12081 then it is a comment-command and also ignored.
12082 (The comment-command is a real command, which does nothing, and
12083 therefore the usual follow lines mechanism applies!)
12087 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
12088 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
12089 More files with syntactically equal content can be
12091 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
12093 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12094 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
12095 es, it is really continued here.
12102 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
12103 .Ss "The mime.types files"
12106 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
12107 \*(UA needs to learn about MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
12108 media types in order to classify message and attachment content.
12109 One source for them are
12111 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
12112 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12113 Another is the command
12115 which also offers access to \*(UAs MIME type cache.
12117 files have the following syntax:
12119 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12120 type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12121 # E.g., text/html html htm
12127 define the MIME media type, as standardized in RFC 2046:
12129 is used to declare the general type of data, while the
12131 specifies a specific format for that type of data.
12132 One or multiple filename
12134 s, separated by whitespace, can be bound to the media type format.
12135 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
12137 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
12139 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in especially
12140 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
12141 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12142 and prepends an optional
12146 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12149 The following type markers are supported:
12152 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
12154 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
12159 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
12160 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
12161 the content as plain text instead.
12165 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
12166 handler to be defined.
12168 If no handler can be found a text message is displayed which says so.
12169 This can be annoying, for example signatures serve a contextual purpose,
12170 their content is of no use by itself.
12171 This marker will avoid displaying the text message.
12176 for sending messages:
12178 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
12179 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12180 For reading etc. messages:
12181 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12182 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
12184 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12185 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12186 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12187 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12190 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
12191 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
12193 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
12194 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
12196 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
12197 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports (see
12198 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
12199 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
12200 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
12201 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
12202 et cetera MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that
12203 includes multiple possible locations of
12207 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
12208 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
12209 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
12210 the list of MIME type handler directives.
12214 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
12215 Comment lines start with a number sign
12217 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
12218 Empty lines are also ignored.
12219 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
12221 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
12222 follow lines if newline characters are
12224 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
12226 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
12227 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
12231 entries consist of a number of semicolon
12233 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
12235 character can be used to escape any following character including
12236 semicolon and itself.
12237 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
12238 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
12239 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
12242 The first field defines the MIME
12244 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
12245 escaping is possible in this field).
12246 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
12248 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
12250 would match any audio type.
12251 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
12253 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
12260 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
12261 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
12264 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
12265 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
12268 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
12269 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
12271 In any case any given
12273 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
12274 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
12276 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
12277 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
12278 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12280 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12281 flags had been set; see below for more.
12284 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
12285 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
12286 naming the field followed by an equals sign
12288 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
12290 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
12291 Optional fields include the following:
12294 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12296 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
12298 (Currently unused.)
12300 .It Cd composetyped
12303 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
12305 header field to be applied to the composed data.
12306 (Currently unused.)
12309 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
12311 (Currently unused.)
12314 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
12316 (Currently unused.)
12319 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
12320 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
12321 this mailcap entry applies.
12322 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
12323 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
12326 .It Cd needsterminal
12327 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
12328 an interactive terminal.
12329 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
12330 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
12331 ignored; this flag implies
12332 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
12335 .It Cd copiousoutput
12336 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
12338 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
12339 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
12340 It is mutually exclusive with
12341 .Cd needsterminal .
12343 .It Cd textualnewlines
12344 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
12345 that, if encoded in
12347 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
12348 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
12349 (Currently unused.)
12351 .It Cd nametemplate
12352 This field gives a filename format, in which
12354 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
12355 will be used as the filename denoted by
12356 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12357 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
12358 have a name ending in
12361 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
12362 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
12363 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
12364 characters, the underscore and dot only.
12367 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
12368 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
12369 This field is not used by \*(UA.
12372 A textual description that describes this type of data.
12375 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
12376 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
12378 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
12379 then their use will be considered.
12380 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
12381 .Cd needsterminal .
12384 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
12385 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
12388 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
12389 (as it would be by default).
12392 .It Cd x-mailx-async
12393 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
12395 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
12396 Cannot be used in conjunction with
12397 .Cd needsterminal .
12400 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
12401 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
12403 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
12404 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
12405 .Dq running under the X Window System .
12408 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12409 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
12410 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
12411 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12412 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12417 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12418 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
12419 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
12421 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
12422 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
12423 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12425 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12430 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12431 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
12432 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
12433 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
12434 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12436 format, or in conjunction with
12437 .Cd x-mailx-async ,
12438 or without also setting
12439 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12441 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
12444 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12447 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
12449 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
12451 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
12456 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
12457 entry fields, prefixed by
12459 Flag fields apply to the entire
12461 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
12462 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
12463 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
12464 one does not provide enough information.
12467 command needs to specify the
12471 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
12475 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
12477 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12478 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
12479 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
12483 In fields any occurrence of the format string
12485 will be replaced by the
12488 Named parameters from the
12490 field may be placed in the command execution line using
12492 followed by the parameter name and a closing
12495 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
12496 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
12498 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12500 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
12503 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
12504 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
12506 # Executed shell command
12507 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
12511 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
12512 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
12513 shown in this example (as of today).
12514 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
12518 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
12520 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
12521 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
12522 in additional user-provided quotes:
12524 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12526 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
12528 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
12530 application/pdf; \e
12532 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
12533 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
12535 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12537 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
12538 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
12539 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
12544 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12545 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
12548 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12549 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12550 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12553 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
12554 .Ss "The .netrc file"
12558 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
12559 The default location in the user's
12561 directory may be overridden by the
12563 environment variable.
12564 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
12565 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
12566 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
12567 of that file format, shall their
12569 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
12572 .Bl -bullet -compact
12574 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
12575 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
12577 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
12578 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
12580 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
12582 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
12584 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
12585 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
12586 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
12588 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
12589 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
12590 whitespace, with a number sign
12592 then the rest of the line is ignored.
12594 Whereas other programs may require that the
12596 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
12598 token for any other
12602 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
12606 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
12611 At runtime the command
12613 can be used to control \*(UA's
12617 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12618 .It Cd machine Ar name
12619 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
12621 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
12626 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
12629 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
12630 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
12632 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12633 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
12634 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
12635 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
12641 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
12645 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
12646 Note that in the example neither
12647 .Ql pop3.example.com
12649 .Ql smtp.example.com
12650 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
12651 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
12654 This is the same as
12656 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
12657 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
12658 and it must be the last first-class token.
12660 .It Cd login Ar name
12661 The user name on the remote machine.
12663 .It Cd password Ar string
12664 The user's password on the remote machine.
12666 .It Cd account Ar string
12667 Supply an additional account password.
12668 This is merely for FTP purposes.
12670 .It Cd macdef Ar name
12672 A macro is defined with the specified
12674 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
12675 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
12678 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
12679 defined following the
12681 they are intended to be used with.)
12684 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
12685 This is merely for FTP purposes.
12692 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
12695 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
12696 .Ss "An example configuration"
12698 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12699 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
12702 # Request strict transport security checks!
12703 set ssl-verify=strict
12705 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
12706 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
12707 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
12708 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
12709 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
12710 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
12711 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
12712 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
12713 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
12715 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
12716 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
12717 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
12718 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
12719 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
12720 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
12722 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
12723 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
12724 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
12725 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
12726 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
12727 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
12729 # - TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
12730 # ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
12731 # DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
12732 # -ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
12733 # Especially with TLSv1.3 curves selection may be desired:
12734 #set ssl-curves=P-521:P-384:P-256
12736 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
12737 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
12739 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
12740 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
12741 set reply-in-same-charset
12743 # When replying, do not merge From: and To: of the original message
12744 # into To:. Instead old From: -> new To:, old To: -> merge Cc:.
12745 set recipients-in-cc
12747 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
12748 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
12749 # exit status of the MTA (including the built-in SMTP one)!
12752 # Only use built-in MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
12753 set mimetypes-load-control
12755 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
12757 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
12758 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
12759 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt \e
12760 record=+sent.mbox record-files record-resent
12762 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
12763 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
12765 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
12766 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12768 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
12769 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
12770 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
12771 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
12772 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
12775 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
12777 colour-pager crt= \e
12778 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes fullnames \e
12779 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
12780 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
12781 prompt='?\e$?!\e$!/\e$^ERRNAME[\e$account#\e$mailbox-display]? ' \e
12782 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
12785 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
12786 headerpick type retain from_ date from to cc subject \e
12787 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
12788 # ...when forwarding messages
12789 headerpick forward retain subject date from to cc
12790 # ...when saving message, etc.
12791 #headerpick save ignore ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
12793 # Some mailing lists
12794 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
12795 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
12797 # Handle a few file extensions (to store MBOX databases)
12798 filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
12799 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
12800 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
12801 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
12803 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
12804 # Instead of directly placing content inside `account',
12805 # we `define' a macro: like that we can switch "accounts"
12806 # from within *on-compose-splice*, for example!
12808 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12809 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
12811 set pop3-no-apop-pop.gmXil.com
12812 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.gmXil.com
12813 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.gmXil.com
12815 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
12817 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.gmail.com:465
12823 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
12824 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
12825 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
12826 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
12827 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
12828 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
12830 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12831 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12833 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.yaXXex.com
12834 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.yaXXex.com
12836 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.com:465 \e
12837 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
12843 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
12844 commandalias lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
12845 commandalias llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
12847 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
12848 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
12851 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
12852 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
12853 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
12855 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
12858 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
12859 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
12860 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
12864 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
12865 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
12872 commandalias V '\e'call V
12876 When storing passwords in
12878 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
12879 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
12882 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
12884 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
12885 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
12887 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12889 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12890 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12892 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
12893 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
12895 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
12896 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
12897 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
12898 commandalias xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
12910 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12911 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
12915 This configuration should now work just fine:
12918 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -dvv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
12921 .\" .Ss "S/MIME step by step" {{{
12922 .Ss "S/MIME step by step"
12924 \*(OP The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message
12925 exchange is your personal certificate, including a private key.
12926 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
12927 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
12928 encrypt messages for you,
12929 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
12930 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
12931 The private key must be kept secret.
12932 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
12933 public key, and to sign messages.
12936 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
12937 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
12938 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
12940 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
12941 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
12942 community for free; their root certificate
12943 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
12944 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
12945 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
12946 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
12949 or as a vivid member of the
12950 .Va smime-ca-file .
12951 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
12952 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
12955 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
12956 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
12957 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
12958 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
12959 entries of the web interface.
12960 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
12961 .Dq client certificate ,
12962 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
12963 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
12967 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
12968 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
12969 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
12972 .Dl $ openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
12975 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
12977 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
12978 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
12979 .Dq advanced options
12980 to see the corresponding text field).
12981 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
12982 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
12983 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
12984 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
12985 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
12990 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
12991 (certificate) file has to be created:
12994 .Dl $ cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
12997 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
12998 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
12999 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
13000 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
13002 is of interest for verification only):
13004 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13005 ? set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
13006 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
13007 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
13013 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
13014 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
13016 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
13017 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
13018 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
13019 declared invalid after they have been issued.
13020 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
13022 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
13023 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
13024 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
13025 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
13026 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
13027 invalidated certificates.
13028 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
13029 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
13032 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
13033 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
13036 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
13039 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
13040 (and no other files) must be created.
13045 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
13046 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
13047 to verify a certificate.
13056 In general it is a good idea to turn on
13062 twice) if something does not work well.
13063 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
13064 problems' solution.
13066 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
13067 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
13069 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
13070 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
13072 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
13073 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
13075 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
13079 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
13082 return the expected value?
13083 Does this local hostname have a domain suffix?
13084 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
13086 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
13089 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
13090 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
13092 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
13094 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
13095 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
13096 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
13099 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
13100 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
13101 her- and himself with the locally installed
13103 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
13104 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
13105 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
13106 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
13109 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
13110 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
13111 .Dq less secure app
13112 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
13113 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
13118 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
13121 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
13123 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
13125 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
13126 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
13127 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
13131 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
13132 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
13134 It can happen that the terminal library (see
13135 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
13138 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
13139 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
13140 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
13141 Especially without the \*(OPal terminal capability library support one
13142 reason for this may be that the (possibly even non-existing) keypad
13143 is not turned on and the resulting layout reports the keypad control
13144 codes for the normal keyboard keys.
13149 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
13152 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
13154 in conjunction with the command line option
13156 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
13157 by keypresses, and use the variable
13159 to make \*(UA aware of them.
13160 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
13161 an example showing the shifted home key:
13163 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13166 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
13171 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
13181 .\" .Sh "IMAP CLIENT" {{{
13184 \*(OPally there is IMAP client support available.
13185 This part of the program is obsolete and will vanish in v15 with the
13186 large MIME and I/O layer rewrite, because it uses old-style blocking I/O
13187 and makes excessive use of signal based long code jumps.
13188 Support can hopefully be readded later based on a new-style I/O, with
13189 SysV signal handling.
13190 In fact the IMAP support had already been removed from the codebase, but
13191 was reinstantiated on user demand: in effect the IMAP code is at the
13192 level of \*(UA v14.8.16 (with
13194 being the sole exception), and should be treated with some care.
13201 protocol prefixes, and an IMAP-based
13204 IMAP URLs (paths) undergo inspections and possible transformations
13205 before use (and the command
13207 can be used to manually apply them to any given argument).
13208 Hierarchy delimiters are normalized, a step which is configurable via the
13210 variable chain, but defaults to the first seen delimiter otherwise.
13211 \*(UA supports internationalised IMAP names, and en- and decodes the
13212 names from and to the
13214 as necessary and possible.
13215 If a mailbox name is expanded (see
13216 .Sx "Filename transformations" )
13217 to an IMAP mailbox, all names that begin with `+' then refer to IMAP
13218 mailboxes below the
13220 target box, while folder names prefixed by `@' refer to folders below
13221 the hierarchy base.
13224 Note: some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in
13225 the hierarchy base, but require that they are created as subfolders of
13226 `INBOX' \(en with such servers a folder name of the form
13228 .Dl imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.
13230 should be used (the last character is the server's hierarchy
13232 The following IMAP-specific commands exist:
13235 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
13238 Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes;
13239 takes a message list and reads the specified messages into the IMAP
13244 If operating in disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
13245 switch to online mode and connect to the mail server while retaining
13246 the mailbox status.
13247 See the description of the
13249 variable for more information.
13253 If operating in online mode on an IMAP mailbox,
13254 switch to disconnected mode while retaining the mailbox status.
13255 See the description of the
13258 A list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
13259 the respective messages are then read into the cache before the
13260 connection is closed, thus
13262 makes the entire mailbox available for disconnected use.
13266 Sends command strings directly to the current IMAP server.
13267 \*(UA operates always in IMAP `selected state' on the current mailbox;
13268 commands that change this will produce undesirable results and should be
13270 Useful IMAP commands are:
13271 .Bl -tag -offset indent -width ".Ic getquotearoot"
13273 Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and creates it.
13275 (RFC 2087) Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument
13276 and prints the quotas that apply to the mailbox.
13277 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13279 (RFC 2342) Takes no arguments and prints the Personal Namespaces,
13280 the Other User's Namespaces and the Shared Namespaces.
13281 Each namespace type is printed in parentheses;
13282 if there are multiple namespaces of the same type,
13283 inner parentheses separate them.
13284 For each namespace a prefix and a hierarchy separator is listed.
13285 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13290 Perform IMAP path transformations.
13294 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
13295 and manages the error number
13297 The first argument specifies the operation:
13299 normalizes hierarchy delimiters (see
13301 and converts the strings from the locale
13303 to the internationalized variant used by IMAP,
13305 performs the reverse operation.
13310 The following IMAP-specific internal variables exist:
13313 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
13315 .It Va disconnected
13316 \*(BO When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable is set,
13317 no connection to the server is initiated.
13318 Instead, data is obtained from the local cache (see
13321 Mailboxes that are not present in the cache
13322 and messages that have not yet entirely been fetched from the server
13324 to fetch all messages in a mailbox at once,
13326 .No ` Ns Li copy * /dev/null Ns '
13327 can be used while still in connected mode.
13328 Changes that are made to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued
13329 and committed later when a connection to that server is made.
13330 This procedure is not completely reliable since it cannot be guaranteed
13331 that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs) on the server still match the
13332 ones in the cache at that time.
13335 when this problem occurs.
13337 .It Va disconnected-USER@HOST
13338 The specified account is handled as described for the
13341 but other accounts are not affected.
13344 .It Va imap-auth-USER@HOST , imap-auth
13345 Sets the IMAP authentication method.
13346 Valid values are `login' for the usual password-based authentication
13348 `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication that does not send
13349 the password over the network in clear text,
13350 and `gssapi' for GSS-API based authentication.
13354 Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes.
13355 The value of this variable must point to a directory that is either
13356 existent or can be created by \*(UA.
13357 All contents of the cache can be deleted by \*(UA at any time;
13358 it is not safe to make assumptions about them.
13361 .It Va imap-delim-USER@HOST , imap-delim-HOST , imap-delim
13362 The hierarchy separator used by the IMAP server.
13363 Whenever an IMAP path is specified it will undergo normalization.
13364 One of the normalization steps is the squeezing and adjustment of
13365 hierarchy separators.
13366 If this variable is set, any occurrence of any character of the given
13367 value that exists in the path will be replaced by the first member of
13368 the value; an empty value will cause the default to be used, it is
13370 If not set, we will reuse the first hierarchy separator character that
13371 is discovered in a user-given mailbox name.
13373 .Mx Va imap-keepalive
13374 .It Va imap-keepalive-USER@HOST , imap-keepalive-HOST , imap-keepalive
13375 IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of
13376 inactivity; the standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes,
13377 but practical experience may vary.
13378 Setting this variable to a numeric `value' greater than 0 causes
13379 a `NOOP' command to be sent each `value' seconds if no other operation
13383 .It Va imap-list-depth
13384 When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the
13386 command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid possible
13388 The value of this variable sets the maximum depth allowed.
13390 If the folder separator on the current IMAP server is a slash `/',
13391 this variable has no effect and the
13393 command does not descend to subfolders.
13395 .Mx Va imap-use-starttls
13396 .It Va imap-use-starttls-USER@HOST , imap-use-starttls-HOST , imap-use-starttls
13397 Causes \*(UA to issue a `STARTTLS' command to make an unencrypted
13398 IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted.
13399 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
13400 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the IMAPS method.
13406 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
13416 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
13425 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
13431 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
13434 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
13435 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
13436 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
13439 command already appeared in First Edition
13443 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
13444 Electronic mail was there from the start.
13445 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
13446 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
13447 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
13448 freeloaders, or whatever.
13449 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
13450 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
13451 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
13457 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
13460 distribution until 1995.
13461 Mail has then seen further development in open source
13463 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
13465 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
13466 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
13467 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
13468 This man page is derived from
13469 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
13470 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
13478 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
13479 .An "Edward Wang" ,
13480 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
13481 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
13482 .An "Gunnar Ritter" .
13483 \*(UA is developed by
13484 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq steffen@sdaoden.eu .
13487 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
13490 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
13494 from anywhere else but a command prompt is very problematic and likely
13495 to leave the program in an undefined state: many library functions
13496 cannot deal with the
13498 that this software (still) performs; even though efforts have been taken
13499 to address this, no sooner but in v15 it will have been worked out:
13500 interruptions have not been disabled in order to allow forceful breakage
13501 of hanging network connections, for example (all this is unrelated to
13505 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
13506 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
13507 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
13512 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
13513 that is capable of message queuing.
13520 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
13521 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
13522 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
13524 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
13525 occasionally (this is may and very).
13529 in the source repository lists future directions.
13532 Please report bugs to the
13534 address, e.g., from within \*(uA:
13535 .\" v15-compat: drop eval as `mail' will expand variable?
13536 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
13537 More information is available on the web:
13538 .Ql $ \*(uA -X 'echo Ns \| $ Ns Va contact-web Ns ' -Xx .