1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2018 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
6 .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993
7 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
9 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
10 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
12 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
13 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
14 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
15 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
16 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
17 .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
18 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
19 .\" without specific prior written permission.
21 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
22 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
23 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
24 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
25 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
26 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
27 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
28 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
29 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
30 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
34 .\"@ S-nail v14.9.6 / 2017-12-05
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 """custom:\0header""" Ns \&:
82 .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&:
83 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
86 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
89 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
91 .Pf : Ar to-addr Ns \&:
92 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
100 .Op : Ns Fl C Ar """custom:\0header""" Ns \&:
102 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
104 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
107 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
108 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
115 .Op : Ns Fl C Ar """custom:\0header""" Ns \&:
118 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
120 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
122 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
124 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
130 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
133 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
136 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
137 .Sy Compatibility note:
138 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2020).
139 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
142 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
143 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
144 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
147 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
148 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
149 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
153 enables obsoletion warnings.
157 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
159 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
161 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
162 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
163 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
164 the user to deal with them in any order.
168 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
169 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
170 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
171 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
172 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
174 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
177 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
180 Explicitly control which of the
184 d (loaded): if the letter
186 is (case-insensitively) part of the
190 is sourced, likewise the letter
192 controls sourcing of the user's personal
194 file, whereas the letters
198 explicitly forbid sourcing of any resource files.
199 Scripts should use this option: to avoid environmental noise they should
201 from any configuration and create a script-specific environment, setting
203 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
206 and running configurating commands via
208 This option overrides
215 command for the given user email
217 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
219 setting is being established; only
221 commands have not been evaluated yet).
222 Being a special incarnation of
224 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived
226 tings, activating such an email account also switches to the accounts
228 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
233 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
236 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
240 .Sx "Filename transformations"
243 will be performed, except that shell variables are not expanded.
246 not be accessible but contain a
248 character, then anything before the
250 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
253 If an input character set is specified,
254 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
255 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
256 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
257 giving the empty string or the special string hyphen-minus
259 will be treated as if
261 has been specified (the default).
263 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
264 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
265 file's type and content.
266 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as the empty
267 string or hyphen-minus
269 then the default conversion algorithm (see
270 .Sx "Character sets" )
271 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
273 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first) \(em
274 without support for character set conversions
276 does not include the term
278 only this argument is supported.
281 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
282 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
287 Send a blind carbon copy to
294 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
296 The option may be used multiple times.
298 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
301 .It Fl C Ar """field: body"""
302 Create a custom header which persists for an entire session.
303 A custom header consists of the field name followed by a colon
305 and the field content body, e.g.,
306 .Ql -C """Blah: Neminem laede; imo omnes, quantum potes, juva""" Ns .
307 Standard header field names cannot be overwritten by a custom header.
308 A changeable way to create custom headers is available via the variable
313 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
314 offers the most flexible and powerful possibility of managing headers.
315 This option may be used multiple times.
319 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
321 May be used multiple times.
326 the internal variable
328 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
329 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
335 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
336 This command line option is \*(OB.
340 Just check if mail is present (in the system
342 or the one specified via
344 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
345 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
346 specification can be added with the option
351 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
352 first recipient's address (instead of in
357 Read in the contents of the user's
359 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
361 (or the specified file) for processing;
362 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
368 argument will undergo some special
369 .Sx "Filename transformations"
374 is not an argument to the flag
376 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
380 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
381 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
387 and exit; a configurable summary view is available via the
393 Show a short usage summary.
399 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
405 of all messages that match the given
409 .Sx "Specifying messages"
414 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
415 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
421 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
422 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
427 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
431 and use it as the main message body.
432 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
433 .Va message-inject-head
435 .Va message-inject-tail .
441 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
443 and use it as the main message body.
444 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
445 .Va message-inject-head
447 .Va message-inject-tail .
453 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
458 for the internal variable
463 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
468 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
469 .Sx "Resource files" .
473 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
474 contents of the specified
476 which may be standard input
478 only in non-interactive context.
486 opened will be in read-only mode.
490 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
491 Whereas the source address that appears in the
493 header of a message (or in the
495 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is honoured by the
496 builtin SMTP transport, it is not used by a file-based
498 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) for the RFC 5321 reverse-path used for relaying
499 and delegating a message to its destination(s), for delivery errors
500 etc., but it instead uses the local identity of the initiating user.
503 When this command line option is used the given
505 will be assigned to the internal variable
507 but in addition the command line option
508 .Fl \&\&f Ar from-addr
509 will be passed to a file-based
511 whenever a message is sent.
514 include a user name the address components will be separated and
515 the name part will be passed to a file-based
521 If an empty string is passed as
523 then the content of the variable
525 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
527 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
536 command line options are used when contacting a file-based MTA, unless
537 this automatic deduction is enforced by
539 ing the internal variable
540 .Va r-option-implicit .
543 Remarks: many default installations and sites disallow overriding the
544 local user identity like this unless either the MTA has been configured
545 accordingly or the user is member of a group with special privileges.
546 Passing an invalid address will cause an error.
550 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
552 (or, with a prefix string
555 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
558 iable and optionally assign
560 if supported; \*(ID the entire expression is evaluated as if specified
561 within dollar-single-quotes (see
562 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
563 if the internal variable
566 If the operation fails the program will exit if any of
571 Settings established via
573 cannot be changed from within
575 or an account switch initiated by
577 They will become mutable again before commands registered via
583 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
584 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
585 normalized to space (SP) characters.
589 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
590 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
595 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
596 specified on the command line.
597 If a message subject is specified via
599 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
615 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
616 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
617 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
619 Any other custom header field (also see
624 is passed through entirely
625 unchanged, and in conjunction with the options
629 it is possible to embed
630 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
638 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
641 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
642 .Ql Fl \&\&f Ns \0%user .
651 will also show the list of
653 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
658 ting the internal variable
660 enables display of some informational context messages.
661 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
665 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
667 to the list of commands to be executed,
668 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
669 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
670 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
671 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
681 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
682 in compose mode even in non-interactive use cases.
683 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
684 text before sending the message:
685 .Bd -literal -offset indent
686 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.';\e
687 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
688 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d~:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 bob@exam.ple
693 Enables batch mode: standard input is made line buffered, the complete
694 set of (interactive) commands is available, processing of
695 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
696 is enabled in compose mode, and diverse
697 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
698 are adjusted for batch necessities, exactly as if done via
714 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
715 .Bd -literal -offset indent
716 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' |\e
717 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d#:/ -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
722 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
725 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
726 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
732 arguments and all receivers established via
736 are subject to the checks established by
739 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
742 allows their recognition all
744 arguments given at the end of the command line after a
746 separator will be passed through to a file-based
748 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for the entire session.
750 constraints do not apply to the content of
754 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
757 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
759 Mail, itself a successor of the Research
762 .Dq was there from the start
765 It thus represents the user side of the
767 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
768 traditionally taken by
770 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
775 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
779 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
781 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
782 using it is a smooth experience.
783 (Rather complete configuration examples can be found in the section
788 .Sx "Resource files" ,
789 bends those standard imposed settings of the
790 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
791 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety already.
799 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to the
801 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
803 that would otherwise occur (see
804 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
807 to not remove empty system MBOX mailbox files in order not to mangle
808 file permissions when files eventually get recreated (all empty (MBOX)
809 mailbox files will be removed unless this variable is set whenever
811 .Pf a.k.a.\0 Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
812 mode has been enabled).
817 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
824 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
826 to allow editing of headers as well as
828 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
830 to include the message that is being responded to when
832 ing, which is indented by an
834 that also deviates from standard imposed settings.
835 .Va mime-counter-evidence
836 is fully enabled, too.
840 The file mode creation mask can be managed explicitly via the variable
842 Sufficient system support provided symbolic links will not be followed
843 when files are opened for writing.
844 Files and shell pipe output can be
846 d for evaluation, also during startup from within the
847 .Sx "Resource files" .
850 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
851 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
853 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or built-in
855 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
856 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
857 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
861 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
863 .Bd -literal -offset indent
865 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
867 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
868 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
869 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
871 '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
874 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
875 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=none \e
876 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
882 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
883 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
884 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
886 special \(en these are so-called
887 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
888 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
889 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
891 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
893 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
895 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
900 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
903 will leave compose mode and send the message once it is completed.
907 at the beginning of an empty line has the same effect, whereas typing
910 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
921 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
922 can be used to alter default behavior.
923 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
926 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
931 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
933 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content,
937 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
938 recipients, respectively, and (the default)
940 will request confirmation whether the message shall be sent.
943 The envelope sender address is defined by
945 explicitly defining an originating
947 may be desirable, especially with the builtin SMTP Mail-Transfer-Agent
950 for outgoing message and MIME part content are configurable via
952 whereas input data is assumed to be in
954 Message data will be passed over the wire in a
956 MIME parts a.k.a. attachments need to be assigned a
959 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
960 Saving a copy of sent messages in a
962 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
964 targets the value will undergo
965 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
970 sandbox dry-run tests will prove correctness.
973 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
978 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
979 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
982 is not set then only network addresses (see
984 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
985 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
987 A network address that contains no domain-, but only a valid local user
989 in angle brackets will be automatically expanded to a valid address when
991 is set to a non-empty value; setting it to the empty value instructs
994 will perform the necessary expansion.
997 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
999 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
1000 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
1004 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
1005 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
1007 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
1009 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
1010 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
1012 or the character sequence dot solidus
1014 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
1015 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
1017 Any other name which contains a commercial at
1019 character is treated as a network address;
1020 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
1022 character specifies a mailbox name;
1023 Any other name which contains a solidus
1025 character but no exclamation mark
1029 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
1030 What remains is treated as a network address.
1032 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1033 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
1034 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
1035 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1036 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
1037 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1042 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1044 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1046 and have it go to a group of people.
1047 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1048 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1052 and are often tracked in a file
1058 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1059 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1060 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1067 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1070 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
1072 .Va on-compose-cleanup
1073 hook variables may be set to
1075 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
1076 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
1077 .Va on-compose-splice
1079 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
1080 variables, the former also to be set to a
1082 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
1083 adjustments, including signature creation, are available.
1084 (\*(ID These hooks work for commands which newly create messages, namely
1085 .Ic forward , mail , reply
1090 for now provide only the hooks
1093 .Va on-resend-cleanup . )
1096 For the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
1097 be switched to with a single command or command line option there are
1099 Alternatively it is also possible to use a flat configuration, making use
1100 of so-called variable chains which automatically pick
1104 context-dependent variable variants: for example addressing
1105 .Ql Ic File Ns \& pop3://yaa@exam.ple
1107 .Va \&\&pop3-no-apop-yaa@exam.ple ,
1108 .Va \&\&pop3-no-apop-exam.ple
1113 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1115 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1118 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1120 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1121 environment, ideally with the command line options
1123 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1125 to specify variables:
1127 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1128 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1129 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1130 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1131 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1132 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
1133 -s 'Subject to go' -a attachment_file \e
1135 'Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>' rec2@exam.ple \e
1140 As shown, scripts can
1142 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1145 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1147 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1148 can be sent by calling the
1150 command with a list of recipient addresses:
1152 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1153 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1154 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1155 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1157 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1158 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1162 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1163 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1165 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1167 When used like that the user's system
1169 (for more on mailbox types please see the command
1171 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed if
1175 The visual style of this summary of
1177 can be adjusted through the variable
1179 and the possible sorting criterion via
1185 can be performed with the command
1187 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1188 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1197 will give a listing of all available commands and
1199 will give a summary of some common ones.
1200 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available (see
1205 and see the actual expansion of
1207 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1208 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1209 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1210 however possible to define overwrites with
1211 .Ic commandalias ) .
1212 These commands can also produce a more
1217 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1218 messages; the current message \(en the
1220 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1221 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1223 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1228 ful of header summaries containing the
1232 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1236 Message content can be displayed with the command
1243 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1245 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1247 the sole difference to the command
1249 which will always use the
1253 will instead only show the first
1255 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1258 Message display experience may improve by setting and adjusting
1259 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
1261 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" .
1264 By default the current message
1266 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1267 a fancy message specification (see
1268 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1271 will display all unread messages,
1276 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1278 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1282 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1285 (a more substantial alias for
1287 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1288 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1291 .Dl ? from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1294 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1296 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1297 applications by using the command
1299 e.g., to restrict their display to a very restricted set for
1301 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain Ar \:from to cc subject .
1302 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1303 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1308 will show the raw message content.
1309 Note that historically the global
1311 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1315 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1316 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1317 aims at making the user experience with the many
1320 When reading the system
1326 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1328 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1330 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1331 then messages which have been read will be automatically moved to a
1333 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1336 file, when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1337 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1338 .Sx "Message states" )
1339 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1340 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1343 Messages can also be explicitly
1345 d to other mailboxes, whereas
1347 keeps the original message.
1349 can be used to write out data content of specific parts of messages.
1352 After examining a message the user can
1354 to the sender and all recipients (which will also be placed in
1357 .Va recipients-in-cc
1360 exclusively to the sender(s).
1362 ing a message will allow editing the new message: the original message
1363 will be contained in the message body, adjusted according to
1369 messages: the former will add a series of
1371 headers, whereas the latter will not; different to newly created
1372 messages editing is not possible and no copy will be saved even with
1374 unless the additional variable
1377 When sending, replying or forwarding messages comments and full names
1378 will be stripped from recipient addresses unless the internal variable
1381 Of course messages can be
1383 and they can spring into existence again via
1385 or when the \*(UA session is ended via the
1390 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1392 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1393 automatic moving of read messages to the
1395 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1397 as well as updating the \*(OPal (see
1403 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1406 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1407 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1409 Messages which are HTML-only become more and more common and of course
1410 many messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME (Multipurpose Internet
1411 Mail Extensions) parts for, e.g., attachments.
1412 To get a notion of MIME types, \*(UA will first read
1413 .Sx "The mime.types files"
1414 (as configured and allowed by
1415 .Va mimetypes-load-control ) ,
1416 and then add onto that types registered directly with
1418 It (normally) has a default set of types built-in, too.
1419 To improve interaction with faulty MIME part declarations which are
1420 often seen in real-life messages, setting
1421 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1422 will allow \*(UA to verify the given assertion and possibly provide
1423 an alternative MIME type.
1426 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter for
1427 HTML messages, it cannot handle MIME types other than plain text itself.
1428 Instead programs need to become registered to deal with specific MIME
1429 types or file extensions.
1430 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input in
1431 order to enable \*(UA to integrate their output neatlessly in its own
1432 message visualization (a mode which is called
1433 .Cd copiousoutput ) ,
1434 or display the content themselves, for example in an external graphical
1435 window: such handlers will only be considered by and for the command
1439 To install a handler program for a specific MIME type an according
1440 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1441 variable needs to be set; to instead define a handler for a specific
1442 file extension the respective
1444 variable can be used \(en these handlers take precedence.
1445 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1446 RFC 1524; this mechanism (see
1447 .Sx "The Mailcap files" )
1448 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1449 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1450 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1451 A last source for handlers is the MIME type definition itself, when
1452 a (\*(UA specific) type-marker was registered with the command
1454 (which many built-in MIME types do).
1457 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1458 fancy plain text representation than the built-in converter is capable to
1459 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1463 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1464 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1465 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1467 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1468 ? if [ "$features" !% +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1469 ? #set pipe-text/html='@* elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1470 ? set pipe-text/html='@* lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1471 ? # Display HTML as plain text instead
1472 ? #set pipe-text/html=@
1474 ? mimetype @ application/mathml+xml mathml
1475 ? wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1476 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1477 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1478 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1482 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1485 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1488 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1490 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1495 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1496 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1497 currently defined mailing lists.
1502 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1503 in the header display.
1506 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available a mailing list
1507 specification that contains any of the
1509 regular expression characters
1513 will be interpreted as one, which allows matching of many addresses with
1514 a single expression.
1515 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1516 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1517 (are) matched sequentially.
1519 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1520 ? set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
1521 reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1522 ? wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1523 ? mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1528 .Va followup-to-honour
1530 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1531 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1537 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1538 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1540 .Dq mailing list specific
1545 is used to respond to a message with its
1546 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1550 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1551 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1552 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1553 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1554 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1555 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1557 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1558 address that is presented in the
1560 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1562 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1564 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1567 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1568 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1569 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1573 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
1574 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
1576 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
1577 message signing and message encryption.
1578 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
1579 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
1580 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
1581 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
1582 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
1583 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
1585 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
1588 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
1589 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
1590 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
1592 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
1593 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
1595 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
1596 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
1600 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
1601 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
1602 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
1603 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
1605 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
1607 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
1608 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
1610 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
1611 to avoid using the default certificates and point
1615 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1616 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
1617 certificate has been retrieved with.
1620 This trusted pool of certificates is used by the command
1622 to ensure that the given S/MIME messages can be trusted.
1623 If so, verified sender certificates that were embedded in signed
1624 messages can be saved locally with the command
1626 and used by \*(UA to encrypt further communication with these senders:
1628 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1630 ? set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
1631 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
1635 To sign outgoing messages in order to allow receivers to verify the
1636 origin of these messages a personal S/MIME certificate is required.
1637 \*(UA supports password-protected personal certificates (and keys),
1638 for more on this, and its automatization, please see the section
1639 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
1641 .Sx "S/MIME step by step"
1642 shows examplarily how such a private certificate can be obtained.
1643 In general, if such a private key plus certificate
1645 is available, all that needs to be done is to set some variables:
1647 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1648 ? set smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
1649 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
1654 Variables of interest for S/MIME in general are
1657 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
1658 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
1660 .Va smime-crl-file .
1661 For S/MIME signing of interest are
1663 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
1664 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
1666 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
1667 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
1670 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
1673 \*(ID Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to
1674 message subjects or other header fields yet.
1675 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
1676 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
1677 When sending signed messages,
1678 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
1682 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
1683 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1685 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
1686 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
1687 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
1690 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
1691 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
1692 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
1694 is used by the local maildir and the IMAP protocol, but not by POP3);
1699 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
1705 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
1708 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
1709 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
1710 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
1711 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
1712 a well-known notation.
1715 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
1716 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
1721 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
1728 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
1734 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
1737 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
1738 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
1739 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1740 must not be URL percent encoded.
1743 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
1744 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
1745 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
1746 .Ql smtp://our.house
1747 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
1748 .Va smtp-use-starttls
1749 \*(UA first looks for whether
1750 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
1751 is defined, then whether
1752 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
1753 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
1756 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
1757 necessary credential information of an account:
1763 has been given in the URL the variables
1767 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
1768 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
1769 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
1776 specific entry which provides a
1778 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
1781 It is possible to load encrypted
1786 If there is still no
1788 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
1789 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
1790 known to be a valid user on the current host.
1793 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
1794 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
1795 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
1801 has been given in the URL, then if the
1803 has been found through the \*(OPal
1805 that may have already provided the password, too.
1806 Otherwise the variable chain
1807 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
1808 is looked up and used if existent.
1810 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
1811 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
1815 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
1816 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
1817 but with a password).
1819 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
1820 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
1821 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
1826 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
1830 header field(s), which means that the values of
1831 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
1833 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
1834 will not be looked up using the
1838 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
1839 message that is being worked on.
1840 In unusual cases multiple and different
1844 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
1845 unusual cases become possible.
1846 The usual case is as short as:
1848 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1849 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
1850 smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
1856 contains complete example configurations.
1859 .\" .Ss "Encrypted network communication" {{{
1860 .Ss "Encrypted network communication"
1862 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a.k.a. its successor TLS (Transport Layer
1863 Security) are protocols which aid in securing communication by providing
1864 a safely initiated and encrypted network connection.
1865 A central concept of SSL/TLS is that of certificates: as part of each
1866 network connection setup a (set of) certificates will be exchanged, and
1867 by using those the identity of the network peer can be cryptographically
1869 SSL/TLS works by using a locally installed pool of trusted certificates,
1870 and verifying the connection peer succeeds if that provides
1871 a certificate which has been issued or is trusted by any certificate in
1872 the trusted local pool.
1875 The local pool of trusted so-called CA (Certification Authority)
1876 certificates is usually delivered with the used SSL/TLS library, and
1877 will be selected automatically, but it is also possible to create and
1878 use an own pool of trusted certificates.
1879 If this is desired, set
1880 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
1881 to avoid using the default certificate pool, and point
1885 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1886 A certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA certificate
1887 has been retrieved with.
1890 It depends on the used protocol whether encrypted communication is
1891 possible, and which configuration steps have to be taken to enable it.
1892 Some protocols, e.g., POP3S, are implicitly encrypted, others, like
1893 POP3, can upgrade a plain text connection if so requested: POP3 offers
1895 which will be used if the variable (chain)
1896 .Va pop3-use-starttls
1899 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1900 shortcut encpop1 pop3s://pop1.exam.ple
1902 shortcut encpop2 pop3://pop2.exam.ple
1903 set pop3-use-starttls-pop2.exam.ple
1905 set mta=smtps://smtp.exam.ple:465
1906 set mta=smtp://smtp.exam.ple smtp-use-starttls
1910 Normally that is all there is to do, given that SSL/TLS libraries try to
1911 provide safe defaults, plenty of knobs however exist to adjust settings.
1912 For example certificate verification settings can be fine-tuned via
1914 and the SSL/TLS configuration basics are accessible via
1915 .Va ssl-config-pairs ,
1916 e.g., to specify the allowed protocols or cipher lists that
1917 a communication channel may use.
1918 In the past hints of how to restrict the set of protocols to highly
1919 secure ones were indicated, as of the time of this writing the allowed
1920 protocols or cipher list may need to become relaxed in order to be able
1921 to connect to some servers; the following example allows connecting to a
1923 that uses OpenSSL 0.9.8za from June 2014 (refer to
1924 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1925 for more on variable chains):
1927 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1928 wysh set ssl-config-pairs-lion@exam.ple='MinProtocol=TLSv1.1,\e
1929 CipherList=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
1930 ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
1931 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH'
1937 can be used and should be referred to when creating a custom cipher list.
1938 Variables of interest for SSL/TLS in general are
1942 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
1943 .Va ssl-config-file ,
1944 .Va ssl-config-module ,
1945 .Va ssl-config-pairs ,
1953 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1954 .Ss "Character sets"
1956 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1957 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1959 environment variable
1964 in that order, see there).
1965 The internal variable
1967 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly,
1968 and will thus show up in the output of commands like, e.g.,
1974 However, the user may give a value for
1976 during startup, so that it is possible to send mail in a completely
1978 locale environment, an option which can be used to generate and send,
1979 e.g., 8-bit UTF-8 input data in a pure 7-bit US-ASCII
1981 environment (an example of this can be found in the section
1982 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ) .
1983 Changing the value does not mean much beside that, because several
1984 aspects of the real character set are implied by the locale environment
1985 of the system, which stays unaffected by
1989 Messages and attachments which consist of 7-bit clean data will be
1990 classified as consisting of
1993 This is a problem if the
1995 character set is a multibyte character set that is also 7-bit clean.
1996 For example, the Japanese character set ISO-2022-JP is 7-bit clean but
1997 capable to encode the rich set of Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana
1998 characters: in order to notify receivers of this character set the mail
1999 message must be MIME encoded so that the character set ISO-2022-JP can
2001 To achieve this, the variable
2003 must be set to ISO-2022-JP.
2004 (Today a better approach regarding email is the usage of UTF-8, which
2005 uses 8-bit bytes for non-US-ASCII data.)
2008 If the \*(OPal character set conversion capabilities are not available
2010 does not include the term
2014 will be the only supported character set,
2015 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
2016 (over the wire an intermediate, configurable
2019 and the rest of this section does not apply;
2020 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
2021 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to
2022 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./config.h:CHARSET_*!)
2023 LATIN1 a.k.a. ISO-8859-1.
2026 \*(OP When reading messages, their text is converted into
2028 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
2029 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
2030 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
2031 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
2034 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
2035 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
2036 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
2038 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
2039 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
2042 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
2043 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
2044 appear to be binary data,
2045 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
2046 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
2047 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
2048 Permissible values for character sets used in outgoing messages can be
2053 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
2054 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
2058 When replying to a message and the variable
2059 .Va reply-in-same-charset
2060 is set, then the character set of the message being replied to
2061 is tried first (still being a subject of
2062 .Ic charsetalias ) .
2063 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
2064 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
2065 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
2066 please see there for more information.
2069 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
2070 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
2071 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
2072 content of the part or attachment,
2073 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
2077 In general, if a message saying
2078 .Dq cannot convert from a to b
2079 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
2080 selected (terminal) character set,
2081 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
2082 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
2084 locale and/or the variable
2088 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
2089 locale on an UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
2090 spectrum of characters is available.
2091 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
2092 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
2093 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
2096 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
2097 .Dq portable character set
2098 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
2099 restricted subset named
2100 .Dq portable filename character set
2101 consists of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
2109 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
2110 .Ss "Message states"
2112 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
2113 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
2115 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
2117 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
2119 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
2120 When operating on the system
2124 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
2125 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
2127 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2129 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
2130 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
2132 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
2135 mail-user-agents, the default global
2141 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
2143 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
2145 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
2146 Such messages are retained even in the
2148 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2151 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
2152 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
2153 Such messages are retained even in the
2155 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2158 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2177 will always try to automatically
2183 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
2185 command will do so if the internal variable
2190 command is used, messages that are in a
2192 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2195 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in the
2197 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2199 unless the internal variable
2204 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2210 can be used to access such messages.
2213 The message has been processed by a
2215 command and it will be retained in its current location.
2218 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2224 command is used, messages that are in a
2226 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2229 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in the
2231 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2233 when the internal variable
2239 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
2240 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
2241 addressing them when
2242 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2243 can be set on messages.
2244 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
2245 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
2247 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
2249 Mark messages as having been answered.
2251 Mark messages as being a draft.
2253 Mark messages which need special attention.
2257 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
2258 .Ss "Specifying messages"
2261 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
2269 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
2270 of messages at once.
2273 deletes messages 1 and 2,
2276 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
2277 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
2281 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
2282 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
2285 The following special message names exist:
2288 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
2290 The current message, the so-called
2294 The message that was previously the current message.
2297 The parent message of the current message,
2298 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
2300 field or the last entry of the
2302 field of the current message.
2305 The next previous undeleted message,
2306 or the next previous deleted message for the
2309 In sorted/threaded mode,
2310 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2313 The next undeleted message,
2314 or the next deleted message for the
2317 In sorted/threaded mode,
2318 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2321 The first undeleted message,
2322 or the first deleted message for the
2325 In sorted/threaded mode,
2326 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2330 In sorted/threaded mode,
2331 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
2335 selects the message addressed with
2339 is any other message specification,
2340 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
2341 Otherwise it is identical to
2346 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
2351 All messages that were included in the
2352 .Sx "Message list arguments"
2353 of the previous command.
2356 An inclusive range of message numbers.
2357 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
2362 .Dq any substring matches
2365 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
2367 is set (and POSIX says
2368 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
2371 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
2372 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
2374 is completely ignored.
2375 For finer control and match boundaries use the
2379 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
2380 All messages that contain
2382 in the subject field (case ignored according to locale).
2389 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
2392 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
2395 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
2397 ession; If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available
2399 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
2401 regular expression characters
2406 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
2407 part is missing the search is restricted to the subject field body,
2410 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, e.g.,
2413 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
2416 In order to search for a string that includes a
2418 (commercial at) character the
2420 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
2421 Also, specifying an empty search
2423 ession will effectively test for existence of the given header fields.
2424 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
2438 respectively and case-insensitively.
2439 \*(OPally, and just like
2442 will be interpreted as (an extended) regular expression if any of the
2444 regular expression characters is seen.
2451 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2460 will perform full text searches \(en whereas the former searches only
2461 the body, the latter also searches the message header (\*(ID this mode
2462 yet brute force searches over the entire decoded content of messages,
2463 including administrativa strings).
2466 This specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2467 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2468 expression that safely matches only a specific address domain.
2469 To request that the body content of the header is treated as a list of
2470 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2471 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the effective
2477 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2481 All messages of state or with matching condition
2485 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2487 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2490 messages (cf. the variable
2491 .Va markanswered ) .
2503 Messages with receivers that match
2507 Messages with receivers that match
2514 Old messages (any not in state
2522 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification (see
2523 .Sx "Handling spam" ) .
2525 \*(OP Messages classified as spam.
2537 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2538 This addressing mode is available with all types of mailbox
2540 s; \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2541 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2543 in their entirety if they contain whitespace or parentheses;
2544 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2546 is recognized as an escape character.
2547 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2548 When the description indicates that the
2550 representation of an address field is used,
2551 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2554 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2555 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2560 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2561 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2565 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2566 .It Ar ( criterion )
2567 All messages that satisfy the given
2569 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2570 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2572 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2573 All messages that satisfy either
2578 To connect more than two criteria using
2580 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2582 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2586 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2589 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2590 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2594 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2595 All messages that do not satisfy
2597 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2598 All messages that contain
2600 in the envelope representation of the
2603 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2604 All messages that contain
2606 in the envelope representation of the
2609 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2610 All messages that contain
2612 in the envelope representation of the
2615 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2616 All messages that contain
2621 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2622 All messages that contain
2624 in the envelope representation of the
2627 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2628 All messages that contain
2633 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2634 All messages that contain
2637 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2638 All messages that contain
2640 in their header or body.
2641 .It Ar ( larger size )
2642 All messages that are larger than
2645 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2646 All messages that are smaller than
2650 .It Ar ( before date )
2651 All messages that were received before
2653 which must be in the form
2657 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2659 is the name of the month \(en one of
2660 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2663 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2667 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2668 .It Ar ( since date )
2669 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2670 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2671 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2672 .It Ar ( senton date )
2673 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2674 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2675 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2677 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2678 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2679 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2680 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2684 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2685 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2687 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2689 libraries, either the
2691 or, alternatively, the
2693 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2695 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2696 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2697 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2698 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys.
2701 The internal variable
2703 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2704 \*(UA may also become a fullscreen application by entering the
2705 so-called ca-mode and switching to an alternative exclusive screen
2706 (content) shall the terminal support it and the internal variable
2708 has been set explicitly.
2709 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2710 setting the internal variable
2711 .Va termcap-disable ;
2713 will be queried regardless, which is true even if the \*(OPal library
2714 support has not been enabled at configuration time as long as some other
2715 \*(OP which (may) query terminal control sequences has been enabled.
2718 \*(OP The built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2719 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2721 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2722 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2724 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2726 .Va line-editor-disable .
2727 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2728 entries in the internal variable
2730 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2731 The MLE can support a little bit of
2737 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2738 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2739 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2741 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2742 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2746 .Va history-gabby-persist
2751 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2752 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2753 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2754 be generated by holding the
2756 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2760 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2761 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2762 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2764 to establish its built-in key bindings
2765 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2766 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2767 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2768 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2769 notation is used in the following;
2770 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2771 generate a (unique) keycode:
2775 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql \eBa"
2777 Go to the start of the line
2779 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2782 Move the cursor backward one character
2784 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2787 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2788 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2792 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2795 Go to the end of the line
2797 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2800 Move the cursor forward one character
2802 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2805 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2806 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2807 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2808 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2810 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2813 Backspace: backward delete one character
2815 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2819 Horizontal tabulator:
2820 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2821 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2823 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ;
2825 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2829 commit the current line
2831 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2834 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2836 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2841 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2844 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2846 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2849 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2853 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2855 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2858 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2861 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2862 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2863 is committed; also see
2867 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2869 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2872 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2874 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2877 Paste the snarf buffer
2879 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2887 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2890 Prompts for a Unicode character (hexadecimal number without prefix, see
2894 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2895 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2896 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2897 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2898 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2899 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2901 function immediately.
2904 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2907 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2910 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2912 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2915 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2917 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2920 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2921 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2923 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2924 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2925 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2926 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2928 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2929 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2930 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2933 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2937 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2941 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2945 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2948 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2959 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2964 ring the audible bell.
2968 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2969 .Ss "Coloured display"
2971 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2972 attributes by emitting ANSI a.k.a. ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic
2973 rendition) escape sequences.
2974 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2975 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2976 environment variable
2978 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2982 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2984 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2985 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2986 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2991 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2992 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2993 support those sequences.
2994 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2995 environment it is often enough to simply set
2997 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
3002 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
3003 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
3008 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
3009 command family exists:
3011 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
3014 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
3015 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
3016 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
3019 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3020 if terminal && [ "$features" =% +colour ]
3021 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
3022 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject
3023 colour iso view-header fg=red
3025 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
3026 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
3027 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 "subject,from"
3028 colour mono view-header ft=bold
3029 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
3034 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
3037 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
3038 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
3039 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
3041 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
3042 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
3044 state can be prompted: the
3048 message specifications will address respective messages and their
3050 entries will be used when displaying the
3052 in the header display.
3057 rates the given messages and sets their
3060 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
3061 the header display by including the
3071 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
3072 the given messages as
3076 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
3078 of messages; it adheres to their current
3080 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
3085 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
3087 message flag, without any interface interaction.
3096 requires a running instance of the
3098 server in order to function, started with the option
3100 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
3102 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3103 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
3104 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
3105 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
3109 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
3111 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3112 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3113 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3114 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
3116 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3117 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3118 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
3122 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
3124 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
3127 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3128 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3129 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
3130 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
3131 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
3132 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
3133 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
3134 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
3138 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
3139 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
3140 perform the local spam check last.
3141 Spam can be checked automatically when opening specific folders by
3142 setting a specialized form of the internal variable
3145 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3146 define spamdelhook {
3148 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
3149 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
3150 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
3151 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
3157 set folder-hook-SOMEFOLDER=spamdelhook
3161 See also the documentation for the variables
3162 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
3163 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
3164 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
3167 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
3170 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
3173 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
3176 \*(UA reads input in lines.
3177 An unquoted reverse solidus
3179 at the end of a command line
3181 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
3182 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
3183 once an entire line is completed, the whitespace characters
3184 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3185 as well as those defined by the variable
3187 are removed from the beginning and end.
3188 Placing any whitespace characters at the beginning of a line will
3189 prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
3193 The beginning of such input lines is then scanned for the name of
3194 a known command: command names may be abbreviated, in which case the
3195 first command that matches the given prefix will be used.
3196 .Sx "Command modifiers"
3197 may prefix a command in order to modify its behaviour.
3198 A name may also be a
3200 which will become expanded until no more expansion is possible.
3201 Once the command that shall be executed is known, the remains of the
3202 input line will be interpreted according to command-specific rules,
3203 documented in the following.
3206 This behaviour is different to the
3208 ell, which is a programming language with syntactic elements of clearly
3209 defined semantics, and therefore capable to sequentially expand and
3210 evaluate individual elements of a line.
3211 \*(UA will never be able to handle
3212 .Ql ? set one=value two=$one
3213 in a single statement, because the variable assignment is performed by
3221 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
3222 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
3223 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
3224 \*(OPally the command
3228 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
3229 command matching the expanded argument, as in
3231 which should be a shorthand of
3233 with these documentation strings both commands support a more
3235 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command and other
3236 information which applies; a handy suggestion might thus be:
3238 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3240 # Before v15: need to enable sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
3241 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
3243 ? commandalias xv '\ecall __xv'
3247 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
3248 .Ss "Command modifiers"
3250 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
3251 Some command modifiers can be used with a restricted set of commands
3256 will (\*(OPally) show which modifiers apply.
3260 The modifier reverse solidus
3263 to be placed first, prevents
3265 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
3267 will always evaluate the command
3269 even if an (command)alias of the same name exists.
3271 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
3272 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
3278 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
3279 ignored by the state machine and not cause a program exit with enabled
3281 or for the standardized exit cases in
3286 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3287 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
3292 will alter the called command to apply changes only temporarily,
3293 local to block-scope, and can thus only be used inside of a
3298 Specifying it implies the modifier
3300 Block-scope settings will not be inherited by macros deeper in the
3302 chain, and will be garbage collected once the current block is left.
3303 To record and unroll changes in the global scope use the command
3309 does yet not implement any functionality.
3314 does yet not implement any functionality.
3317 Some commands support the
3320 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
3321 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
3322 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
3323 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
3325 The given name will be tested for being a valid
3327 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
3328 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
3329 a non-portable extension; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
3330 may not be used as last characters.
3331 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
3332 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3333 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
3334 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
3335 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
3336 Any error during these operations causes the command as such to fail,
3337 and the error number
3340 .Va ^ERR Ns -NOTSUP ,
3345 but some commands deviate from the latter, which is documented.
3348 Last, but not least, the modifier
3351 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
3352 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3353 rules over the traditional
3354 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
3358 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
3359 .Ss "Message list arguments"
3361 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
3362 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
3363 .Sx "Specifying messages"
3365 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
3366 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
3367 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
3368 the search proceeds backwards;
3369 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
3370 shown and the command is aborted.
3373 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
3374 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
3376 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
3377 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
3378 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
3379 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3380 may be available even for those via
3383 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
3384 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
3385 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
3386 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
3389 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3391 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
3396 any whitespace, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
3397 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
3398 part of the argument.
3399 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
3401 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
3402 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
3408 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
3409 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
3413 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
3414 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
3418 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
3419 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
3421 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
3423 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
3425 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
3426 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
3428 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
3431 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
3432 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
3433 Metacharacters are vertical bar
3439 as well as all characters from the variable
3442 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
3443 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
3445 and less-than and greater-than signs
3449 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
3450 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it seems
3451 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
3453 .Bd -filled -offset indent
3454 .Sy Compatibility note:
3455 \*(ID Please note that even many new-style commands do not yet honour
3457 to parse their arguments: whereas the
3459 ell is a language with syntactic elements of clearly defined semantics,
3460 \*(UA parses entire input lines and decides on a per-command base what
3461 to do with the rest of the line.
3462 This also means that whenever an unknown command is seen all that \*(UA
3463 can do is cancellation of the processing of the remains of the line.
3465 It also often depends on an actual subcommand of a multiplexer command
3466 how the rest of the line should be treated, and until v15 we are not
3467 capable to perform this deep inspection of arguments.
3468 Nonetheless, at least the following commands which work with positional
3469 parameters fully support
3471 for an almost shell-compatible field splitting:
3472 .Ic call , call_if , read , vpospar , xcall .
3476 Any unquoted number sign
3478 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
3479 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
3480 An unquoted dollar sign
3482 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
3484 ell-style variable name (see
3486 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3489 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
3490 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
3493 Whereas the metacharacters
3494 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3495 only complete an input token, vertical bar
3501 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
3502 For now supported is semicolon
3504 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
3505 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
3506 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
3507 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
3508 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
3511 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3512 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3515 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
3516 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
3517 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
3518 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
3521 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3523 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
3524 with the escape character reverse solidus
3528 Arguments which are enclosed in
3529 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3530 retain their literal value.
3531 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3534 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3535 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3536 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3538 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3540 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3542 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3544 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3548 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3550 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3551 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3554 Arguments enclosed in
3555 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3556 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3557 expanded as follows:
3559 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".Ql \eNNN"
3561 bell control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BEL).
3563 backspace control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BS).
3565 escape control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 ESC).
3569 form feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 FF).
3571 line feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 LF).
3573 carriage return control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 CR).
3575 horizontal tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 HT).
3577 vertical tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 VT).
3579 emits a reverse solidus character.
3583 double quote (escaping is optional).
3585 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3587 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3589 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3591 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3593 (one or two hexadecimal characters, no prefix, see
3595 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3597 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3599 (one to eight hexadecimal characters) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3600 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3605 This escape is only supported in locales that support Unicode (see
3606 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3607 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3608 point is ASCII compatible or (if the \*(OPal character set conversion is
3609 available) can be represented in the current locale.
3610 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3614 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal characters.
3616 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3617 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3618 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3619 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3620 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3621 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3622 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3624 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3625 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3627 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3628 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3630 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3632 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO-10646, ISO C) aliases,
3633 as shown above (e.g.,
3637 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3638 The control code NUL
3640 a non-standard extension) will suppress further output for the remains
3641 of the token (which may extend beyond the current quote), or, depending
3642 on the context, the remains of all arguments for the current command.
3644 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3645 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3647 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3654 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3655 ? echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3656 ? echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3657 ? echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3661 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3662 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3664 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3666 in their name, e.g.,
3670 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3671 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3672 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3673 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3674 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3675 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3679 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3680 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3682 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3684 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3685 ? eval shcodec d $res
3686 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3690 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3691 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3693 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3694 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3697 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3699 If the given name is a registered
3701 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3704 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3706 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3708 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3710 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3711 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3712 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3714 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3716 if that is set, or a built-in compile-time default otherwise.
3718 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3720 (and never the value of
3722 regardless of its actual setting).
3724 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3725 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3726 secondary mailbox, the
3733 directory (if that variable is set).
3735 Expands to the same value as
3737 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3739 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3743 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3744 session will be moved to the
3746 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3750 Meta expansions may be applied to the resulting filename, as allowed by
3751 the operation and applicable to the resulting access protocol (also see
3752 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3753 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3755 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3757 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3758 directory of the given user is used instead.
3760 A shell expansion as if specified in double-quotes (see
3761 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
3762 may be applied, so that any occurrence of
3766 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3767 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3770 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism.
3772 Shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
3774 may be applied as documented.
3775 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3776 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3778 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3780 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3781 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3783 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3787 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3790 The following commands are available:
3792 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3799 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3800 previously executed command if the internal variable
3803 This command supports
3806 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
3807 and manages the error number
3809 A 0 or positive exit status
3811 reflects the exit status of the command, negative ones that
3812 an error happened before the command was executed, or that the program
3813 did not exit cleanly, but, e.g., due to a signal: the error number is
3814 .Va ^ERR Ns -CHILD ,
3818 In conjunction with the
3820 modifier the following special cases exist:
3821 a negative exit status occurs if the collected data could not be stored
3822 in the given variable, which is a
3824 error that should otherwise not occur.
3825 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED
3826 indicates that no temporary file could be created to collect the command
3827 output at first glance.
3828 In case of catchable out-of-memory situations
3830 will occur and \*(UA will try to store the empty string, just like with
3831 all other detected error conditions.
3836 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3838 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3841 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3842 on a line are not possible.
3846 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3852 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3853 a numeric argument n.
3857 Show the current message number (the
3862 Show a brief summary of commands.
3863 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3864 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3865 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3866 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3871 and see how the output changes.
3872 This mode also supports a more
3874 output, which will provide the information documented for
3885 .It Ic account , unaccount
3886 (ac, una) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3887 Accounts are special incarnations of
3889 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3890 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3891 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3893 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3898 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted by the
3899 latter command, and in one operation with the special name
3901 Also for all but it a possibly set
3902 .Va on-account-cleanup
3903 hook is called once they are left.
3905 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3906 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3908 of that account will be activated (as via
3910 a possibly installed
3912 will be run, and the internal variable
3915 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3917 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3919 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3920 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3921 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3928 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3929 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3933 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
3934 and manages the error number
3936 The first argument must be either
3937 .Ar [+[+[+]]]e[ncode] ,
3942 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3945 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3946 argument, which should be an email address.
3947 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3948 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3950 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3951 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3954 Skinning is identical to decoding but only outputs the plain address,
3955 without any string, comment etc. components.
3956 Another difference is that it may fail with the error number
3960 if decoding fails to find a(n) (valid) email address, in which case the
3961 unmodified input will be output again.
3965 first performs a skin operation, and thereafter checks a valid
3966 address for whether it is a registered mailing-list (see
3970 eventually reporting that state in the error number
3973 .Va ^ERR Ns -EXIST .
3974 (This state could later become overwritten by an I/O error, though.)
3977 Encoding supports four different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3978 chosen by prefixing one, two or three plus signs: the standard imposes
3979 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3980 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3982 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3983 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3984 Specify one plus sign to remark that parenthesis shall be left alone,
3985 two for not turning double quotation marks into quoted-pairs, and three
3986 for also leaving any user-specified reverse solidus alone.
3987 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported
3988 (\*(ID the current parser fails this assertion for some constructs).
3989 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3992 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3993 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3995 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3996 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3997 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3998 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3999 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
4000 ? addrc s "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
4007 .It Ic alias , unalias
4008 (a, una) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists
4009 that map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
4010 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed.
4011 The latter command removes the given list of aliases, the special name
4013 will discard all existing aliases.
4015 The former command shows all currently defined aliases when used without
4016 arguments, and with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4017 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
4018 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
4019 Alias names adhere to the Postfix MTA
4021 rules and are thus restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
4022 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon and commercial at,
4023 the last character can also be the dollar sign; the regular expression:
4024 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@-]+$? .
4025 .\" ALIASCOLON next sentence
4026 \*(ID Unfortunately the colon is currently not supported, as it
4027 interferes with normal address parsing rules.
4028 As extensions the exclamation mark
4033 .Dq any character that has the high bit set
4035 .\" ALIASCOLON next sentence
4036 \*(ID Such high bit characters will likely cause warnings at the moment
4037 for the same reasons why colon is unsupported.
4041 .It Ic alternates , unalternates
4042 \*(NQ (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
4043 members of which will be removed from recipient lists.
4044 The latter command removes the given list of alternates, the special name
4046 will discard all existing aliases.
4047 The former command manages the error number
4049 and shows the current set of alternates when used without arguments; in
4050 this mode it supports
4053 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4054 Otherwise the given arguments (after being checked for validity) are
4055 appended to the list of alternate names; in
4057 mode they replace that list instead.
4058 There is a set of implicit alternates which is formed of the values of
4067 .It Ic answered , unanswered
4068 Take a message lists and mark each message as having been answered,
4069 having not been answered, respectively.
4070 Messages will be marked answered when being
4072 to automatically if the
4076 .Sx "Message states" .
4081 .It Ic bind , unbind
4082 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
4083 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4084 with freely configurable key bindings.
4085 The latter command removes from the given context the given key binding,
4086 both of which may be specified as a wildcard
4090 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
4091 Due to initialization order unbinding will not work for built-in key
4092 bindings upon program startup, however: please use
4093 .Va line-editor-no-defaults
4094 for this purpose instead.
4097 With one argument the former command shows all key bindings for the
4098 given context, specifying an asterisk
4100 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
4101 produced if either of
4106 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
4107 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
4108 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
4110 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
4111 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
4112 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
4114 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
4115 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
4116 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
4119 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
4120 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
4121 This is not true for the shared binding
4123 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
4124 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
4125 The available contexts are the shared
4129 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
4131 which applies to compose mode only.
4135 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
4136 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
4137 A list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
4139 also refer to the name of a terminal capability; several dozen names
4140 will be compiled in and may be specified either by their
4142 or, if existing, by their
4144 name, regardless of the actually used \*(OPal terminal control library.
4145 It is possible to use any capability, as long as the name is resolvable
4146 by the \*(OPal control library or was defined via the internal variable
4148 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
4149 required to update or remove a binding.
4152 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4153 ? bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
4154 ? bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
4155 ? bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
4156 ? bind default a,b,c rm -irf / @ # Another editable binding
4157 ? bind default :kf1 File %
4158 ? bind compose :kf1 ~e
4162 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
4163 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
4164 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
4165 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
4166 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
4167 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
4168 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
4169 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
4170 and using terminal capabilities does so if no (corresponding) terminal
4171 control support is (currently) available.
4174 The following terminal capability names are built-in and can be used in
4176 or (if available) the two-letter
4179 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
4182 can be used to show all the capabilities of
4184 or the given terminal type;
4187 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
4190 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
4191 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
4193 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
4195 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
4196 \(em shifted variant.
4197 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
4198 Clear to end of line.
4199 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
4201 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
4203 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
4204 \(em shifted variant.
4205 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
4207 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
4208 \(em shifted variant.
4209 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
4211 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
4213 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
4215 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
4216 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
4217 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
4218 \(em shifted variant.
4219 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
4220 Right cursor (ditto).
4221 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
4222 \(em shifted variant.
4223 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
4224 Down cursor (ditto).
4226 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4227 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
4230 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4231 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
4233 Add one for each function key up to
4238 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
4240 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
4242 Add one for each function key up to
4250 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
4252 For example, the delete key,
4254 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
4256 then a number is appended for the states
4268 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
4270 The same for the left cursor key,
4272 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
4275 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
4277 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
4278 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
4279 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
4282 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
4287 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
4292 Calling macros recursively will at some time excess the stack size
4293 limit, causing a hard program abortion; if recursively calling a macro
4294 is the last command of the current macro, consider to use the command
4296 which will first release all resources of the current macro before
4297 replacing the current macro with the called one.
4298 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
4302 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
4309 if the given macro has been created via
4311 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
4315 (ch) Change the working directory to
4317 or the given argument.
4323 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
4324 Takes a message list and a filename and saves the certificates
4325 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
4326 human-readable and PEM format.
4327 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
4328 respective message senders by setting
4329 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
4334 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
4335 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
4336 as documented in the section
4337 .Sx "Character sets" .
4338 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
4339 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
4341 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
4342 is not available (i.e., no
4346 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown,
4347 with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4348 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
4349 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
4350 existing aliases, as necessary.
4352 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
4354 will remove all aliases.
4358 (ch) Change the working directory to
4360 or the given argument.
4366 .It Ic collapse , uncollapse
4367 Only applicable to threaded mode.
4368 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
4369 in header summaries, except for
4373 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
4374 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
4375 The latter command undoes collapsing.
4380 .It Ic colour , uncolour
4381 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
4382 .Sx "Coloured display" .
4383 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
4384 which must be one of
4386 for 256-colour terminals,
4391 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
4395 for monochrome terminals.
4396 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
4400 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
4401 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
4405 will show the mappings of all types).
4406 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
4407 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
4408 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
4409 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
4410 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
4411 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
4413 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
4414 .Sx "Coloured display"
4415 for some examples), the following of which exist:
4418 Mappings prefixed with
4420 are used for the \*(OPal built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
4421 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4422 and do not support preconditions.
4424 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4426 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
4427 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
4434 Mappings prefixed with
4436 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
4438 (the current message) and
4440 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
4441 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
4443 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4445 This mapping is used for the
4447 that can be created with the
4451 formats of the variable
4454 For the complete header summary line except the
4456 and the thread structure.
4458 For the thread structure which can be created with the
4460 format of the variable
4465 Mappings prefixed with
4467 are used when displaying messages.
4469 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4471 This mapping is used for so-called
4473 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
4476 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
4477 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
4478 available then if any of the
4480 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
4481 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
4483 For the introductional message info line.
4484 .It Ar view-partinfo
4485 For MIME part info lines.
4489 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
4490 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
4500 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
4501 attributes for a single mapping.
4504 foreground colour attribute:
4514 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
4515 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
4517 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
4519 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
4521 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
4523 216 colors in tuples of 6.
4525 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
4527 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4529 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4530 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4532 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4533 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4535 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4536 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4540 background colour attribute (see
4542 for possible values).
4548 will remove for the given colour type (the special type
4550 selects all) the given mapping; if the optional precondition argument is
4551 given only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
4554 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed), thus
4556 will remove all established mappings.
4561 .It Ic commandalias , uncommandalias
4562 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, command aliases.
4563 An (command)alias can be used everywhere a normal command can be used,
4564 but always takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command
4565 alias are joined onto the alias expansion, and the resulting string
4566 forms the command line that is, in effect, executed.
4567 The latter command removes all given aliases, the special name
4569 will remove all existing aliases.
4570 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4571 known aliases, with one argument only the expansion of the given one.
4573 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4574 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4575 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4576 An alias may itself expand to another alias, but to avoid expansion loops
4577 further expansion will be prevented if an alias refers to itself or if
4578 an expansion depth limit is reached.
4579 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4582 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4583 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4585 \*(uA: `commandalias': no such alias: xx
4586 ? commandalias xx echo hello,
4588 commandalias xx 'echo hello,'
4597 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
4598 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
4599 otherwise identical to
4604 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
4605 otherwise identical to
4610 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
4615 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4616 The return status is tracked via
4621 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4623 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4627 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4629 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4634 .It Ic define , undefine
4635 The latter command deletes the given macro, the special name
4637 will discard all existing macros.
4638 Deletion of (a) macro(s) can be performed from within running (a)
4639 macro(s), including self-deletion.
4640 Without arguments the former command prints the current list of macros,
4641 including their content, otherwise it it defines a macro, replacing an
4642 existing one of the same name as applicable.
4645 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
4650 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
4652 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
4656 Temporary macro block-scope variables can be created or deleted with the
4658 command modifier in conjunction with the commands
4663 To enforce unrolling of changes made to (global)
4664 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4667 can be used instead; its covered scope depends on how (i.e.,
4669 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
4671 switch) the macro is invoked.
4676 ed macro, the given positional parameters are implicitly local
4677 to the macro's scope, and may be accessed via the variables
4683 and any other positive unsigned decimal number less than or equal to
4685 Positional parameters can be
4687 ed, or become completely replaced, removed etc. via
4690 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4700 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
4703 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
4704 echo ${?}/${!}/${^ERRNAME}
4710 .It Ic delete , undelete
4711 (d, u) Marks the given message list as being or not being
4713 respectively; if no argument has been specified then the usual search
4714 for a visible message is performed, as documented for
4715 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
4716 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
4717 Deleted messages will neither be saved in the
4719 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4721 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4724 variable is set, the new
4726 or the last message restored, respectively, is automatically
4736 Superseded by the multiplexer
4742 Delete the given messages and automatically
4746 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4753 up or down by one message when given
4757 argument, respectively.
4761 .It Ic draft , undraft
4762 Take message lists and mark each given message as being draft, or not
4763 being draft, respectively, as documented in the section
4764 .Sx "Message states" .
4768 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4769 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4772 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4774 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4775 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4776 This command also supports
4779 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
4780 and manages the error number
4782 if data is stored in a variable then the return value reflects the
4783 length of the result string in case of success and is
4791 except that is echoes to standard error.
4794 In interactive sessions the \*(OPal message ring queue for
4796 will be used instead, if available and
4804 but does not write or store a trailing newline.
4810 but does not write or store a trailing newline.
4814 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4816 at each message from the given list in turn.
4817 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4819 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
4820 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
4825 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4826 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4828 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4829 if it evaluates true.
4834 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4835 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4839 commands was true, the
4845 (en) Marks the end of an
4846 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4847 conditional execution block.
4852 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4853 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4854 and which are managed in the program
4856 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4857 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4858 internal variables via
4862 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4863 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4864 process environment where they normally are not, a
4866 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4869 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB TZ
4872 Afterwards changing such variables with
4874 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4875 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4876 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4877 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4879 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4880 the knowledge they ever have been
4883 Note that this implies that
4885 may cause loss of such links.
4890 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4891 Additionally the subcommands
4895 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4899 but (additionally un)link the variable(s) with the program environment
4900 and thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4901 respectively, the program environment.
4906 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4907 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4908 An error message ring queue is available which stores duplicates of any
4909 error message and notifies the user in interactive sessions whenever
4910 a new error has occurred.
4911 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4912 replaces the eldest.
4915 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4917 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4919 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4923 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4924 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4925 This command passes through the exit status
4929 of the evaluated command; also see
4931 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4942 call yyy '\ecall xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4950 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4951 any saving of messages in the
4953 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4955 as well as a possibly tracked line editor
4957 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
4959 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
4960 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
4961 otherwise success indicating status.
4967 but open the mailbox read-only.
4972 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4973 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4974 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4975 the user has made, open a new mailbox, update the internal variables
4976 .Va mailbox-resolved
4978 .Va mailbox-display ,
4979 and optionally display a summary of
4986 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4987 will be applied to the
4991 prefixes are, i.e., URL syntax is understood, e.g.,
4992 .Ql maildir:///tmp/mdirbox :
4993 if a protocol prefix is used the mailbox type is fixated and neither
4994 the auto-detection (read on) nor the
4997 \*(OPally URLs can also be used to access network resources, which may
4998 be accessed securely via
4999 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
5000 if so supported, and it is possible to proxy all network traffic over
5001 a SOCKS5 server given via
5005 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
5006 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
5009 \*(OPally supported network protocols are
5013 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport),
5019 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
5021 Network URLs require a special encoding as documented in the section
5022 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
5025 If the resulting file protocol (MBOX database)
5027 is located on a local filesystem then the list of all registered
5029 s is traversed in order to see whether a transparent intermediate
5030 conversion step is necessary to handle the given mailbox, in which case
5031 \*(UA will use the found hook to load and save data into and from
5032 a temporary file, respectively.
5033 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes.
5034 For example, the following creates hooks for the
5036 compression tool and a combined compressed and encrypted format:
5038 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5040 gzip 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' \e
5041 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
5045 MBOX database files are generally locked during file operations in order
5046 to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent modifications.
5047 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
5052 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
5053 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
5054 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
5058 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
5059 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
5060 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
5061 the dotlock file in the same directory
5062 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
5065 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
5066 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
5067 complain (even more with
5069 if any is seen: in this case
5071 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
5074 If no protocol has been fixated, and
5076 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
5081 then it is treated as a folder in
5084 The maildir format stores each message in its own file, and has been
5085 designed so that file locking is not necessary when reading or writing
5089 \*(ID If no protocol has been fixated and no existing file has
5090 been found, the variable
5092 controls the format of mailboxes yet to be created.
5097 .It Ic filetype , unfiletype
5098 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, file handler hooks,
5099 which provide (shell) commands that enable \*(UA to load and save MBOX
5100 files from and to files with the registered file extensions;
5101 it will use an intermediate temporary file to store the plain data.
5102 The latter command removes the hooks for all given extensions,
5104 will remove all existing handlers.
5106 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
5107 defined file hooks, with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
5108 Otherwise three arguments are expected, the first specifying the file
5109 extension for which the hook is meant, and the second and third defining
5110 the load- and save commands, respectively, to deal with the file type,
5111 both of which must read from standard input and write to standard
5113 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes (\*(ID except below).
5114 \*(ID For now too much work is done, and files are oftened read in twice
5115 where once would be sufficient: this can cause problems if a filetype is
5116 changed while such a file is opened; this was already so with the
5117 built-in support of .gz etc. in Heirloom, and will vanish in v15.
5118 \*(ID For now all handler strings are passed to the
5119 .Ev SHELL for evaluation purposes; in the future a
5121 prefix to load and save commands may mean to bypass this shell instance:
5122 placing a leading space will avoid any possible misinterpretations.
5123 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5124 ? filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
5125 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
5126 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
5127 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
5128 ? set record=+sent.zst.pgp
5133 .It Ic flag , unflag
5134 Take message lists and mark the messages as being flagged, or not being
5135 flagged, respectively, for urgent/special attention.
5137 .Sx "Message states" .
5146 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
5147 With an existing folder as an argument,
5148 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
5154 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5155 recipient's address (instead of in
5162 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5163 recipient's address (instead of in
5170 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
5175 .It Ic followupsender
5178 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
5186 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
5187 recipient's address (instead of in
5192 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
5193 and forwards the message to him.
5194 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
5195 with the value of the
5196 .Va forward-inject-head
5197 variable preceding it.
5198 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
5200 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
5202 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
5203 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
5204 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names
5205 etc. unless the internal variable
5209 This may generate the errors
5210 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5211 if no receiver has been specified,
5213 if some addressees where rejected by
5216 if no applicable messages have been given,
5218 if multiple messages have been specified,
5220 if an I/O error occurs,
5222 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5228 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
5229 their message headers, exactly as via
5231 making the first message of the result the new
5233 (the last message if
5236 An alias of this command is
5239 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5250 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5254 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5257 .It Ic ghost , unghost
5260 .Ic uncommandalias .
5264 .It Ic headerpick , unheaderpick
5265 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to manage white- and blacklisting
5266 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
5267 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
5268 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
5269 command applies, one of (case-insensitive)
5271 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
5274 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
5280 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
5281 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
5283 for stripping down messages when
5285 ing message (has no effect if
5286 .Va forward-as-attachment
5289 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
5292 The current settings of the given context are displayed if it is the
5294 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
5295 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
5299 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
5300 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
5303 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
5304 will be displayed, otherwise the remaining arguments specify header
5305 fields, which \*(OPally may be given as regular expressions, to be added
5307 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
5309 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields.
5311 The latter command always takes three or more arguments and can be used
5312 to remove selections, i.e., from the given context, the given type of
5313 list, all the given headers will be removed, the special argument
5315 will remove all headers.
5319 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
5322 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
5324 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
5325 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
5328 the last message is targeted if
5339 \*(OP Without arguments or when given
5341 all history entries are shown (this mode also supports a more
5345 will replace the list of entries with the content of
5349 will dump the current list to said file, replacing former content.
5351 will delete all history entries.
5352 The argument can also be a signed decimal
5354 which will select and evaluate the respective history entry, and move it
5355 to the top of the history; a negative number is used as an offset to the
5356 current command, e.g.,
5358 will select the last command, the history top.
5360 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
5361 for more on this topic.
5367 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
5372 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5374 Does not override the
5377 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
5379 command issued after
5381 will display the following message, not the current one.
5386 (i) Part of the nestable
5387 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
5388 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
5389 the encapsulated block is executed.
5390 The POSIX standards supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
5395 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions.
5396 \*(ID These commands do not yet use
5397 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5398 and therefore do not know about input tokens, so that syntax
5399 elements have to be surrounded by whitespace; in v15 \*(UA will inspect
5400 all conditions bracket group wise and consider the tokens, representing
5401 values and operators, therein, which also means that variables will
5402 already have been expanded at that time (just like in the shell).
5404 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5413 The (case-insensitive) condition
5415 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
5416 in interactive sessions.
5417 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
5418 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5419 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
5422 .Dq always execute .
5423 (It shall be remarked that a faulty condition skips all branches until
5428 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5429 will be used, and this command will simply interpret expanded tokens.)
5430 It is possible to check
5431 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5434 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
5435 value or another variable by using the
5437 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
5438 conditional trigger character;
5439 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
5441 Variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
5442 When this mode has been triggered, several operators are available:
5445 Integer operators treat the arguments on the left and right hand side of
5446 the operator as integral numbers and compare them arithmetically.
5447 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
5448 argument (which implies it had been quoted) is treated as if it were 0.
5449 Available operators are
5453 (less than or equal to),
5459 (greater than or equal to), and
5464 String data operators compare the left and right hand side according to
5465 their textual content.
5466 Unset variables are treated as the empty string.
5467 The behaviour of string operators can be adjusted by prefixing the
5468 operator with the modifier trigger commercial at
5470 followed by none to multiple modifiers: for now supported is
5472 which turns the comparison into a case-insensitive one: this is
5473 implied if no modifier follows the trigger.
5476 Available string operators are
5480 (less than or equal to),
5486 (greater than or equal to),
5490 (is substring of) and
5492 (is not substring of).
5493 By default these operators work on bytes and (therefore) do not take
5494 into account character set specifics.
5495 If the case-insensitivity modifier has been used, case is ignored
5496 according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding, i.e., bytes are
5500 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
5506 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
5507 matched according to the active locale (see
5508 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
5509 i.e., character sets should be honoured correctly.
5512 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
5514 and the OR operator is
5516 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
5517 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
5519 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
5520 them in pairs of brackets
5521 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
5522 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
5526 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
5527 via unary operators: the unary operator
5529 will reverse the result.
5531 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5532 # (This not in v15, there [ -n "$debug"]!)
5536 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || \e
5537 [ "$ttycharset" @i== UTF8 ]
5538 echo *ttycharset* is UTF-8, the former case-sensitive!
5541 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
5542 echo These two variables are equal
5544 if [ "$features" =% +regex ] && \e
5545 [ "$TERM" @i=~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
5546 echo ..in an X terminal
5548 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
5549 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
5552 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
5553 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
5562 Superseded by the multiplexer
5567 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
5568 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
5569 in which command prefixes are searched.
5570 \*(OP In conjunction with a set variable
5572 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
5573 type will be indicated, the documentation string will be shown,
5574 and the set of command flags will show up:
5576 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql NEEDS_BOX"
5578 command supports the command modifier
5581 command supports the command modifier
5584 the error number is tracked in
5587 commands needs an active mailbox, a
5589 .It Ql "ok: batch/interactive"
5590 command may only be used in interactive or
5593 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
5594 command can be used in send mode.
5595 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
5596 command is not available when in compose mode.
5597 .It Ql "not ok: startup"
5598 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
5599 .Sx "Resource files" .
5600 .It Ql "ok: subprocess"
5601 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
5602 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
5603 .Va on-compose-splice .
5605 The command produces
5614 This command can be used to localize changes to (linked)
5617 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
5618 meaning that their state will be reverted to the former one once the
5621 Just like the command modifier
5623 which provides block-scope localization for some commands (instead),
5624 it can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
5628 The covered scope of an
5630 is left once a different account is activated, and some macros, notably
5631 .Va folder-hook Ns s ,
5632 use their own specific notion of covered scope, here it will be extended
5633 until the folder is left again.
5636 This setting stacks up: i.e., if
5638 enables change localization and calls
5640 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
5642 will still be reverted when the scope of
5645 (Caveats: if in this example
5647 changes to a different
5649 which sets some variables that are already covered by localizations,
5650 their scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
5652 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
5653 were defined in a local, macro private context!)
5656 This command takes one or two arguments, the optional first one
5657 specifies an attribute that may be one of
5659 which refers to the current scope and is thus the default,
5661 which causes any macro that is being
5663 ed to be started with localization enabled by default, as well as
5665 which (if enabled) disallows any called macro to turn off localization:
5666 like this it can be ensured that once the current scope regains control,
5667 any changes made in deeper levels have been reverted.
5668 The latter two are mutually exclusive, and neither affects
5670 The (second) argument is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
5671 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" )
5672 and states whether the given attribute shall be turned on or off.
5674 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5675 define temporary_settings {
5676 set possibly_global_option1
5678 set localized_option1
5679 set localized_option2
5681 set possibly_global_option2
5688 Reply to messages that come in via known
5691 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
5692 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
5693 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
5696 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
5697 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
5699 For example it will also implicitly generate a
5700 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
5701 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
5703 For more documentation please refer to
5704 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5706 This may generate the errors
5707 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5708 if no receiver has been specified,
5710 if some addressees where rejected by
5713 if no applicable messages have been given,
5715 if an I/O error occurs,
5717 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5720 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5726 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5727 recipient's address (instead of in
5732 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
5733 or asks on standard input if none were given;
5734 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
5735 Unless the internal variable
5737 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5738 For more documentation please refer to
5739 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5741 This may generate the errors
5742 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5743 if no receiver has been specified,
5745 if some addressees where rejected by
5748 if no applicable messages have been given,
5750 if multiple messages have been specified,
5752 if an I/O error occurs,
5754 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5760 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to the
5762 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5764 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
5767 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
5769 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5773 .It Ic mimetype , unmimetype
5774 Without arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed;
5775 a more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5780 When given arguments they will be joined, interpreted as shown in
5781 .Sx "The mime.types files"
5783 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) ,
5784 and the resulting entry will be added (prepended) to the cache.
5785 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
5786 .Va mimetypes-load-control
5787 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
5789 The latter command deletes all specifications of the given MIME type, thus
5790 .Ql ? unmimetype text/plain
5791 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5795 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5797 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5798 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5802 .It Ic mlist , unmlist
5803 The latter command removes all given mailing-lists, the special name
5805 can be used to remove all registered lists.
5806 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists (and their
5807 attributes, if any) when used without arguments; a more verbose listing
5808 will be produced if either of
5813 Otherwise all given arguments will be added and henceforth be recognized
5815 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then any argument
5816 which contains any of the
5818 regular expression characters
5822 will be interpreted as one, which allows matching of many addresses with
5823 a single expression.
5826 pair of commands manages subscription attributes of mailing-lists.
5830 \*(ID Only available in interactive mode, this command allows one to
5831 display MIME parts which require external MIME handler programs to run
5832 which do not integrate in \*(UAs normal
5835 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
5836 (\*(ID No syntax to directly address parts, this restriction may vanish.)
5837 The user will be asked for each non-text part of the given message in
5838 turn whether the registered handler shall be used to display the part.
5842 .It Ic mlsubscribe , unmlsubscribe
5843 The latter command removes the subscription attribute from all given
5844 mailing-lists, the special name
5846 can be used to do so for any registered list.
5847 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists which have
5848 a subscription attribute when used without arguments; a more verbose
5849 listing will be produced if either of
5854 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
5855 newly creating them as necessary (as via
5864 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
5865 sender address of the first message (instead of in
5872 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
5879 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5881 selection, and all MIME parts.
5889 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5890 standard output is a terminal.
5896 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
5898 has been given the content of the
5900 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
5903 then the cache will only be initialized and
5905 will remove its contents.
5906 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
5907 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
5908 to unlock further attempts.
5913 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5915 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5916 documents the file format in detail.
5920 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5922 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5926 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5927 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5935 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5936 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5950 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5952 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5958 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5960 selection, and all MIME parts.
5968 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5969 standard output is a terminal.
5977 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5979 selection, and all parts of MIME
5980 .Ql multipart/alternative
5985 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5986 and pipes the messages through the command.
5987 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5994 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
6015 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
6018 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6020 preserving all messages marked with
6024 or never referenced in the system
6026 and removing all other messages from the
6028 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
6029 If new mail has arrived during the session,
6031 .Dq You have new mail
6033 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
6035 then the edit file is rewritten.
6036 A return to the shell is effected,
6037 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
6038 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
6039 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
6041 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
6042 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
6043 otherwise success indicating status.
6047 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, or the channel set active via
6049 and assign the data, which will be split as indicated by
6051 to the given variables.
6052 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
6054 and the same error codes will be seen in
6058 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
6060 with the error number
6064 in case of I/O errors, or
6067 If there are more fields than variables, assigns successive fields to the
6068 last given variable.
6069 If there are less fields than variables, assigns the empty string to the
6071 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6074 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
6076 ? wysh set ifs=:; read a b c;unset ifs
6077 hey2.0,:"'you ",:world!:mars.:
6078 ? echo $?/$^ERRNAME / <$a><$b><$c>
6079 0/NONE / <hey2.0,><"'you ",><world!:mars.:><><>
6084 \*(NQ Read anything from standard input, or the channel set active via
6086 and assign the data to the given variable.
6087 The variable name is checked by the same rules as documented for
6089 and the same error codes will be seen in
6093 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
6095 with the error number
6099 in case of I/O errors, or
6102 \*(ID The input data length is restricted to 31-bits.
6106 \*(NQ Manages input channels for
6110 to be used to avoid complicated or impracticable code, like calling
6112 from within a macro in non-interactive mode.
6113 Without arguments, or when the first argument is
6115 a listing of all known channels is printed.
6116 Channels can otherwise be
6118 d, and existing channels can be
6122 d by giving the string used for creation.
6124 The channel name is expected to be a file descriptor number, or,
6125 if parsing the numeric fails, an input file name that undergoes
6126 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
6127 E.g. (this example requires a modern shell):
6128 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6129 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enyou\enecho $a' |\e
6132 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enecho $a' |\e
6133 LC_ALL=C 6<<< 'you' \*(uA -R#X'readctl create 6'
6147 Removes the named files or directories.
6148 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6149 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
6151 are performed on the arguments.
6152 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
6153 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
6154 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
6158 Takes the name of an existing folder
6159 and the name for the new folder
6160 and renames the first to the second one.
6161 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6162 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
6164 are performed on both arguments.
6165 Both folders must be of the same type.
6169 (R) Replies to only the sender of each message of the given message
6170 list, by using the first message as the template to quote, for the
6174 will exchange this command with
6176 Unless the internal variable
6178 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
6180 headers will be inspected if
6184 This may generate the errors
6185 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6186 if no receiver has been specified,
6188 if some addressees where rejected by
6191 if no applicable messages have been given,
6193 if an I/O error occurs,
6195 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6201 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
6202 and all recipients, subject to
6206 .Va followup-to-honour ,
6209 .Va recipients-in-cc
6210 influence response behaviour.
6211 Unless the internal variable
6213 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
6223 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
6224 For more documentation please refer to
6225 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
6227 This may generate the errors
6228 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6229 if no receiver has been specified,
6231 if some addressees where rejected by
6234 if no applicable messages have been given,
6236 if an I/O error occurs,
6238 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6241 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6247 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
6254 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
6261 but does not add any header lines.
6262 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
6263 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
6267 Takes a list of messages and a user name
6268 and sends each message to the named user.
6270 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
6273 is only performed if
6277 This may generate the errors
6278 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6279 if no receiver has been specified,
6281 if some addressees where rejected by
6284 if no applicable messages have been given,
6286 if an I/O error occurs,
6288 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6291 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6309 .It Ic respondsender
6315 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
6320 Only available inside the scope of a
6324 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
6325 execution control to the caller.
6326 The two optional parameters must be specified as positive decimal
6327 numbers and default to the value 0:
6328 the first argument specifies the signed 32-bit return value (stored in
6330 \*(ID and later extended to signed 64-bit),
6331 the second the signed 32-bit error number (stored in
6335 a non-0 exit status may cause the program to exit.
6341 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
6342 sender of the first message instead of (in
6344 and) taking a filename argument; the variable
6346 is inspected to decide on the actual storage location.
6350 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
6351 to the end of the file.
6352 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6353 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
6355 is performed on the filename.
6356 If no filename is given, the
6358 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6361 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
6362 is echoed on the user's terminal.
6365 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
6366 the messages are marked for deletion.
6367 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6369 To filter the saved header fields to the desired subset use the
6371 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
6375 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6379 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6383 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6388 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
6389 all matching messages, as via
6391 This command is an alias of
6394 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
6398 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
6404 (se, \*(NQ uns) The latter command will delete all given global
6405 variables, or only block-scope local ones if the
6407 command modifier has been used.
6408 The former, when used without arguments, will show all
6409 currently known variables, being more verbose if either of
6414 Remarks: this list mode will not automatically link-in known
6416 variables, but only explicit addressing will, e.g., via
6418 using a variable in an
6420 condition or a string passed to
6424 ting, as well as some program-internal use cases.
6427 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
6428 Arguments are of the form
6430 (no space before or after
6434 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
6435 If a name begins with
6439 the effect is the same as invoking the
6441 command with the remaining part of the variable
6442 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
6443 \*(ID In conjunction with the
6445 .Pf (or\0 Cm local )
6447 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
6448 can be used to quote arguments as necessary.
6449 \*(ID Otherwise quotation marks may be placed around any part of the
6450 assignment statement to quote blanks or tabs.
6453 When operating in global scope any
6455 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
6456 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
6457 environment requires corresponding system support) \(em use the command
6459 for further environmental control.
6460 If the command modifier
6462 has been used to alter the command to work in block-scope all variables
6463 have values (may they be empty), and creation of names which shadow
6464 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6465 is actively prevented (\*(ID shadowing of linked
6467 variables and free-form versions of variable chains is not yet detected).
6472 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6476 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6477 ? wysh set indentprefix=' -> '
6478 ? wysh set atab=$'\t' aspace=' ' zero=0
6484 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
6488 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6489 The first argument specifies the operation:
6493 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
6494 expanded away thereof, respectively.
6495 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
6496 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
6497 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
6498 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
6499 If the coding operation fails the error number
6502 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6503 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6504 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6508 \*(NQ (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell,
6509 and returns its exit status.
6513 .It Ic shortcut , unshortcut
6514 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
6515 shown, with one argument the expansion of the given shortcut.
6516 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
6517 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
6519 The latter command will remove all given shortcuts, the special name
6521 will remove all registered shortcuts.
6525 \*(NQ Shift the positional parameter stack (starting at
6527 by the given number (which must be a positive decimal),
6528 or 1 if no argument has been given.
6529 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
6530 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
6531 The stack as such can be managed via
6533 Note this command will fail in
6535 and hook macros unless the positional parameter stack has been
6536 explicitly created in the current context via
6543 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
6544 message text is shown.
6548 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
6553 \*(NQ Sleep for the specified number of seconds (and optionally
6554 milliseconds), by default interruptably.
6555 If a third argument is given the sleep will be uninterruptible,
6556 otherwise the error number
6560 if the sleep has been interrupted.
6561 The command will fail and the error number will be
6562 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6563 if the given duration(s) overflow the time datatype, and
6565 if the given durations are no valid integers.
6570 .It Ic sort , unsort
6571 The latter command disables sorted or threaded mode, returns to normal
6572 message order and, if the
6575 displays a header summary.
6576 The former command shows the current sorting criterion when used without
6577 an argument, but creates a sorted representation of the current folder
6578 otherwise, and changes the
6580 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
6582 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
6586 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
6587 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
6589 variable, as in, e.g.,
6590 .Ql set autosort=thread .
6591 Possible sorting criterions are:
6594 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
6596 Sort the messages by their
6598 field, that is by the time they were sent.
6600 Sort messages by the value of their
6602 field, that is by the address of the sender.
6605 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
6607 Sort the messages by their size.
6609 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
6612 Sort the messages by their message status.
6614 Sort the messages by their subject.
6616 Create a threaded display.
6618 Sort messages by the value of their
6620 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
6623 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
6629 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
6630 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6632 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
6634 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
6635 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
6636 Dependent on the settings of
6640 and also dependent on whether the command modifier
6642 had been used, encountering errors will stop sourcing of the given input.
6645 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
6646 .Va folder-hook Ns s
6649 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
6654 \*(NQ The difference to
6656 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
6657 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
6658 argument cannot be opened successfully.
6662 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
6668 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
6670 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
6671 Unless otherwise noted the
6673 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
6681 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6685 This also clears the
6687 flag of the messages in question.
6691 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
6692 .Va spam-interface ,
6693 without modifying the messages, but setting their
6695 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
6696 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
6697 Refer to the manual section
6699 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
6703 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
6709 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6715 flag of the messages in question.
6731 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
6735 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
6737 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
6738 Unless a special selection has been established for the
6742 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
6753 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
6755 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6760 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
6762 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6764 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
6767 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
6773 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
6775 selection, and all visualizable parts of MIME
6776 .Ql multipart/alternative
6781 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users terminal.
6782 The display of message headers is selectable via
6784 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
6786 all parts which have a registered MIME type handler (see
6787 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
6788 which produces plain text output, and all
6790 parts are shown, others are hidden except for their headers.
6791 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6795 can be used to display parts which are not displayable as plain text.
6838 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6842 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6847 Superseded by the multiplexer
6858 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
6869 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
6873 Superseded by the multiplexer
6877 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6881 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6903 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
6904 according to RFC 3986.
6908 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
6909 and manages the error number
6911 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
6912 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current
6914 \*(ID This command does not know about URLs beside that.
6916 The first argument specifies the operation:
6920 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
6924 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
6925 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
6927 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
6931 as an initial character.
6932 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
6933 If the coding operation fails the error number
6936 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6937 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6938 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6942 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
6944 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
6950 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
6954 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
6958 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
6959 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
6960 verification will fail for it.
6961 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
6963 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
6964 within the certificate,
6965 and if the message content has been altered.
6978 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
6979 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
6980 numeric calculations as well as byte string and string operations.
6981 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
6982 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
6983 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
6987 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6990 The result that is shown in case of errors is always
6992 for usage errors and numeric operations, and the empty string for byte
6993 string and string operations;
6994 if the latter two fail to provide result data for
6996 errors, e.g., when a search operation failed, they also set the
6999 .Va ^ERR Ns -NODATA .
7000 Except when otherwise noted numeric arguments are parsed as signed 64-bit
7001 numbers, and errors will be reported in the error number
7003 as the numeric error
7004 .Va ^ERR Ns -RANGE .
7007 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
7008 Numbers prefixed with
7012 are interpreted as hexadecimal (base 16) numbers, whereas
7014 indicates octal (base 8), and
7018 denote binary (base 2) numbers.
7019 It is possible to use any base in between 2 and 36, inclusive, with the
7021 notation, where the base is given as an unsigned decimal number, e.g.,
7023 is a different way of specifying a hexadecimal number.
7024 Unsigned interpretation of a number can be enforced by prefixing a
7026 (case-insensitively), e.g.,
7028 this is not necessary for power-of-two bases (2, 4, 8, 16 and 32),
7029 which will be interpreted as unsigned by default, but it still makes
7030 a difference regarding overflow detection and overflow constant.
7031 It is possible to enforce signed interpretation by (instead) prefixing a
7033 (case-insensitively).
7036 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
7038 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
7039 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
7041 which creates the bitwise complement.
7042 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
7044 subtraction (hyphen-minus
7046 multiplication (asterisk
7050 and modulo (percent sign
7052 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
7055 bitwise and (ampersand
7058 bitwise xor (circumflex
7060 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
7063 as well as for the unsigned right shift
7067 Another numeric operation is
7069 which takes a number base in between 2 and 36, inclusive, and will act
7070 on the second number given just the same as what equals sign
7072 does, but the number result will be formatted in the base given.
7075 All numeric operators can be prefixed with a commercial at
7079 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
7080 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are no longer reported
7081 via the exit status, but the result will linger at the minimum or
7082 maximum possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
7083 This is true also for the argument parse step.
7084 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
7085 Any caught overflow will be reported via the error number
7088 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
7089 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7090 ? vexpr @- +1 -9223372036854775808
7091 ? echo $?/$!/$^ERRNAME
7095 Character set agnostic string functions have no notion of locale
7096 settings and character sets.
7098 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm random"
7101 .Sx "Filename transformations"
7104 Generates a random string of the given length, or of
7106 bytes (a constant from
7108 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
7109 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a (portable) filename.
7113 Byte string operations work on 8-bit bytes and have no notion of locale
7114 settings and character sets, effectively assuming ASCII data.
7117 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm length"
7119 Queries the length of the given argument.
7122 Calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given argument.
7125 Byte-searches in the first for the second argument.
7126 Shows the resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found.
7131 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
7135 Creates a substring of its first argument.
7136 The second argument is the 0-based starting offset, a negative one
7137 counts from the end;
7138 the optional third argument specifies the length of the desired result,
7139 a negative length leaves off the given number of bytes at the end of the
7140 original string, by default the entire string is used;
7141 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments (set
7143 for error logs), but reports them via the error number
7146 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
7149 Trim away whitespace characters from both ends of the argument.
7152 Trim away whitespace characters from the begin of the argument.
7155 Trim away whitespace characters from the end of the argument.
7160 String operations work, sufficient support provided, according to the
7161 active user's locale encoding and character set (see
7162 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
7165 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm regex"
7167 (One-way) Converts the argument to something safely printable on the
7171 \*(OP A string operation that will try to match the first argument with
7172 the regular expression given as the second argument.
7173 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
7174 the match offset a replacement operation is performed: the third
7175 argument is treated as if specified within dollar-single-quote (see
7176 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
7177 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
7179 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression:
7180 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7181 ? vput vexpr res regex bananarama \e
7182 (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
7183 ? echo $?/$!/$^ERRNAME: $res
7187 On otherwise identical case-insensitive equivalent to
7189 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7190 ? vput vexpr res ire bananarama \e
7191 (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
7192 ? echo $?/$!/$^ERRNAME: $res
7199 \*(NQ Manage the positional parameter stack (see
7203 If the first argument is
7205 then the positional parameter stack of the current context, or the
7206 global one, if there is none, is cleared.
7209 then the remaining arguments will be used to (re)create the stack,
7210 if the parameter stack size limit is excessed an
7211 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
7215 If the first argument is
7217 a round-trip capable representation of the stack contents is created,
7218 with each quoted parameter separated from each other with the first
7221 and followed by the first character of
7223 if that is not empty and not identical to the first.
7224 If that results in no separation at all a
7230 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
7231 I.e., the subcommands
7235 can be used (in conjunction with
7237 to (re)create an argument stack from and to a single variable losslessly.
7239 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7240 ? vpospar set hey, "'you ", world!
7241 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7242 ? vput vpospar x quote
7244 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7245 ? eval vpospar set ${x}
7246 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
7252 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
7253 Modified contents are discarded unless the
7255 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
7256 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
7260 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
7261 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
7263 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
7264 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
7265 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
7266 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
7267 depends on the execution mode.
7268 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
7270 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
7271 the processed parts.
7272 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
7273 value, the same result as writing it to
7275 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
7277 character for the filename is supported.
7278 Other user input undergoes the usual
7279 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7280 including shell pathname wildcard pattern expansions
7282 and shell variable expansion for the message as such, not the individual
7283 parts, and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
7286 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
7287 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
7288 URL percent encoded (as via
7290 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
7291 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
7292 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
7293 a dot are appended after a number sign
7295 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
7300 \*(NQ The sole difference to
7302 is that the new macro is executed in place of the current one, which
7303 will not regain control: all resources of the current macro will be
7305 This implies that any setting covered by
7307 will be forgotten and covered variables will become cleaned up.
7308 If this command is not used from within a
7310 ed macro it will silently be (a more expensive variant of)
7320 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
7322 fuls as described under the
7325 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
7326 likewise if the argument is
7330 scrolls to the last,
7332 scrolls to the first, and
7337 A number argument prefixed by
7341 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
7342 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
7348 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
7359 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
7360 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7362 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
7363 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
7364 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines, and
7365 consist of a trigger (escape) and a command character.
7366 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
7368 it defaults to the tilde
7370 Otherwise ignored whitespace characters following the escape character
7371 will prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
7375 Unless otherwise noted all compose mode command escapes ensure proper
7376 updates of the variables which represent the error number
7382 is set they will, unless stated otherwise, error out message compose
7383 mode and cause a progam exit if an operation fails.
7384 It is however possible to place the character hyphen-minus
7386 after (possible whitespace following) the escape character, which has an
7387 effect equivalent to the command modifier
7389 If the \*(OPal key bindings are available it is possible to create
7391 ings specifically for the compose mode.
7394 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
7397 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
7399 (If the escape character has been changed,
7400 that character must be doubled instead.)
7403 .It Ic ~! Ar command
7404 Execute the indicated shell
7406 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
7407 executed command if the internal variable
7409 is set, then return to the message.
7413 End compose mode and send the message.
7415 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
7417 .Va on-compose-splice ,
7418 in order, will be called when set, after which
7420 will be checked, a set
7421 .Va on-compose-leave
7422 hook will be called,
7426 will be joined in if set,
7428 will be honoured in interactive mode, finally a given
7429 .Va message-inject-tail
7430 will be incorporated, after which the compose mode is left.
7433 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
7434 Execute the given \*(UA command.
7435 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
7438 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
7443 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
7445 is executed using the shell.
7446 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
7450 Write a summary of command escapes.
7453 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
7454 Append or edit the list of attachments.
7455 Does not manage the error number
7461 instead if this is a concern).
7464 arguments is expected as shell tokens (see
7465 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
7466 token-separating commas are ignored, too), to be
7467 interpreted as documented for the command line option
7469 with the message number exception as below.
7473 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
7474 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
7475 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
7476 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
7480 For all modes, if a given filename solely consists of the number sign
7482 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
7483 the given message is attached as a
7486 The number sign must be quoted to avoid misinterpretation with the shell
7490 .It Ic ~| Ar command
7491 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
7492 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
7493 retain the original text of the message.
7496 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
7500 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
7501 Low-level command meant for scripted message access, i.e., for
7502 .Va on-compose-splice
7504 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
7505 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
7506 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
7507 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
7508 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
7509 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
7510 Does not manage the error number
7514 because errors are reported via the protocol
7515 (hard errors like I/O failures cannot be handled).
7516 This command has read-only access to several virtual pseudo headers in
7517 the \*(UA private namespace, which may not exist (except for the first):
7521 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7522 .It Ql Mailx-Command:
7523 The name of the command that generates the message, one of
7531 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-To:
7532 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Cc:
7533 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Bcc:
7534 Represent the frozen initial state of these headers before any
7535 transformation (e.g.,
7538 .Va recipients-in-cc
7541 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-From:
7542 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-To:
7543 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Cc:
7544 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Bcc:
7545 The values of said headers of the original message which has been
7547 .Ic reply , forward , resend .
7551 The status codes are:
7555 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql 210"
7557 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
7560 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7561 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
7562 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
7563 plain address, e.g.,
7565 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
7566 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
7567 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
7568 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7569 commands can be issued.
7572 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7573 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
7574 terminated by an empty line.
7575 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7576 commands can be issued.
7579 Syntax error; invalid command.
7582 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
7585 Error: an argument fails verification.
7586 For example an invalid address has been specified, or an attempt was
7587 made to modify anything in \*(UA's own namespace.
7590 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
7591 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
7592 a single address only.
7597 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
7599 Most commands can fail with
7601 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
7602 The following (case-insensitive) commands are supported:
7605 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm header"
7607 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
7608 Header name case is not normalized, and case-insensitive comparison
7609 should be used when matching names.
7610 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7612 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7614 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
7616 this command is the default command of
7618 if no second argument has been given.
7619 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
7622 if no such field is defined.
7625 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
7626 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
7630 any failure results in
7634 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
7639 if no such header can be found, and
7641 on \*(UA namespace violations.
7644 This will remove from the header given as the third argument the
7645 instance at the list position (counting from one!) given with the fourth
7650 if the list position argument is not a number or on \*(UA namespace
7653 if no such header instance exists.
7656 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
7657 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
7658 (the remains of the line).
7661 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
7662 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
7664 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks or
7665 on \*(UA namespace violations, and
7667 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
7669 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
7672 is returned upon success, followed by the name of the header and the list
7673 position of the newly inserted instance.
7674 The list position is always 1 for single-instance header fields.
7675 All free-form header fields are managed in a single list.
7680 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
7681 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7683 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7685 List all attachments via
7689 if no attachments exist.
7690 This command is the default command of
7692 if no second argument has been given.
7695 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
7699 if no such attachment can be found.
7700 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
7701 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
7702 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
7703 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
7704 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
7707 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
7709 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
7710 will be searched for
7712 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
7713 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
7718 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
7719 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
7723 if the argument is not a number or
7725 if no such attachment exists.
7728 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
7729 documented for the command line option
7731 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
7735 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
7737 if the given file cannot be opened,
7739 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
7741 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
7742 requested but not available.
7745 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7747 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
7751 if no such attachment can be found.
7752 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
7753 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
7757 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7759 and is otherwise identical to
7762 .It Cm attribute-set
7763 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7765 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
7766 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
7767 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
7768 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
7769 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
7773 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
7775 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
7777 if no such attachment can be found.
7778 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
7780 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".It Ql filename"
7782 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
7783 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
7784 .It Ql content-description
7785 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
7786 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
7788 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
7789 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
7792 upon address content verification failure.
7794 Defines the media type/subtype of the part, which is managed
7795 automatically, but can be overwritten.
7796 .It Ql content-disposition
7797 Automatically set to the string
7801 .It Cm attribute-set-at
7802 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7804 and is otherwise identical to
7813 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \| Va Sign .
7818 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \| Va sign .
7821 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
7822 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
7825 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
7826 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
7830 Read the file specified by the
7832 variable into the message.
7836 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
7837 After the editing session is finished,
7838 the user may continue appending text to the message.
7841 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
7842 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
7843 message headers and MIME parts.
7844 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7848 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
7849 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
7850 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7852 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7854 white- and blacklist selection of
7856 For MIME multipart messages,
7857 only the first displayable part is included.
7861 Edit the message header fields
7866 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7867 The default values for these fields originate from the
7875 Edit the message header fields
7881 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7884 .It Ic ~I Ar variable
7885 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message.
7886 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7887 Any embedded character sequences
7889 horizontal tabulator and
7891 line feed are expanded in
7893 mode; otherwise the expansion should occur at
7895 time by using the command modifier
7899 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
7900 Insert the value of the specified variable followed by a newline
7901 character into the message.
7902 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7903 Any embedded character sequences
7905 horizontal tabulator and
7907 line feed are expanded in
7909 mode; otherwise the expansion should occur at
7911 time by using the command modifier
7915 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
7916 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7919 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7923 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
7924 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7927 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7929 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7931 white- and blacklist selection of
7933 For MIME multipart messages,
7934 only the first displayable part is included.
7938 Display the message collected so far,
7939 prefaced by the message header fields
7940 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
7944 Abort the message being sent,
7945 copying it to the file specified by the
7952 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
7955 but indent each line that has been read by
7959 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
7960 Read the named file, object to the usual
7961 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7962 into the message; if (the expanded)
7966 then standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
7967 Only in this latter mode
7969 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
7971 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
7973 is a required argument in non-interactive mode; if it is single-quote
7974 quoted then the pasted content will not be expanded, \*(ID otherwise
7975 a future version of \*(UA may perform shell-style expansion on the content.
7979 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
7980 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
7981 normalized to space (SP) characters.
7984 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
7985 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
7988 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
7989 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
7993 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
7994 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
7998 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
8000 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
8001 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
8002 After the editor is quit,
8003 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
8006 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
8007 Write the message onto the named file, which is object to the usual
8008 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
8010 the message is appended to it.
8016 except that the message is not saved at all.
8022 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
8023 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
8025 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
8029 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
8033 has the same effect as using
8039 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
8044 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
8046 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
8047 Both commands support a more
8050 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
8053 implicitly, others can be imported explicitly with the command
8055 and henceforth share said properties.
8058 Two different kinds of internal variables exist, and both of which can
8060 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
8064 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
8065 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
8066 introduction of the section
8068 documents the supported quoting rules.
8070 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8071 ? wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
8072 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
8073 varshow one two three four; \e
8074 unset one two three four
8078 Dependent upon the actual option string values may become interpreted as
8079 colour names, command specifications, normal text, etc.
8080 They may be treated as numbers, in which case decimal values are
8081 expected if so documented, but otherwise any numeric format and
8082 base that is valid and understood by the
8084 command may be used, too.
8087 There also exists a special kind of string value, the
8088 .Dq boolean string ,
8089 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
8093 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
8099 for a false boolean and
8105 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
8107 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
8108 (case-insensitive) term
8112 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
8113 boolean as the default value.
8116 Variable chains extend a plain
8121 .Ql variable-USER@HOST
8129 had been specified in the contextual Uniform Resource Locator URL, see
8130 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
8131 Even though this mechanism is based on URLs no URL percent encoding may
8132 be applied to neither of
8136 variable chains need to be specified using raw data;
8137 the mentioned section contains examples.
8138 Variables which support chains are explicitly documented as such, and
8139 \*(UA treats the base name of any such variable special, meaning that
8140 users should not create custom names like
8142 in order to avoid false classifications and treatment of such variables.
8144 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
8145 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
8146 .Ss "Initial settings"
8148 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
8154 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
8168 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
8170 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
8172 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
8180 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
8189 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
8191 variable \(en use command line options or
8193 to pass options through to a
8195 And the default global
8197 file, which is loaded unless the
8199 (with according argument) or
8201 command line options have been used, or the
8202 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
8203 environment variable is set (see
8204 .Sx "Resource files" )
8205 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
8210 to name a few, establishes a default
8212 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
8215 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
8218 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
8222 \*(RO The exit status of the last command, or the
8227 This status has a meaning in the state machine: in conjunction with
8229 any non-0 exit status will cause a program exit, and in
8231 mode any error while loading (any of the) resource files will have the
8235 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
8236 can be used to instruct the state machine to ignore errors.
8240 \*(RO The current error number
8241 .Pf ( Xr errno 3 ) ,
8242 which is set after an error occurred; it is also available via
8244 and the error name and documentation string can be queried via
8248 \*(ID This machinery is new and the error number is only really usable
8249 if a command explicitly states that it manages the variable
8251 for others errno will be used in case of errors, or
8253 if that is 0: it thus may or may not reflect the real error.
8254 The error number may be set with the command
8260 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
8261 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
8264 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
8268 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
8269 The number, documentation, and name of the current
8271 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
8272 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
8273 explicitly states that it manages the variable
8275 which is effectively identical to
8277 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
8278 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
8279 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
8280 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8282 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1:\e
8283 \e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
8284 vput vexpr i + "$1" 1
8296 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
8298 separated by the first character of the value of
8300 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
8302 are not yet supported.
8306 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
8308 separated by a space character.
8309 If placed in double quotation marks, each positional parameter is
8310 properly quoted to expand to a single parameter again.
8314 \*(RO Expands to the number of positional parameters, i.e., the size of
8315 the positional parameter stack in decimal.
8319 \*(RO Inside the scope of a
8323 ed macro this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
8324 string if the macro is running from top-level.
8325 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
8327 this expands to the entire matching expression.
8328 It represents the program name in global context.
8332 \*(RO Access of the positional parameter stack.
8333 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
8336 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
8338 The parameter stack contains, e.g., the arguments of a
8342 d macro, the matching groups of the \*(OPal regular expression search
8343 and replace expression of
8345 and can be explicitly created or overwritten with the command
8350 \*(RO Is set to the active
8354 .It Va add-file-recipients
8355 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
8356 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
8357 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
8358 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
8362 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
8363 when comparing addresses.
8367 \*(BO Causes messages saved in the
8369 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
8371 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
8372 This should always be set.
8376 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
8380 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
8384 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message.
8385 An empty line finalizes the list.
8389 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
8390 (at the end of each message if
8398 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
8399 recipients (at the end of each message if
8407 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for confirmation to send the
8408 message or reenter compose mode after having been shown an envelope
8410 This is by default enabled.
8414 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
8415 signed at the end of each message.
8418 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
8422 .\" The alternative *ask* is not documented on purpose
8423 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject upon entering compose mode
8424 unless a subject already exists.
8428 A sequence of characters to display in the
8432 as shown in the display of
8434 each for one type of messages (see
8435 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
8436 with the default being
8439 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
8442 variable is set, in the following order:
8444 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
8466 start of a collapsed thread.
8468 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
8472 classified as possible spam.
8478 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
8479 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
8483 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
8484 message will be sent automatically.
8488 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
8495 \*(BO Enable automatic
8497 ing of a(n existing)
8503 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
8505 is shown automatically, as via
8512 Causes sorted mode (see the
8514 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
8515 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
8516 .Ql set autosort=thread .
8520 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
8523 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
8525 shell escape command and
8527 one of the compose mode
8528 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8529 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
8533 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
8534 input, for example for function and other special keys.
8535 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
8536 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
8537 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
8538 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8539 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
8545 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
8546 has the same affect as setting
8548 and all other variables prefixed with
8550 it also changes the behaviour of
8552 (which does not exist in BSD).
8556 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
8557 summary to traditional BSD style.
8561 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
8566 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
8572 field to appear immediately after the
8574 field in message headers and with the
8576 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8580 .It Va build-os , build-osenv
8581 \*(RO The operating system \*(UA has been build for, usually taken from
8587 respectively, the former being lowercased.
8591 The value that should appear in the
8595 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
8597 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
8598 US-ASCII compatible.
8602 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
8603 member of the variable
8605 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
8606 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
8609 and this variable is effectively ignored.
8610 Refer to the section
8611 .Sx "Character sets"
8612 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
8615 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
8616 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
8618 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
8620 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
8621 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
8622 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
8624 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
8625 otherwise the (final) value of
8627 is used for this purpose.
8629 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
8630 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
8631 of a MIME message part that uses the
8633 character set is forcefully treated as text.
8637 The default value for the
8642 .It Va colour-disable
8643 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
8644 Also see the section
8645 .Sx "Coloured display" .
8649 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
8651 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
8659 in order to support colours.
8660 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
8661 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
8663 (see there for more).
8667 .It Va contact-mail , contact-web
8668 \*(RO Addresses for contact per email and web, respectively, e.g., for
8669 bug reports, suggestions, or help regarding \*(UA.
8670 The former can be used directly:
8671 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
8675 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
8676 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
8677 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
8681 can be forced by setting this to the value
8683 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
8684 terminal screen to compute the threshold (see
8689 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
8690 format, which, dependent on the
8692 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
8693 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
8697 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
8699 A custom header consists of the field name followed by a colon
8701 and the field content body.
8702 Standard header field names cannot be overwritten by a custom header.
8703 Different to the command line option
8705 the variable value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom
8706 headers: to include commas in header bodies they need to become escaped
8707 with reverse solidus
8709 Headers can be managed more freely in compose mode via
8712 .Dl ? set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
8716 Controls the appearance of the
8718 date and time format specification of the
8720 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
8722 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
8723 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
8725 It is possible to assign a
8727 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
8729 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
8731 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
8733 .Va datefield-markout-older .
8736 .It Va datefield-markout-older
8737 Only used in conjunction with
8739 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
8740 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
8742 option of the POSIX utility
8744 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
8746 will be displayed, but a
8748 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
8754 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
8755 actual delivery of messages and also implies
8761 .It Va disposition-notification-send
8763 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
8764 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
8768 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
8770 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8771 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
8772 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
8774 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8775 .\"for a specific account.
8779 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
8781 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive or batch
8783 compose mode will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the
8784 normal end-of-file condition).
8785 This behaviour is implied in
8791 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
8792 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
8794 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
8795 es (see, e.g., the notes on
8796 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
8797 as well as the documentation of
8799 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
8800 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
8801 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
8802 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
8803 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
8804 fatal unless this variable is set.
8808 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
8809 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
8811 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8815 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
8819 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
8820 its header is included in the editable text.
8824 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
8825 .Dq \&No mail for user
8826 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
8827 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or non-existent
8828 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
8834 \*(BO Let each command with a non-0 exit status, including every
8838 s a non-0 status, cause a program exit unless prefixed by
8841 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
8843 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
8844 but which use a different modifier for ignoring the error.
8845 Please refer to the variable
8847 for more on this topic.
8851 The first character of this value defines the escape character for
8852 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8854 The default value is the character tilde
8856 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
8860 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
8861 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
8862 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
8863 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
8864 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
8866 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
8867 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8871 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
8873 (it actually acts like
8874 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
8875 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8877 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
8880 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
8881 send error instead of only filtering them out.
8882 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
8883 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
8885 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
8889 addresses all possible address specifications,
8893 command pipeline targets,
8895 plain user names and (MTA) aliases and
8898 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
8899 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
8900 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
8901 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
8905 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
8907 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
8908 To change this so that any encountered invalid email address causes
8909 a hard error it must be ensured that
8911 is an entry in the above list.
8912 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
8913 (it actually acts like
8914 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
8915 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8919 Unless this variable is set additional
8921 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
8922 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
8924 separator, results in a program termination with failure status.
8925 The same can be accomplished by using the special (case-insensitive) value
8927 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
8929 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
8930 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8934 The empty value will allow unconditional usage.
8938 \*(RO String giving a list of optional features.
8939 Features are preceded with a plus sign
8941 if they are available, with a hyphen-minus
8944 The output of the command
8946 will include this information in a more pleasant output.
8950 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
8951 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
8952 included in the header of a message
8953 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
8954 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
8955 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
8958 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
8960 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
8961 are not affected by the current setting of
8966 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
8967 filenames that begin with the plus sign
8969 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
8970 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
8971 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8974 for more on this topic.
8975 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
8976 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
8980 will be prefixed automatically.
8981 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
8983 will be updated for caching purposes.
8986 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER , Va folder-hook
8989 macro which will be called whenever a
8992 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
8993 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
8994 only include newly arrived messages then.
8996 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
8997 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
8999 The specialized form will override the generic one if
9001 matches the file that is opened.
9002 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
9003 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
9004 However, if the mailbox resides under
9008 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
9012 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
9013 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
9015 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
9016 first, but then followed by
9017 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
9020 .It Va folder-resolved
9021 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
9023 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
9027 \*(BO Controls whether a
9028 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
9029 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
9031 .Va followup-to-honour
9033 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
9038 .It Va followup-to-honour
9040 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
9041 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
9045 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
9055 .It Va forward-as-attachment
9056 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
9059 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
9060 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
9062 attachments with all of their parts included.
9065 .It Va forward-inject-head
9066 The string to put before the text of a message with the
9068 command instead of the default
9069 .Dq -------- Original Message -------- .
9070 No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
9071 This variable is ignored if the
9072 .Va forward-as-attachment
9078 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
9080 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
9081 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
9082 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
9083 According to that RFC setting the
9085 variable is required if
9087 contains more than one address.
9090 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
9095 If a file-based MTA is used, then
9097 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9099 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
9100 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
9102 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
9103 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
9104 .Va r-option-implicit .
9107 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
9108 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
9112 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities with
9113 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
9114 have to be set; if so the message and MIME part related unique ID fields
9118 will be created (except when disallowed by
9119 .Va message-id-disable
9126 \*(BO Due to historical reasons comments and name parts of email
9127 addresses are removed by default when sending mail, replying to or
9128 forwarding a message.
9129 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed.
9132 \*(OB Predecessor of
9133 .Va forward-inject-head .
9137 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
9138 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
9143 mode a header summary will also be displayed on folder changes.
9144 The command line option
9152 A format string to use for the summary of
9154 similar to the ones used for
9157 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
9159 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
9160 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
9161 Valid format specifiers are:
9164 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9166 A plain percent sign.
9169 a space character but for the current message
9171 for which it expands to
9175 a space character but for the current message
9177 for which it expands to
9180 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
9183 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
9185 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
9189 The date found in the
9191 header of the message when
9193 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
9194 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
9199 The indenting level in threaded mode.
9201 The address of the message sender.
9203 The message thread tree structure.
9204 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
9206 The number of lines of the message, if available.
9210 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
9212 Message subject (if any).
9214 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
9216 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
9217 subscribed mailing list \(en see
9222 The position in threaded/sorted order.
9226 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
9228 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
9239 .It Va headline-bidi
9240 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
9241 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
9242 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
9243 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
9244 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
9245 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
9247 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
9248 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
9249 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
9251 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
9252 fields that may occur when displaying
9254 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
9256 with special Unicode control sequences;
9257 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
9259 no value (or any value other than
9264 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
9265 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
9266 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
9268 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
9270 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
9272 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
9273 sequences onto the line).
9278 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
9279 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
9283 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
9284 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent
9290 .It Va history-gabby
9291 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the
9293 as is normally done.
9296 .It Va history-gabby-persist
9297 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
9299 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
9300 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
9301 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
9307 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
9310 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added,
9311 and loading and incorporation of the
9313 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
9314 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
9315 entries saved to permanent storage.
9319 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
9321 and it is set by default.
9325 Used instead of the value obtained from
9329 as the hostname when expanding local addresses, e.g., in
9333 or this variable Is set the message and MIME part related unique ID fields
9337 will be created (except when disallowed by
9338 .Va message-id-disable
9341 If the \*(OPal IDNA support is available (see
9343 variable assignment is aborted when a necessary conversion fails.
9345 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
9346 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
9347 \*(IN in conjunction with the built-in SMTP
9350 also influences the results:
9351 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
9360 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
9361 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
9363 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
9365 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
9366 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
9370 The input field separator that is used (\*(ID by some functions) to
9371 determine where to split input data.
9373 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9375 Unsetting is treated as assigning the default value,
9378 If set to the empty value, no field splitting will be performed.
9380 If set to a non-empty value, all whitespace characters are extracted
9381 and assigned to the variable
9385 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9388 will be ignored at the beginning and end of input.
9389 Diverging from POSIX shells default whitespace is removed in addition,
9390 which is owed to the entirely different line content extraction rules.
9392 Each occurrence of a character of
9394 will cause field-splitting, any adjacent
9396 characters will be skipped.
9401 \*(RO Automatically deduced from the whitespace characters in
9406 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
9407 messages; instead echo them as
9409 characters and discard the current line.
9413 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
9414 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
9415 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
9416 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
9417 explicitly using one of the commands
9421 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
9424 on a line by itself or by using the
9426 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
9427 Setting this implies the behaviour that
9435 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
9437 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
9440 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
9443 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
9446 for more on this topic.
9447 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
9455 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9458 option for indenting messages,
9459 in place of the POSIX mandated default tabulator character
9466 \*(BO If set, an empty
9468 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
9469 file is not removed.
9470 Note that, in conjunction with
9472 mode any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
9473 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
9474 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
9475 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
9476 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
9477 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
9480 .It Va keep-content-length
9481 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing MBOX mailbox files \*(UA can
9486 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
9487 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
9488 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
9489 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
9490 work with with same mailbox files.
9491 Note that, if this is not set but
9492 .Va writebackedited ,
9493 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
9494 fields already marks the message as being modified.
9495 \*(ID At some future time \*(UA will be capable to rewrite and apply an
9497 to modified messages, and then those fields will be stripped silently.
9501 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
9502 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
9503 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
9506 .It Va line-editor-disable
9507 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
9508 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
9512 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
9513 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
9517 Error log message prefix string
9518 .Pf ( Ql "\*(uA: " ) .
9521 .It Va mailbox-display
9522 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
9524 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
9527 .It Va mailbox-resolved
9528 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
9531 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
9532 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
9533 .Sx "Resource files" .
9534 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
9536 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
9537 .Sx "Initial settings" .
9541 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
9542 it is marked as having been
9545 .Sx "Message states" .
9549 \*(BO When opening MBOX mailbox databases \*(UA by default uses tolerant
9550 POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
9552 lines) due to compatibility reasons, instead of the stricter rules that
9553 have been standardized in RFC 4155.
9554 This behaviour can be switched to the stricter RFC 4155 rules by
9555 setting this variable.
9556 (This is never necessary for any message newly generated by \*(UA,
9557 it only applies to messages generated by buggy or malicious MUAs, or may
9558 occur in old MBOX databases: \*(UA itself will choose a proper
9560 to avoid false interpretation of
9562 content lines in the MBOX database.)
9564 This may temporarily be handy when \*(UA complains about invalid
9566 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case setting this variable and
9567 re-opening the mailbox in question may correct the result.
9568 If so, copying the entire mailbox to some other file, as in
9569 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE ,
9570 will perform proper, all-compatible
9572 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
9573 Finally the variable can be unset again:
9574 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9576 localopts yes; wysh set mbox-rfc4155;\e
9577 wysh File "${1}"; eval copy * "${2}"
9579 call mboxfix /tmp/bad.mbox /tmp/good.mbox
9584 \*(BO Internal development variable.
9587 .It Va message-id-disable
9588 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
9592 message and MIME part headers can be completely suppressed, effectively
9593 leaving this task up to the
9595 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
9596 Note that according to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
9597 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
9601 .It Va message-inject-head
9602 A string to put at the beginning of each new message, followed by a newline.
9603 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
9607 are understood (use the
9611 ting the variable(s) instead).
9614 .It Va message-inject-tail
9615 A string to put at the end of each new message, followed by a newline.
9616 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
9620 are understood (use the
9624 ting the variable(s) instead).
9628 \*(BO Usually, when an
9630 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
9631 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
9636 option to be passed through to the
9638 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
9639 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
9643 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
9644 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
9645 in order to classify the
9648 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
9651 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
9652 a computation rather similar to what the
9654 command produces when used with the
9658 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
9659 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
9660 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
9665 .Ql application/octet-stream :
9666 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
9668 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
9669 interpret the contents of the part.
9671 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
9672 text data at first glance (by a
9676 file extension), then the original
9678 will not be overwritten.
9681 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
9682 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
9683 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
9684 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
9685 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9686 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
9687 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
9688 contains topic subjects.)
9691 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
9694 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
9695 Some MUAs, however, do not use
9696 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9698 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
9699 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but specify an
9700 unspecific MIME type
9701 .Pf ( Ql application/octet-stream )
9702 even for plain text attachments.
9703 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to re-classify such MIME
9704 message parts, if possible, for example via a possibly existing
9705 attachment filename.
9706 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
9707 actually a carrier of bits, best specified as a binary value, e.g.,
9710 .Bl -bullet -compact
9712 If bit two is set (counting from 1, decimal 2) then the detected
9714 will be carried along with the message and be used for deciding which
9715 MIME handler is to be used, for example;
9716 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
9717 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
9720 If bit three is set (decimal 4) then the counter-evidence is always
9721 produced and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even
9722 forcefully overriding the parts given MIME type.
9724 If bit four is set (decimal 8) as a last resort the actual content of
9725 .Ql application/octet-stream
9726 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
9728 This mode is even more relaxed when data is to be displayed to the user
9729 or used as a message quote (data consumers which mangle data for display
9730 purposes, which includes masking of control characters, for example).
9734 .It Va mime-encoding
9736 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
9737 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
9738 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
9741 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9744 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
9745 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
9746 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
9747 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
9748 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
9749 .It Ql quoted-printable
9751 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
9752 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
9753 be read as-is; it is also acceptable for other single-byte locales that
9754 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
9755 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
9756 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
9757 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
9758 It is the default encoding.
9760 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
9761 This encoding is 7-bit clean and will always be used for binary data.
9762 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
9763 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
9764 to four bytes of output.
9765 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
9770 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
9771 Can be used to control which of
9772 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9773 are loaded: if the letter
9775 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
9777 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
9779 controls loading of the system wide
9780 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
9781 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
9783 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
9784 Incorporation of the \*(UA-built-in MIME types cannot be suppressed,
9785 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
9788 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
9789 value string contains an equals sign
9791 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
9794 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
9795 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
9796 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9797 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
9798 the MIME type cache).
9803 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
9804 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with the protocol
9806 or \*(OPally a SMTP a.k.a. SUBMISSION protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
9808 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9811 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
9812 The default has been chosen at compile time.
9813 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
9814 run asynchronously and without supervision unless either the
9819 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
9826 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
9828 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
9831 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
9834 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
9837 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
9842 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
9843 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
9844 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
9845 (which will also disable passing
9849 (for not treating a line with only a dot
9851 character as the end of input),
9859 variable is set); in conjunction with the
9861 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
9867 \*(OPally \*(UA can send mail over SMTP a.k.a. SUBMISSION network
9868 connections to a single defined smart host by setting this variable to
9869 a SMTP or SUBMISSION URL (see
9870 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
9871 An authentication scheme can be specified via the variable chain
9873 Encrypted network connections are \*(OPally available, the section
9874 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
9875 should give an overview and provide links to more information on this.
9876 Note that with some mail providers it may be necessary to set the
9878 variable in order to use a specific combination of
9883 \*(UA also supports forwarding of all network traffic over a specified
9885 The following SMTP variants may be used:
9889 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
9890 server port 25 and requires setting the
9891 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9892 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
9893 Assign a value like \*(IN
9894 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9896 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
9897 to choose this protocol.
9899 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
9900 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
9901 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
9902 be supported by your hosts network service database
9903 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
9906 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
9907 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
9908 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9910 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
9911 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
9916 The SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409) lives on server port 587 and
9917 is identically to the SMTP protocol from \*(UA's point of view;
9919 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9920 to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state; e.g., \*(IN
9921 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port] .
9923 The SUBMISSIONS protocol (RFC 8314) that lives on server port 465 and is
9924 SSL/TLS secured by default.
9925 It can be chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
9926 .Ql submissions://[user[:password]@]server[:port] .
9927 Due to the problems mentioned for SMTPS above and the fact that
9928 SUBMISSIONS is new and a successor that lives on the same port as the
9929 historical engineering mismanagement named SMTPS, it is usually
9930 necessary to explicitly specify the port as
9936 .It Va mta-arguments
9937 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
9939 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
9940 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
9941 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
9942 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
9943 .Ql ? wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"' .
9946 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
9947 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
9948 standard command line options to a file-based
9950 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
9953 .It Va mta-no-receiver-arguments
9954 \*(BO By default a file-based
9956 will be passed all receiver addresses on the command line.
9957 This variable can be set to suppress any such argument.
9961 Many systems use a so-called
9963 environment to ensure compatibility with
9965 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
9967 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
9968 actually executed when calling the file-based
9970 will treat its contents as that name.
9973 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
9974 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
9976 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
9977 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
9981 .Sx "The .netrc file"
9982 documents the file format.
9994 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
9996 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
9997 This can be used to, e.g., store
10000 .Ql ? set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp' .
10004 If this variable has the value
10006 newly created local folders will be in Maildir instead of MBOX format.
10010 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
10011 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
10012 If this variable is set to the special value
10014 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
10015 timestamp changes are detected.
10019 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
10022 and the sender-based filenames for the
10026 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
10028 variable rather than to the current directory,
10029 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
10031 .Mx Va on-account-cleanup
10032 .It Va on-account-cleanup-ACCOUNT , Va on-account-cleanup
10033 Macro hook which will be called once an
10035 is left, as the very last step before unrolling per-account
10037 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
10038 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
10041 The specialized form is used in favour of the generic one if found.
10044 .It Va on-compose-cleanup
10045 Macro hook which will be called after the message has been sent (or not,
10046 in case of failures), as the very last step before unrolling compose mode
10048 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
10049 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
10053 For compose mode hooks that may affect the message content please see
10054 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave , on-compose-splice .
10055 \*(ID This hook exists because
10056 .Ic alias , alternates , commandalias , shortcut ,
10057 to name a few, are not covered by
10059 changes applied in compose mode will continue to be in effect thereafter.
10064 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
10065 Macro hooks which will be called once compose mode is entered,
10066 and after composing has been finished, but before a set
10067 .Va message-inject-tail
10068 has been injected etc., respectively.
10070 are enabled for these hooks, and changes on variables will be forgotten
10071 after the message has been sent.
10072 .Va on-compose-cleanup
10073 can be used to perform other necessary cleanup steps.
10075 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
10076 execution of the macros to represent respective message headers, to
10077 the empty string otherwise; most of them correspond to according virtual
10078 message headers that can be accessed via
10081 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10083 .Va on-compose-splice
10087 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va mailx_subject"
10088 .It Va mailx-command
10089 The command that generates the message.
10090 .It Va mailx-subject
10094 .It Va mailx-sender
10096 .It Va mailx-to , mailx-cc , mailx-bcc
10097 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
10098 .It Va mailx-raw-to , mailx-raw-cc , mailx-raw-bcc
10099 The list of receiver addresses before any mangling (due to, e.g.,
10102 .Va recipients-in-cc )
10103 as a space-separated list.
10104 .It Va mailx-orig-from
10105 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
10107 of the given message.
10108 .It Va mailx-orig-to , mailx-orig-cc , mailx-orig-bcc
10109 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
10110 receivers of the given message.
10114 Here is am example that injects a signature via
10115 .Va message-inject-tail ;
10117 .Va on-compose-splice
10118 to simply inject the file of desire via
10122 may be a better approach.
10124 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10126 vput ! i cat ~/.mysig
10128 vput vexpr message-inject-tail trim-end $i
10132 readctl create ~/.mysig
10136 vput vexpr message-inject-tail trim-end $i
10138 readctl remove ~/.mysig
10141 set on-compose-leave=t_ocl
10147 .It Va on-compose-splice , on-compose-splice-shell
10148 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
10149 .Va on-compose-leave
10150 macro hook is called, the
10151 .Va message-inject-tail
10153 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
10154 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
10156 The difference in between them is that the latter is a
10158 command, whereas the former is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
10159 restricted to a small set of commands (the
10163 will indicate said capability).
10165 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
10166 to be forgotten after the message has been sent;
10167 .Va on-compose-cleanup
10168 can be used to perform other cleanup as necessary.
10171 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
10172 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
10173 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10174 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproducibilities sake
10178 will be set to their defaults.
10179 The compose mode command
10181 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
10182 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
10183 version of said command escape, currently
10185 backward incompatible protocol changes have to be expected.
10188 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks and other false control flow:
10189 if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
10190 same time, or one does not expect more input but the other is stuck
10191 waiting for consumption of its output, etc.
10192 There is no automatic synchronization of the hook: it will not be
10193 stopped automatically just because it, e.g., emits
10195 The hooks will however receive a termination signal if the parent enters
10196 an error condition.
10197 \*(ID Protection against and interaction with signals is not yet given;
10198 it is likely that in the future these scripts will be placed in an
10199 isolated session, which is signalled in its entirety as necessary.
10201 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10202 define ocs_signature {
10204 echo '~< ~/.mysig' # '~<! fortune pathtofortunefile'
10206 set on-compose-splice=ocs_signature
10208 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
10210 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
10211 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
10212 read status result;\e
10213 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
10218 echo Splice protocol version is $version
10219 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substring "${hl}" 0 1
10221 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'; xit
10223 if [ "$hl" @i!% ' cc' ]
10224 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
10225 vput vexpr es substring "${es}" 0 1
10227 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
10228 # (no xit, macro finishs anyway)
10232 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
10237 .It Va on-resend-cleanup
10239 .Va on-compose-cleanup ,
10240 but is only triggered by
10244 .It Va on-resend-enter
10246 .Va on-compose-enter ,
10247 but is only triggered by
10252 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
10254 is followed by a formfeed character
10258 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
10259 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
10260 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
10261 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
10262 the authentication method requires a password.
10263 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
10264 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
10266 .It Va password-USER@HOST
10267 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
10268 Set the password for
10272 If no such variable is defined for a host,
10273 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
10274 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
10275 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
10279 \*(BO Send messages to the
10281 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
10285 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
10286 When a MIME message part of type
10288 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
10289 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
10291 Note that only parts which can be displayed inline as plain text (see
10292 .Cd copiousoutput )
10293 are displayed unless otherwise noted, other MIME parts will only be
10294 considered by and for the command
10298 The special value commercial at
10300 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
10301 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
10302 will henceforth display XML
10304 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
10307 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
10308 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
10309 \(em these directives,
10311 has already been used, should be referred to for further documentation.
10316 can in fact be used as a trigger character to adjust usage and behaviour
10317 of a following shell command specification more thoroughly by appending
10318 more special characters which refer to further mailcap directives, e.g.,
10319 the following hypothetical command specification could be used:
10321 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10322 ? set pipe-X/Y='@!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
10326 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
10328 The command produces plain text to be integrated in \*(UAs output:
10329 .Cd copiousoutput .
10332 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
10333 but only when it will be displayed:
10334 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
10337 Run the command asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA:
10338 .Cd x-mailx-async .
10341 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
10342 temporarily release the terminal to it:
10343 .Cd needsterminal .
10346 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
10347 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
10348 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY :
10349 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
10350 If given twice then the file will be unlinked automatically by \*(UA
10351 when the command loop is entered again at latest:
10352 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
10355 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
10356 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
10357 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
10358 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
10359 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
10360 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
10365 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
10366 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
10367 remaining characters.
10368 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
10372 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
10373 the environment of the shell command:
10376 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
10378 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
10379 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
10382 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
10384 .Va mime-counter-evidence
10385 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
10386 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
10387 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
10391 .It Ev MAILX_EXTERNAL_BODY_URL
10393 .Ql message/external-body access-type=url
10394 will store the access URL in this variable, it is empty otherwise.
10397 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
10398 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
10401 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
10405 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
10406 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
10407 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
10413 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
10414 This is identical to
10415 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
10418 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
10419 names a file extension, e.g.,
10421 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
10424 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
10425 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
10426 The only possible value as of now is
10428 which is thus the default.
10430 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
10431 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
10432 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
10433 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
10434 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
10436 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
10437 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
10439 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
10440 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
10441 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
10442 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
10443 but practical experience may vary.
10444 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
10448 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
10450 .Mx Va pop3-no-apop
10451 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
10452 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
10454 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
10455 advertises support.
10458 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
10459 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
10461 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
10464 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
10465 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
10466 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10468 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
10469 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
10470 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
10472 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
10478 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
10479 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
10480 It will be set implicitly before the
10481 .Sx "Resource files"
10482 are loaded if the environment variable
10483 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10484 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
10486 The following behaviour is covered and enforced by this mechanism:
10489 .Bl -bullet -compact
10491 In non-interactive mode, any error encountered while loading resource
10492 files during program startup will cause a program exit, whereas in
10493 interactive mode such errors will stop loading of the currently loaded
10494 (stack of) file(s, i.e., recursively).
10495 These exits can be circumvented on a per-command base by using
10498 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
10499 for each command which shall be allowed to fail.
10503 will replace the list of alternate addresses instead of appending to it.
10506 The variable inserting
10507 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10513 will expand embedded character sequences
10515 horizontal tabulator and
10518 \*(ID For compatibility reasons this step will always be performed.
10521 Upon changing the active
10525 will be displayed even if
10532 implies the behaviour described by
10538 is extended to cover any empty mailbox, not only empty
10540 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
10541 es: they will be removed when they are left in empty state otherwise.
10546 .It Va print-alternatives
10547 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
10548 .Ql multipart/alternative
10549 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
10551 other parts are normally discarded.
10552 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
10553 just as if the surrounding part was of type
10554 .Ql multipart/mixed .
10558 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
10559 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is treated as if specified
10560 within dollar-single-quotes (see
10561 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
10562 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
10563 status information, for example
10568 .Va mailbox-display .
10570 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
10571 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
10572 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
10574 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
10576 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
10578 .Ql set noprompt ) .
10582 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
10589 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
10593 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
10594 prefixed by the value of the variable
10596 Normally, a heading consisting of
10597 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
10598 is put before the quotation.
10603 variable, this heading is omitted.
10606 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
10609 selection are put above the message body,
10612 acts like an automatic
10614 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10618 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
10619 parts are included, making
10621 act like an automatic
10624 .Va quote-as-attachment .
10627 .It Va quote-as-attachment
10628 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
10630 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
10631 Note this works regardless of the setting of
10636 Can be set to a string consisting of non-whitespace ASCII characters
10637 which shall be treated as quotation leaders, the default being
10642 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
10644 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
10645 quotation characters
10646 .Pf ( Va quote-chars )
10647 are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
10649 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
10650 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
10651 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
10653 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
10654 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
10655 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
10657 plus some additional pad.
10658 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
10661 .It Va r-option-implicit
10662 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
10664 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10666 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
10668 option (empty argument case).
10671 .It Va recipients-in-cc
10678 are by default merged into the new
10680 If this variable is set, only the original
10684 the rest is merged into
10689 Unless this variable is defined, no copies of outgoing mail will be saved.
10690 If defined it gives the pathname, subject to the usual
10691 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
10692 of a folder where all new, replied-to or forwarded messages are saved:
10693 when saving to this folder fails the message is not sent, but instead
10697 The standard defines that relative (fully expanded) paths are to be
10698 interpreted relative to the current directory
10700 to force interpretation relative to
10703 needs to be set in addition.
10706 .It Va record-files
10707 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10709 will be extended to cover messages which target only file and pipe
10712 These address types will not appear in recipient lists unless
10713 .Va add-file-recipients
10717 .It Va record-resent
10718 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10720 will be extended to also cover the
10727 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
10728 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
10729 character set of the original message for replies.
10730 If this fails, the mechanism described in
10731 .Sx "Character sets"
10732 is evaluated as usual.
10735 .It Va reply-strings
10736 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
10737 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
10738 built-in strings as
10740 reply message indicators \(en built-in are
10742 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
10747 which often has been seen in the wild;
10748 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
10752 A list of addresses to put into the
10754 field of the message header.
10755 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
10764 .It Va reply-to-honour
10767 header is honoured when replying to a message via
10771 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
10775 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
10776 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
10778 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
10780 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
10784 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
10786 upon interrupt or delivery error.
10790 The number of lines that represents a
10799 line display and scrolling via
10801 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
10802 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
10803 terminal, the more will be shown.
10804 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
10805 environment variables
10813 .It Va searchheaders
10814 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
10816 to all messages containing the substring
10818 in the header field
10820 The string search is case insensitive.
10823 .It Va sendcharsets
10824 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
10825 outgoing internet mail.
10826 The value of the variable
10828 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
10829 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
10830 the only supported charset is
10833 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10834 and refer to the section
10835 .Sx "Character sets"
10836 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
10839 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10840 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
10842 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
10844 had been set to the value of the variable
10846 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
10847 character set of the current locale encoding:
10848 therefore mail message text will be (assumed to be) in ISO-8859-1
10849 encoding when send from within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8
10850 encoding when send from within an UTF-8 locale.
10854 never comes into play as
10856 is implicitly assumed to be 8-bit and capable to represent all files the
10857 user may specify (as is the case when no character set conversion
10858 support is available in \*(UA and the only supported character set is
10860 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
10861 This might be a problem for scripts which use the suggested
10863 setting, since in this case the character set is US-ASCII by definition,
10864 so that it is better to also override
10870 An address that is put into the
10872 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
10873 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
10874 This field should normally not be used unless the
10876 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
10879 address is handled as if it were in the
10883 .Va r-option-implicit .
10886 \*(OB Predecessor of
10889 .It Va sendmail-arguments
10890 \*(OB Predecessor of
10891 .Va mta-arguments .
10893 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
10894 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
10895 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
10897 .It Va sendmail-progname
10898 \*(OB Predecessor of
10903 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
10905 (including the built-in SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
10907 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
10908 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
10909 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
10913 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
10914 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder, as well as with
10921 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
10922 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
10926 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
10927 summary if the message was sent by the user.
10934 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10936 .Va message-inject-tail ,
10937 .Va on-compose-leave
10939 .Va on-compose-splice .
10946 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10948 .Va message-inject-tail ,
10949 .Va on-compose-leave
10951 .Va on-compose-splice .
10956 .Va on-compose-splice
10958 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
10960 .Va on-compose-leave
10962 .Va message-inject-tail
10966 .It Va skipemptybody
10967 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
10968 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
10969 command line option
10974 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
10975 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
10976 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
10977 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
10978 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
10979 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
10980 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
10981 be explicitly turned off by setting
10982 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
10983 and further fine-tuning is possible via
10984 .Va smime-ca-flags .
10987 .It Va smime-ca-flags
10988 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
10989 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
10990 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
10994 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
10995 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
10996 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
10998 .Mx Va smime-cipher
10999 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
11000 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
11001 messages (for the specified account).
11002 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
11005 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
11013 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
11015 is not available) and
11017 (DES CBC, 56 bits).
11019 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
11020 library that \*(UA uses.
11021 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
11022 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
11023 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
11024 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
11027 .It Va smime-crl-dir
11028 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
11029 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
11032 .It Va smime-crl-file
11033 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
11034 verifying S/MIME messages.
11037 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
11038 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
11039 encrypted before sending.
11040 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
11041 contains a certificate in PEM format.
11043 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
11044 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
11045 individually encrypted message;
11046 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
11048 .Va smime-force-encryption
11050 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
11055 .It Va smime-force-encryption
11056 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
11060 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
11061 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
11062 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
11063 a valid certificate,
11064 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
11065 header and that the message content has not been altered.
11066 It does not change the message text,
11067 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
11069 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
11071 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
11073 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
11074 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
11075 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
11076 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
11077 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
11079 For message signing
11081 is always derived from the value of
11083 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
11085 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
11086 (certificate) is expected; the command
11088 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
11089 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
11090 gives some details).
11091 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
11093 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
11098 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
11100 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
11101 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
11102 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
11104 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
11105 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
11106 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
11107 for the private key
11109 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
11110 for the certificate stored in the same file)
11111 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
11112 therefore the lookup can be automated via the mechanisms described in
11113 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
11114 For example, the hypothetical address
11116 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
11117 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
11118 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
11119 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
11121 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
11122 To include intermediate certificates, use
11123 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
11125 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
11126 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
11127 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
11128 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
11129 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
11130 .Va smime-sign-cert
11132 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
11133 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
11134 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
11135 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
11136 .Va smime-sign-cert .
11137 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
11138 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
11140 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
11142 refers to the content of the internal variable
11144 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
11147 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
11148 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
11149 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automated
11150 via the mechanisms described in
11151 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
11153 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
11154 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
11155 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
11156 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
11158 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
11166 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
11167 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
11168 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
11169 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
11170 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
11171 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
11172 Remember that for this
11174 refers to the variable
11176 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
11180 \*(OB\*(OP To use the built-in SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
11182 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
11184 is used in preference of
11188 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
11189 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
11191 authentication method, possible values are
11197 as well as the \*(OPal methods
11203 method does not need any user credentials,
11205 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
11213 .Va smtp-auth-password
11215 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
11220 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
11221 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
11224 .It Va smtp-auth-password
11225 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
11226 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
11227 .Va smtp-auth-password
11229 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
11231 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
11233 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
11235 .Va smtp-auth-password
11236 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
11239 .It Va smtp-auth-user
11240 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
11241 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
11244 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
11246 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
11248 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
11251 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
11255 .It Va smtp-hostname
11256 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
11258 to derive the necessary
11260 information in order to issue a
11267 can be used to use the
11269 from the SMTP account
11276 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
11278 or the local hostname as a last resort).
11279 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
11280 a provider other than which (in
11282 is about to send the message.
11283 Setting this variable also influences generated
11288 If the \*(OPal IDNA support is available (see
11290 variable assignment is aborted when a necessary conversion fails.
11292 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
11293 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
11294 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
11296 command to make an SMTP
11298 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
11301 .It Va socks-proxy-USER@HOST , socks-proxy-HOST , socks-proxy
11302 \*(OP If this is set to the hostname (SOCKS URL) of a SOCKS5 server then
11303 \*(UA will proxy all of its network activities through it.
11304 This can be used to proxy SMTP, POP3 etc. network traffic through the
11305 Tor anonymizer, for example.
11306 The following would create a local SOCKS proxy on port 10000 that
11307 forwards to the machine
11309 and from which the network traffic is actually instantiated:
11310 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11311 # Create local proxy server in terminal 1 forwarding to HOST
11312 $ ssh -D 10000 USER@HOST
11313 # Then, start a client that uses it in terminal 2
11314 $ \*(uA -Ssocks-proxy-USER@HOST=localhost:10000
11318 .It Va spam-interface
11319 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
11321 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
11322 Please refer to the manual section
11323 .Sx "Handling spam"
11324 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
11325 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
11327 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
11333 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
11335 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
11336 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
11337 knowledge to parse the program's output.
11338 A default value for
11340 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
11344 during compilation.
11345 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
11346 using a configuration file for that), the variable
11347 .Va spamc-arguments
11348 can be used as in, e.g.,
11349 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
11350 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
11352 Note that this interface does not inspect the
11354 flag of a message for the command
11358 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
11359 This interface is meant for programs like
11361 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
11362 status for at least the command
11365 meaning a message is spam,
11369 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
11370 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
11371 can be intercepted as necessary.
11373 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11376 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
11378 .Sx "Handling spam"
11379 contains examples for some programs.
11380 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
11381 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
11383 Note that spam score support for
11385 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
11387 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
11393 .It Va spam-maxsize
11394 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
11396 .Va spam-interface .
11397 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
11400 .It Va spamc-command
11401 \*(OP The path to the
11405 .Va spam-interface .
11406 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
11408 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
11409 executable had been found during compilation.
11412 .It Va spamc-arguments
11413 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
11416 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
11417 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
11418 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
11422 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
11424 .Va spam-interface .
11425 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
11434 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
11435 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
11436 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
11438 .Va spam-interface .
11440 .Sx "Handling spam"
11441 contains examples for some programs.
11444 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
11445 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
11448 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
11449 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
11450 be used to overcome this restriction.
11451 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
11452 must be followed by a semicolon
11454 and an extended regular expression.
11455 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
11456 .Va spamfilter-rate
11457 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
11458 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
11462 .It Va ssl-ca-dir-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-dir-HOST , ssl-ca-dir ,\
11463 ssl-ca-file-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-file-HOST , ssl-ca-file
11464 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
11465 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
11466 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
11467 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
11468 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
11469 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
11470 be explicitly turned off by setting
11471 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
11472 and further fine-tuning is possible via
11475 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11476 for more information.
11477 \*(UA will try to use the TLS/SNI (ServerNameIndication) extension when
11478 establishing TLS connections to servers identified with hostnames.
11481 .Mx Va ssl-ca-flags
11482 .It Va ssl-ca-flags-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-flags-HOST , ssl-ca-flags
11483 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
11484 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
11486 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
11487 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
11488 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
11489 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
11490 which are usually defined in a file
11491 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
11492 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
11493 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
11495 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
11498 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11499 .It Cd no-alt-chains
11500 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
11502 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
11503 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
11504 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
11505 .Cd trusted-first .
11506 .It Cd no-check-time
11507 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
11508 .It Cd partial-chain
11509 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
11510 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
11511 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
11512 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
11514 The OpenSSL manual page
11515 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11516 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
11518 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
11519 .It Cd trusted-first
11520 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
11521 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
11522 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
11523 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
11524 .Cd no-alt-chains .
11528 .Mx Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
11529 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults-USER@HOST , ssl-ca-no-defaults-HOST ,\
11531 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
11532 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
11535 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
11536 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11539 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11541 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
11542 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
11543 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11546 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11549 .It Va ssl-config-file
11550 \*(OP If this variable is set
11551 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
11553 .Ql +modules-load-file
11556 is used to allow resource file based configuration of the SSL/TLS library.
11557 This happens once the library is used first, which may also be early
11558 during startup (logged with
11560 If a non-empty value is given then the given file, after performing
11561 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
11562 will be used instead of the global OpenSSL default, and it is an error
11563 if the file cannot be loaded.
11564 The application name will always be passed as
11566 Some SSL/TLS libraries support application-specific configuration via
11567 resource files loaded like this, please see
11568 .Va ssl-config-module .
11570 .Mx Va ssl-config-module
11571 .It Va ssl-config-module-USER@HOST , ssl-config-module-HOST ,\
11573 \*(OP If file based application-specific configuration via
11574 .Va ssl-config-file
11575 is available, announced as
11579 indicating availability of
11580 .Xr SSL_CTX_config 3 ,
11581 then, it becomes possible to use a central SSL/TLS configuration file
11582 for all programs, including \*(uA, e.g.:
11583 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11584 # Register a configuration section for \*(uA
11585 \*(uA = mailx_master
11586 # The top configuration section creates a relation
11587 # in between dynamic SSL configuration and an actual
11588 # program specific configuration section
11590 ssl_conf = mailx_ssl_config
11591 # Well that actual program specific configuration section
11592 # now can map individual ssl-config-module names to sections,
11593 # e.g., ssl-config-module=account_xy
11595 account_xy = mailx_account_xy
11596 account_yz = mailx_account_yz
11598 MinProtocol = TLSv1.2
11601 CipherString = TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:
11602 MinProtocol = TLSv1.1
11607 .Mx Va ssl-config-pairs
11608 .It Va ssl-config-pairs-USER@HOST , ssl-config-pairs-HOST , ssl-config-pairs
11609 \*(OP The value of this variable chain will be interpreted as
11610 a comma-separated list of directive/value pairs.
11611 Different to when placing these pairs in a
11612 .Va ssl-config-module
11614 .Va ssl-config-file
11617 need to be escaped with a reverse solidus
11619 when included in pairs.
11620 Just likewise directives and values need to be separated by equals signs
11622 any whitespace surrounding pair members is removed.
11623 Keys are (usually) case-insensitive.
11624 Unless proper support is announced by
11626 .Pf ( Ql +conf-ctx )
11627 only the keys below are supported, otherwise the pairs will be used
11628 directly as arguments to the function
11629 .Xr SSL_CONF_cmd 3 .
11632 may be preceded with an asterisk
11635 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11636 shall be performed on the value; it is an error if these fail.
11639 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd C_rtificate"
11641 Filename of a SSL/TLS client certificate (chain) required by some servers.
11642 Fallback support via
11643 .Xr SSL_CTX_use_certificate_chain_file 3 .
11644 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11646 .\" v15compat: remove the next sentence
11648 if you use this you need to specify the private key via
11654 A list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections, see
11656 By default no list of ciphers is set, resulting in a
11657 .Cd Protocol Ns - Ns
11658 specific list of ciphers (the protocol standards define lists of
11659 acceptable ciphers; possibly cramped by the used SSL/TLS library).
11660 Fallback support via
11661 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list 3 .
11664 A list of supported elliptic curves, if applicable.
11665 By default no curves are set.
11666 Fallback support via
11667 .Xr SSL_CTX_set1_curves_list 3 ,
11670 .It Cd MaxProtocol , MinProtocol
11671 The maximum and minimum supported SSL/TLS versions, respectively.
11672 Optional fallback support via
11673 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_max_proto_version 3
11675 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_min_proto_version 3
11679 .Ql +ctx-set-maxmin-proto ,
11680 otherwise this directive results in an error.
11681 The fallback uses an internal parser which understands the strings
11686 and the special value
11688 which disables the given limit.
11691 Various flags to set.
11693 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_options 3 ,
11694 in which case any other value but (exactly)
11696 results in an error.
11699 Filename of the private key in PEM format of a SSL/TLS client certificate.
11700 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
11701 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11704 .Xr SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_file 3 .
11705 .\" v15compat: remove the next sentence
11707 if you use this you need to specify the certificate (chain) via
11713 The used SSL/TLS protocol.
11719 .Ql ctx-set-maxmin-proto
11726 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_options 3 ,
11727 driven via an internal parser which understands the strings
11732 and the special value
11734 Multiple protocols may be given as a comma-separated list, any
11735 whitespace is ignored, an optional plus sign
11737 prefix enables, a hyphen-minus
11739 prefix disables a protocol, so that
11741 enables only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
11747 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
11748 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
11749 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
11752 .It Va ssl-curves-USER@HOST , ssl-curves-HOST , ssl-curves
11753 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11756 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11759 .It Va ssl-features
11760 \*(OP\*(RO This expands to a comma separated list of the TLS/SSL library
11761 identity and optional TLS/SSL library features.
11762 Currently supported identities are
11766 (OpenSSL v1.1.x series)
11769 (elder OpenSSL series, other clones).
11770 Optional features are preceded with a plus sign
11772 when available, and with a hyphen-minus
11775 .Ql modules-load-file
11776 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-file ) ,
11778 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-pairs ) ,
11780 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-module ) ,
11781 .Ql ctx-set-maxmin-proto
11782 .Pf ( Va ssl-config-pairs )
11785 .Pf ( Va ssl-rand-egd ) .
11788 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
11789 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11792 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11794 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
11795 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11798 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11800 .Mx Va ssl-protocol
11801 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
11802 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the
11805 .Va ssl-config-pairs .
11808 .It Va ssl-rand-egd
11809 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
11811 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this,
11813 announces availability with
11817 .It Va ssl-rand-file
11818 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
11819 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
11820 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
11821 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11823 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
11824 will be used to create the filename.
11825 If the SSL PRNG was seeded successfully
11826 The file will be updated
11827 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 )
11828 if and only if seeding and buffer stirring succeeds.
11829 This variable is only used if
11831 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
11834 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
11835 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
11836 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
11837 specified or default trust stores
11840 or the SSL/TLS library built-in defaults (unless usage disallowed via
11841 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
11842 and as fine-tuned via
11844 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
11846 (fail and close connection immediately),
11848 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
11850 (show a warning and continue),
11852 (do not perform validation).
11858 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
11864 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
11865 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
11866 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
11867 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
11868 to track down the originating mail user agent.
11869 If set to the value
11875 suppression does not occur.
11880 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
11885 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11886 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
11889 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11890 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11893 String capabilities form
11895 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
11896 Numerics have to be notated as
11898 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
11899 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
11900 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
11901 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
11902 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
11903 for one notations like
11906 .Ql control-LETTER ,
11907 and for clarification purposes
11909 can be used to specify
11911 (the control notation
11913 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
11914 the standard CSI sequence);
11915 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
11918 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
11919 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
11921 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11922 ? set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
11926 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
11927 operation of the built-in line editor or \*(UA in general:
11930 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd yay"
11932 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
11934 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
11935 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
11936 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
11939 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
11942 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
11943 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen ca-mode,
11944 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
11945 This must be enabled explicitly by setting
11946 .Va termcap-ca-mode .
11948 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
11952 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
11953 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
11954 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
11955 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
11957 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
11961 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
11963 clear the screen and home cursor.
11964 (Will be simulated via
11969 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
11974 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
11976 clear to the end of line.
11977 (Will be simulated via
11979 plus repetitions of space characters.)
11981 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
11982 .Cd column_address :
11983 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
11984 (Will be simulated via
11990 .Cd carriage_return :
11991 move to the first column in the current row.
11992 The default built-in fallback is
11995 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
11997 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
11998 The default built-in fallback is
12001 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
12003 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
12004 The default built-in fallback is
12006 which is used by most terminals.
12014 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
12019 .It Va termcap-ca-mode
12020 \*(OP Allow usage of the
12024 terminal capabilities, effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen
12025 application, as documented for
12028 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
12029 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
12032 .It Va termcap-disable
12033 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
12034 If set only some generic fallback built-ins and possibly the content of
12036 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
12038 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
12039 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
12043 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
12046 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
12049 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
12050 unsigned right shifting (see
12058 \*(BO If set then the
12060 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
12064 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
12065 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
12066 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
12067 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1.
12068 Otherwise it defaults to UTF-8.
12069 Sufficient locale support provided the default will be preferably
12070 deduced from the locale environment if that is set (e.g.,
12072 see there for more); runtime locale changes will be reflected by
12074 except during the program startup phase and if
12076 had been used to freeze the given value.
12077 Refer to the section
12078 .Sx "Character sets"
12079 for the complete picture about character sets.
12082 .It Va typescript-mode
12083 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
12084 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
12087 .Va colour-disable ,
12088 .Va line-editor-disable
12089 and (before startup completed only)
12090 .Va termcap-disable .
12091 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
12095 For a safe-by-default policy the process file mode creation mask
12099 on program startup by default.
12100 Child processes inherit the file mode creation mask of their parent, and
12101 by setting this variable to an empty value no change will be applied,
12102 and the inherited value will be used.
12103 Otherwise the given value will be made the new file mode creation mask.
12106 .It Va user-HOST , user
12107 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
12108 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
12110 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
12114 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
12115 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
12116 how they are handled.
12117 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
12118 doing things, respectively.
12122 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
12124 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
12125 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
12126 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
12127 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
12128 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
12131 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
12138 .It Va version , version-date , \
12139 version-hexnum , version-major , version-minor , version-update
12140 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable is a string with
12141 the complete version identification, the second the release date in ISO
12142 8601 notation without time.
12143 The third is a 32-bit hexadecimal number with the upper 8 bits storing
12144 the major, followed by the minor and update version numbers which occupy
12146 The latter three variables contain only decimal digits: the major, minor
12147 and update version numbers.
12148 The output of the command
12150 will include this information.
12153 .It Va writebackedited
12154 If this variable is set messages modified using the
12158 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
12159 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
12160 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
12161 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
12162 performed, and proper RFC 4155
12164 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an exercise to
12167 .\" }}} (Variables)
12169 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
12172 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
12176 .Dq environment variable
12177 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
12178 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
12179 commonly found in there.
12180 The process environment is inherited from the
12182 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
12183 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
12184 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
12185 from \*(UA's point of view.
12186 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
12190 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
12191 newly created child processes).
12194 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
12195 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
12197 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
12198 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
12199 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
12201 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
12203 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
12205 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12206 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
12208 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
12211 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
12214 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
12216 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
12217 processes and the MLE (see
12218 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
12219 in interactive mode thereafter.
12220 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 80 columns, unless in
12226 The name of the (mailbox)
12228 to use for saving aborted messages if
12230 is set; this defaults to
12237 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
12242 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
12246 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
12247 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
12251 The user's home directory.
12252 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
12253 The calling user's home directory will be used instead if this directory
12254 does not exist, is not accessible or cannot be read;
12255 it will always be used for the root user.
12256 (No test for being writable is performed to allow usage by
12257 non-privileged users within read-only jails, but dependent on the
12258 variable settings this directory is a default write target, e.g. for
12266 .It Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , LANG
12267 \*(OP The (names in lookup order of the)
12271 which indicates the used
12272 .Sx "Character sets" .
12273 Runtime changes trigger automatic updates of the entire locale system,
12274 which includes updating
12276 (except during startup if the variable has been frozen via
12281 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
12282 or window size in lines.
12283 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
12284 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
12285 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 24 lines, unless in
12291 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
12293 command when operating on local mailboxes.
12296 (path search through
12301 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
12302 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
12303 name to any newly created child process.
12307 Is used as the users
12309 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
12313 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
12317 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
12318 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
12319 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
12320 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
12321 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
12322 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
12323 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
12327 Is used as a startup file instead of
12330 In order to avoid side-effects from configuration files scripts should
12331 either set this variable to
12335 command line option should be used.
12338 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
12339 If this variable is set then reading of
12341 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
12342 had been started up with the option
12344 (and according argument) or
12346 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
12350 The name of the users
12352 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
12354 A logical subset of the special
12355 .Sx "Filename transformations"
12361 Traditionally this MBOX is used as the file to save messages from the
12363 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
12364 that have been read.
12366 .Sx "Message states" .
12370 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
12376 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
12380 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
12381 The default paginator is
12383 (path search through
12386 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
12388 then a non-existing environment variable
12395 will optionally be set to
12402 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
12403 looking for commands, e.g.,
12404 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
12407 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
12408 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
12414 The shell to use for the commands
12419 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
12420 and when starting subprocesses.
12421 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
12424 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
12425 Specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch (1970-01-01) to be
12426 used in place of the current time.
12427 This variable is looked up upon program startup, and its existence will
12428 switch \*(UA to a reproducible mode
12429 .Pf ( Lk https://reproducible-builds.org )
12430 which uses deterministic random numbers, a special fixated pseudo
12433 This operation mode is used for development and by software packagers.
12434 \*(ID Currently an invalid setting is only ignored, rather than causing
12435 a program abortion.
12437 .Dl $ SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=`date +%s` \*(uA
12441 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
12442 For extended colour and font control please refer to
12443 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
12444 and for terminal management in general to
12445 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
12449 Except for the root user this variable defines the directory for
12450 temporary files to be used instead of
12452 (or the given compile-time constant) if set, existent, accessible as
12453 well as read- and writable.
12454 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
12455 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
12456 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
12462 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
12463 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
12467 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
12471 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
12481 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
12483 File giving initial commands, one of the
12484 .Sx "Resource files" .
12487 System wide initialization file, one of the
12488 .Sx "Resource files" .
12492 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
12493 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
12494 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
12495 a configuration option and can be overridden via
12499 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
12500 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
12501 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
12502 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
12503 a configuration option and can be overridden via
12507 The default value for
12509 The actually used path is a configuration option.
12512 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
12513 Personal MIME types, see
12514 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
12515 The actually used path is a configuration option.
12518 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
12519 System wide MIME types, see
12520 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
12521 The actually used path is a configuration option.
12525 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
12527 file \(en the section
12528 .Sx "The .netrc file"
12529 documents the file format.
12530 The actually used path is a configuration option and can be overridden via
12537 The actually used path is a compile-time constant.
12541 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
12542 .Ss "Resource files"
12544 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
12546 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
12549 System wide initialization file.
12550 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
12552 (and according argument) or
12554 command line options, or by setting the
12557 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
12561 File giving initial commands.
12562 A different file can be chosen by setting the
12566 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
12568 command line option.
12570 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
12571 Defines a startup file to be read after all other resource files.
12572 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
12574 implementations, for example.
12575 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
12577 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
12581 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
12584 .Bl -bullet -compact
12586 The whitespace characters space, tabulator and newline,
12587 as well as those defined by the variable
12589 are removed from the beginning and end of input lines.
12591 Empty lines are ignored.
12593 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
12594 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
12596 by placing a reverse solidus character
12598 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
12599 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
12600 remains in the input.
12602 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
12604 then it is a comment-command and also ignored.
12605 (The comment-command is a real command, which does nothing, and
12606 therefore the usual follow lines mechanism applies!)
12610 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
12611 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
12612 More files with syntactically equal content can be
12614 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
12616 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12617 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
12618 es, it is really continued here.
12625 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
12626 .Ss "The mime.types files"
12629 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
12630 \*(UA needs to learn about MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
12631 media types in order to classify message and attachment content.
12632 One source for them are
12634 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
12635 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12636 Another is the command
12638 which also offers access to \*(UAs MIME type cache.
12640 files have the following syntax:
12642 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12643 type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12644 # E.g., text/html html htm
12650 define the MIME media type, as standardized in RFC 2046:
12652 is used to declare the general type of data, while the
12654 specifies a specific format for that type of data.
12655 One or multiple filename
12657 s, separated by whitespace, can be bound to the media type format.
12658 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
12660 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
12662 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in especially
12663 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
12664 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12665 and prepends an optional
12669 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12672 The following type markers are supported:
12675 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
12677 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
12682 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
12683 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
12684 the content as plain text instead.
12688 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
12689 handler to be defined.
12691 If no handler can be found a text message is displayed which says so.
12692 This can be annoying, for example signatures serve a contextual purpose,
12693 their content is of no use by itself.
12694 This marker will avoid displaying the text message.
12699 for sending messages:
12701 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
12702 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12703 For reading etc. messages:
12704 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12705 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
12707 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12708 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12709 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12710 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12713 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
12714 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
12716 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
12717 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
12719 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
12720 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports (see
12721 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
12722 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
12723 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
12724 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
12725 et cetera MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that
12726 includes multiple possible locations of
12730 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
12731 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
12732 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
12733 the list of MIME type handler directives.
12737 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
12738 Comment lines start with a number sign
12740 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
12741 Empty lines are also ignored.
12742 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
12744 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
12745 follow lines if newline characters are
12747 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
12749 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
12750 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
12754 entries consist of a number of semicolon
12756 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
12758 character can be used to escape any following character including
12759 semicolon and itself.
12760 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
12761 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
12762 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
12765 The first field defines the MIME
12767 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
12768 escaping is possible in this field).
12769 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
12771 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
12773 would match any audio type.
12774 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
12776 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
12783 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
12784 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
12787 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
12788 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
12791 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
12792 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
12794 In any case any given
12796 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
12797 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
12799 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
12800 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
12801 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12803 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12804 flags had been set; see below for more.
12807 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
12808 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
12809 naming the field followed by an equals sign
12811 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
12813 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
12814 Optional fields include the following:
12817 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12819 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
12821 (Currently unused.)
12823 .It Cd composetyped
12826 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
12828 header field to be applied to the composed data.
12829 (Currently unused.)
12832 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
12834 (Currently unused.)
12837 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
12839 (Currently unused.)
12842 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
12843 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
12844 this mailcap entry applies.
12845 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
12846 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
12849 .It Cd needsterminal
12850 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
12851 an interactive terminal.
12852 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
12853 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
12854 ignored; this flag implies
12855 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
12858 .It Cd copiousoutput
12859 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
12861 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
12862 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
12863 It is mutually exclusive with
12864 .Cd needsterminal .
12866 .It Cd textualnewlines
12867 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
12868 that, if encoded in
12870 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
12871 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
12872 (Currently unused.)
12874 .It Cd nametemplate
12875 This field gives a filename format, in which
12877 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
12878 will be used as the filename denoted by
12879 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12880 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
12881 have a name ending in
12884 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
12885 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
12886 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
12887 characters, the underscore and dot only.
12890 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
12891 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
12892 This field is not used by \*(UA.
12895 A textual description that describes this type of data.
12898 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
12899 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
12901 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
12902 then their use will be considered.
12903 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
12904 .Cd needsterminal .
12907 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
12908 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
12911 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
12912 (as it would be by default).
12915 .It Cd x-mailx-async
12916 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
12918 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
12919 Cannot be used in conjunction with
12920 .Cd needsterminal .
12923 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
12924 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
12926 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
12927 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
12928 .Dq running under the X Window System .
12931 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12932 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
12933 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
12934 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12935 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12940 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12941 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
12942 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
12944 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
12945 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
12946 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12948 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12953 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12954 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
12955 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
12956 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
12957 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12959 format, or in conjunction with
12960 .Cd x-mailx-async ,
12961 or without also setting
12962 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12964 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
12967 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12970 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
12972 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
12974 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
12979 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
12980 entry fields, prefixed by
12982 Flag fields apply to the entire
12984 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
12985 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
12986 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
12987 one does not provide enough information.
12990 command needs to specify the
12994 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
12998 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
13000 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13001 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
13002 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
13006 In fields any occurrence of the format string
13008 will be replaced by the
13011 Named parameters from the
13013 field may be placed in the command execution line using
13015 followed by the parameter name and a closing
13018 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
13019 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
13021 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13023 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
13026 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
13027 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
13029 # Executed shell command
13030 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
13034 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
13035 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
13036 shown in this example (as of today).
13037 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
13041 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
13043 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
13044 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
13045 in additional user-provided quotes:
13047 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13049 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
13051 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
13053 application/pdf; \e
13055 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
13056 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
13058 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
13060 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
13061 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
13062 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
13067 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
13068 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
13071 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
13072 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
13073 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
13076 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
13077 .Ss "The .netrc file"
13081 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
13082 The default location in the user's
13084 directory may be overridden by the
13086 environment variable.
13087 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
13088 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
13089 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
13090 of that file format, shall their
13092 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
13095 .Bl -bullet -compact
13097 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
13098 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
13100 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
13101 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
13103 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
13105 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
13107 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
13108 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
13109 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
13111 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
13112 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
13113 whitespace, with a number sign
13115 then the rest of the line is ignored.
13117 Whereas other programs may require that the
13119 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
13121 token for any other
13125 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
13129 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
13134 At runtime the command
13136 can be used to control \*(UA's
13140 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
13141 .It Cd machine Ar name
13142 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
13144 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
13149 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
13152 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
13153 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
13155 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13156 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
13157 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
13158 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
13164 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
13168 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
13169 Note that in the example neither
13170 .Ql pop3.example.com
13172 .Ql smtp.example.com
13173 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
13174 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
13177 This is the same as
13179 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
13180 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
13181 and it must be the last first-class token.
13183 .It Cd login Ar name
13184 The user name on the remote machine.
13186 .It Cd password Ar string
13187 The user's password on the remote machine.
13189 .It Cd account Ar string
13190 Supply an additional account password.
13191 This is merely for FTP purposes.
13193 .It Cd macdef Ar name
13195 A macro is defined with the specified
13197 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
13198 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
13201 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
13202 defined following the
13204 they are intended to be used with.)
13207 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
13208 This is merely for FTP purposes.
13215 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
13218 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
13219 .Ss "An example configuration"
13221 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13222 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
13225 # Request strict SSL/TLS transport security checks
13226 set ssl-verify=strict
13228 # Where are the up-to-date SSL/TLS certificates?
13229 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
13230 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
13231 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
13232 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
13233 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
13234 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
13235 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
13236 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
13238 # This could be outsourced to a central configuration file via
13239 # ssl-config-file plus ssl-config-module if the used library allows.
13240 # CipherList: explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may
13241 # improve security, especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2.
13242 # See ciphers(1). Possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
13243 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
13244 # Curves: especially with TLSv1.3 curves selection may be desired.
13245 # MinProtocol,MaxProtocol: do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
13246 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
13247 # maybe use chain support via ssl-config-pairs-HOST / -USER@HOST
13248 # to define such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
13249 # MinProtocol=TLSv1.1
13250 if [ "$ssl-features" =% +ctx-set-maxmin-proto ]
13251 wysh set ssl-config-pairs='\e
13252 CipherList=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH,\e
13253 Curves=P-521:P-384:P-256,\e
13254 MinProtocol=TLSv1.1'
13256 wysh set ssl-config-pairs='\e
13257 CipherList=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH,\e
13258 Curves=P-521:P-384:P-256,\e
13259 Protocol=-ALL\e,+TLSv1.1 \e, +TLSv1.2'
13262 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
13263 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
13265 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
13266 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
13267 set reply-in-same-charset
13269 # When replying, do not merge From: and To: of the original message
13270 # into To:. Instead old From: -> new To:, old To: -> merge Cc:.
13271 set recipients-in-cc
13273 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
13274 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
13275 # exit status of the MTA (including the built-in SMTP one)!
13278 # Only use built-in MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
13279 set mimetypes-load-control
13281 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
13283 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
13284 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
13285 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt \e
13286 record=+sent.mbox record-files record-resent
13288 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
13289 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
13291 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
13292 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
13294 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
13295 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
13296 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
13297 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
13298 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
13301 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
13303 colour-pager crt= \e
13304 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes fullnames \e
13305 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
13306 mime-counter-evidence=0b1111 \e
13307 prompt='?\e$?!\e$!/\e$^ERRNAME[\e$account#\e$mailbox-display]? ' \e
13308 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
13311 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
13312 headerpick type retain from_ date from to cc subject \e
13313 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
13314 # ...when forwarding messages
13315 headerpick forward retain subject date from to cc
13316 # ...when saving message, etc.
13317 #headerpick save ignore ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
13319 # Some mailing lists
13320 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
13321 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
13323 # Handle a few file extensions (to store MBOX databases)
13324 filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
13325 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
13326 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
13327 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
13329 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
13330 # Instead of directly placing content inside `account',
13331 # we `define' a macro: like that we can switch "accounts"
13332 # from within *on-compose-splice*, for example!
13334 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
13335 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
13337 set pop3-no-apop-pop.gmXil.com
13338 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.gmXil.com
13339 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.gmXil.com
13340 #set record="+[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
13341 # Select: File imaps://imap.gmXil.com/[Gmail]/Sent\e Mail
13343 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
13345 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.gmail.com:465
13351 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
13352 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
13353 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
13354 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
13355 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
13356 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
13358 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
13359 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
13361 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.yaXXex.com
13362 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.yaXXex.com
13364 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.com:465 \e
13365 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
13371 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
13372 commandalias lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
13373 commandalias llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
13375 set pipe-message/external-body='@* echo $MAILX_EXTERNAL_BODY_URL'
13377 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
13378 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
13381 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
13382 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
13383 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
13385 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
13388 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
13389 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
13390 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
13394 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
13395 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
13402 commandalias V '\e'call V
13406 When storing passwords in
13408 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
13409 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
13412 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
13414 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
13415 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
13417 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13419 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
13420 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
13422 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
13423 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
13425 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
13426 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
13427 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
13428 commandalias xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
13440 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13441 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
13445 This configuration should now work just fine:
13448 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -dvv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
13451 .\" .Ss "S/MIME step by step" {{{
13452 .Ss "S/MIME step by step"
13454 \*(OP The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message
13455 exchange is your personal certificate, including a private key.
13456 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
13457 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
13458 encrypt messages for you,
13459 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
13460 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
13461 The private key must be kept secret.
13462 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
13463 public key, and to sign messages.
13466 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
13467 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
13468 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
13470 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
13471 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
13472 community for free; their root certificate
13473 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
13474 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
13475 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
13476 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
13479 or as a vivid member of the
13480 .Va smime-ca-file .
13481 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
13482 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
13485 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
13486 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
13487 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
13488 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
13489 entries of the web interface.
13490 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
13491 .Dq client certificate ,
13492 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
13493 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
13497 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
13498 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
13499 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
13502 .Dl $ openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
13505 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
13507 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
13508 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
13509 .Dq advanced options
13510 to see the corresponding text field).
13511 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
13512 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
13513 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
13514 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
13515 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
13520 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
13521 (certificate) file has to be created:
13524 .Dl $ cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
13527 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
13528 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
13529 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
13530 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
13532 is of interest for verification only):
13534 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13535 ? set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
13536 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
13537 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
13543 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
13544 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
13546 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
13547 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
13548 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
13549 declared invalid after they have been issued.
13550 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
13552 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
13553 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
13554 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
13555 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
13556 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
13557 invalidated certificates.
13558 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
13559 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
13562 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
13563 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
13566 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
13569 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
13570 (and no other files) must be created.
13575 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
13576 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
13577 to verify a certificate.
13586 In general it is a good idea to turn on
13592 twice) if something does not work well.
13593 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
13594 problems' solution.
13596 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
13597 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
13599 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
13600 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
13602 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
13603 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
13605 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
13609 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
13612 return the expected value?
13613 Does this local hostname have a domain suffix?
13614 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
13616 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
13619 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
13620 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
13622 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
13624 unless they use a special authentication method (OAuth 2.0) which
13625 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
13626 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
13629 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
13630 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
13631 her- and himself with the locally installed
13633 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
13634 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
13635 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
13636 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
13639 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
13640 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
13641 .Dq less secure app
13642 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
13643 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
13648 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
13651 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
13653 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
13655 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
13656 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
13657 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
13661 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
13662 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
13664 It can happen that the terminal library (see
13665 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
13668 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
13669 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
13670 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
13671 Especially without the \*(OPal terminal capability library support one
13672 reason for this may be that the (possibly even non-existing) keypad
13673 is not turned on and the resulting layout reports the keypad control
13674 codes for the normal keyboard keys.
13679 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
13682 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
13684 in conjunction with the command line option
13686 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
13687 by keypresses, and use the variable
13689 to make \*(UA aware of them.
13690 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
13691 an example showing the shifted home key:
13693 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13696 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
13701 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
13708 .\" .Ss "Can \*(UA git-send-email?" {{{
13709 .Ss "Can \*(UA git-send-email?"
13712 Put (at least parts of) the following in your
13715 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13717 smtpserver = /usr/bin/s-mailx
13718 smtpserveroption = -t
13719 #smtpserveroption = -Sexpandaddr
13720 smtpserveroption = -Athe-account-you-need
13723 suppressfrom = false
13724 assume8bitEncoding = UTF-8
13727 chainreplyto = true
13738 .\" .Sh "IMAP CLIENT" {{{
13741 \*(OPally there is IMAP client support available.
13742 This part of the program is obsolete and will vanish in v15 with the
13743 large MIME and I/O layer rewrite, because it uses old-style blocking I/O
13744 and makes excessive use of signal based long code jumps.
13745 Support can hopefully be readded later based on a new-style I/O, with
13746 SysV signal handling.
13747 In fact the IMAP support had already been removed from the codebase, but
13748 was reinstantiated on user demand: in effect the IMAP code is at the
13749 level of \*(UA v14.8.16 (with
13751 being the sole exception), and should be treated with some care.
13758 protocol prefixes, and an IMAP-based
13761 IMAP URLs (paths) undergo inspections and possible transformations
13762 before use (and the command
13764 can be used to manually apply them to any given argument).
13765 Hierarchy delimiters are normalized, a step which is configurable via the
13767 variable chain, but defaults to the first seen delimiter otherwise.
13768 \*(UA supports internationalised IMAP names, and en- and decodes the
13769 names from and to the
13771 as necessary and possible.
13772 If a mailbox name is expanded (see
13773 .Sx "Filename transformations" )
13774 to an IMAP mailbox, all names that begin with `+' then refer to IMAP
13775 mailboxes below the
13777 target box, while folder names prefixed by `@' refer to folders below
13778 the hierarchy base, e.g., the following lists all folders below the
13779 current one when in an IMAP mailbox:
13783 Note: some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in
13784 the hierarchy base, but require that they are created as subfolders of
13785 `INBOX' \(en with such servers a folder name of the form
13787 .Dl imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.
13789 should be used (the last character is the server's hierarchy
13791 The following IMAP-specific commands exist:
13794 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
13797 Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes;
13798 takes a message list and reads the specified messages into the IMAP
13803 If operating in disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
13804 switch to online mode and connect to the mail server while retaining
13805 the mailbox status.
13806 See the description of the
13808 variable for more information.
13812 If operating in online mode on an IMAP mailbox,
13813 switch to disconnected mode while retaining the mailbox status.
13814 See the description of the
13817 A list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
13818 the respective messages are then read into the cache before the
13819 connection is closed, thus
13821 makes the entire mailbox available for disconnected use.
13825 Sends command strings directly to the current IMAP server.
13826 \*(UA operates always in IMAP `selected state' on the current mailbox;
13827 commands that change this will produce undesirable results and should be
13829 Useful IMAP commands are:
13830 .Bl -tag -offset indent -width ".Ic getquotearoot"
13832 Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and creates it.
13834 (RFC 2087) Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument
13835 and prints the quotas that apply to the mailbox.
13836 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13838 (RFC 2342) Takes no arguments and prints the Personal Namespaces,
13839 the Other User's Namespaces and the Shared Namespaces.
13840 Each namespace type is printed in parentheses;
13841 if there are multiple namespaces of the same type,
13842 inner parentheses separate them.
13843 For each namespace a prefix and a hierarchy separator is listed.
13844 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13849 Perform IMAP path transformations.
13853 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
13854 and manages the error number
13856 The first argument specifies the operation:
13858 normalizes hierarchy delimiters (see
13860 and converts the strings from the locale
13862 to the internationalized variant used by IMAP,
13864 performs the reverse operation.
13869 The following IMAP-specific internal variables exist:
13872 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
13874 .It Va disconnected
13875 \*(BO When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable is set,
13876 no connection to the server is initiated.
13877 Instead, data is obtained from the local cache (see
13880 Mailboxes that are not present in the cache
13881 and messages that have not yet entirely been fetched from the server
13883 to fetch all messages in a mailbox at once,
13885 .No ` Ns Li copy * /dev/null Ns '
13886 can be used while still in connected mode.
13887 Changes that are made to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued
13888 and committed later when a connection to that server is made.
13889 This procedure is not completely reliable since it cannot be guaranteed
13890 that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs) on the server still match the
13891 ones in the cache at that time.
13894 when this problem occurs.
13896 .It Va disconnected-USER@HOST
13897 The specified account is handled as described for the
13900 but other accounts are not affected.
13903 .It Va imap-auth-USER@HOST , imap-auth
13904 Sets the IMAP authentication method.
13905 Valid values are `login' for the usual password-based authentication
13907 `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication that does not send
13908 the password over the network in clear text,
13909 and `gssapi' for GSS-API based authentication.
13913 Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes.
13914 The value of this variable must point to a directory that is either
13915 existent or can be created by \*(UA.
13916 All contents of the cache can be deleted by \*(UA at any time;
13917 it is not safe to make assumptions about them.
13920 .It Va imap-delim-USER@HOST , imap-delim-HOST , imap-delim
13921 The hierarchy separator used by the IMAP server.
13922 Whenever an IMAP path is specified it will undergo normalization.
13923 One of the normalization steps is the squeezing and adjustment of
13924 hierarchy separators.
13925 If this variable is set, any occurrence of any character of the given
13926 value that exists in the path will be replaced by the first member of
13927 the value; an empty value will cause the default to be used, it is
13929 If not set, we will reuse the first hierarchy separator character that
13930 is discovered in a user-given mailbox name.
13932 .Mx Va imap-keepalive
13933 .It Va imap-keepalive-USER@HOST , imap-keepalive-HOST , imap-keepalive
13934 IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of
13935 inactivity; the standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes,
13936 but practical experience may vary.
13937 Setting this variable to a numeric `value' greater than 0 causes
13938 a `NOOP' command to be sent each `value' seconds if no other operation
13942 .It Va imap-list-depth
13943 When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the
13945 command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid possible
13947 The value of this variable sets the maximum depth allowed.
13949 If the folder separator on the current IMAP server is a slash `/',
13950 this variable has no effect and the
13952 command does not descend to subfolders.
13954 .Mx Va imap-use-starttls
13955 .It Va imap-use-starttls-USER@HOST , imap-use-starttls-HOST , imap-use-starttls
13956 Causes \*(UA to issue a `STARTTLS' command to make an unencrypted
13957 IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted.
13958 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
13959 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the IMAPS method.
13965 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
13975 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
13984 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
13990 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
13993 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
13994 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
13995 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
13998 command already appeared in First Edition
14002 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
14003 Electronic mail was there from the start.
14004 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
14005 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
14006 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
14007 freeloaders, or whatever.
14008 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
14009 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
14010 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
14016 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
14019 distribution until 1995.
14020 Mail has then seen further development in open source
14022 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
14024 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
14025 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
14026 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
14027 This man page is derived from
14028 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
14029 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
14037 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
14038 .An "Edward Wang" ,
14039 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
14040 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
14041 .An "Gunnar Ritter" .
14042 \*(UA is developed by
14043 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq steffen@sdaoden.eu .
14046 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
14049 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
14053 from anywhere else but a command prompt is very problematic and likely
14054 to leave the program in an undefined state: many library functions
14055 cannot deal with the
14057 that this software (still) performs; even though efforts have been taken
14058 to address this, no sooner but in v15 it will have been worked out:
14059 interruptions have not been disabled in order to allow forceful breakage
14060 of hanging network connections, for example (all this is unrelated to
14064 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
14065 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
14066 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
14071 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
14072 that is capable of message queuing.
14079 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
14080 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
14081 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
14083 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
14084 occasionally (this is may and very).
14088 in the source repository lists future directions.
14091 Please report bugs to the
14093 address, e.g., from within \*(uA:
14094 .\" v15-compat: drop eval as `mail' will expand variable?
14095 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
14096 More information is available on the web:
14097 .Ql $ \*(uA -X 'echo Ns \| $ Ns Va contact-web Ns ' -Xx .