1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2017 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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7 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
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34 .\"@ S-nail v14.9.3 / 2017-08-03
46 .\" If not ~/.mailrc, it breaks POSIX compatibility. And adjust main.c.
51 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
52 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
53 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
64 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
70 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
79 .Op : Ns Fl a Ar attachment Ns \&:
80 .Op : Ns Fl b Ar bcc-addr Ns \&:
81 .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&:
82 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
85 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
88 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
90 .Pf : Ar to-addr Ns \&:
91 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
100 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
102 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
105 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
106 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
115 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
117 .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns
119 .Op : Ns Fl X Ar cmd Ns \&:
121 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns : Ns Ar mta-option Ns \&:
127 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
130 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
133 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
134 .Sy Compatibility note:
135 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2019).
136 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
139 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
140 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
141 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
144 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
145 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
146 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
150 enables obsoletion warnings.
154 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
156 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
158 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
159 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
160 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
161 the user to deal with them in any order.
165 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
166 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
167 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
168 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
169 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
171 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
174 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
177 Explicitly control which of the
181 d (loaded): if the letter
183 is (case-insensitively) part of the
187 is sourced, likewise the letter
189 controls sourcing of the user's personal
191 file, whereas the letters
195 explicitly forbid sourcing of any resource files.
196 Scripts should use this option: to avoid environmental noise they should
198 from any configuration and create a script-specific environment, setting
200 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
203 and running configurating commands via
205 This option overrides
212 command for the given user email
214 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
216 setting is being established; only
218 commands have not been evaluated yet).
219 Being a special incarnation of
221 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived
223 tings, activating such an email account also switches to the accounts
225 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
230 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
233 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
237 .Sx "Filename transformations"
240 will be performed, but shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
244 not be accessible but contain a
246 character, then anything before the
248 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
251 If an input character set is specified,
252 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
253 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
254 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
255 giving the empty string or the special string hyphen-minus
257 will be treated as if
259 has been specified (the default).
261 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
262 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
263 file's type and content.
264 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as the empty
265 string or hyphen-minus
267 then the default conversion algorithm (see
268 .Sx "Character sets" )
269 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
271 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first) \(em
272 without support for character set conversions
274 does not include the term
276 only this argument is supported.
279 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
280 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
285 Send a blind carbon copy to
292 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
294 The option may be used multiple times.
296 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
300 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
302 May be used multiple times.
307 the internal variable
309 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
310 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
316 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
317 This command line option is \*(OB.
321 Just check if mail is present (in the system
323 or the one specified via
325 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
326 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
327 specification can be added with the option
332 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
333 first recipient's address (instead of in
338 Read in the contents of the user's
340 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
342 (or the specified file) for processing;
343 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
349 argument will undergo some special
350 .Sx "Filename transformations"
355 is not an argument to the flag
357 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
361 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
362 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
368 and exit; a configurable summary view is available via the
374 Show a short usage summary.
380 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
386 of all messages that match the given
390 .Sx "Specifying messages"
395 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
396 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
402 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
403 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
408 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
412 and use it as the main message body.
413 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
414 .Va message-inject-head ,
417 .Va message-inject-tail .
423 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
425 and use it as the main message body.
426 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
427 .Va message-inject-head ,
430 .Va message-inject-tail .
436 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
441 for the internal variable
446 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
451 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
452 .Sx "Resource files" .
456 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
457 contents of the specified
459 which may be standard input
461 only in non-interactive context.
469 opened will be in read-only mode.
473 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
474 Whereas the source address that appears in the
476 header of a message (or in the
478 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is honoured by the
479 builtin SMTP transport, it is not used by a file-based
481 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) for the RFC 5321 reverse-path used for relaying
482 and delegating a message to its destination(s), for delivery errors
483 etc., but it instead uses the local identity of the initiating user.
486 When this command line option is used the given
488 will be assigned to the internal variable
490 but in addition the command line option
491 .Fl \&\&f Ar from-addr
492 will be passed to a file-based
494 whenever a message is sent.
497 include a user name the address components will be separated and
498 the name part will be passed to a file-based
504 If an empty string is passed as
506 then the content of the variable
508 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
510 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
519 command line options are used when contacting a file-based MTA, unless
520 this automatic deduction is enforced by
522 ing the internal variable
523 .Va r-option-implicit .
526 Remarks: many default installations and sites disallow overriding the
527 local user identity like this unless either the MTA has been configured
528 accordingly or the user is member of a group with special privileges.
532 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
536 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
540 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
544 may be overwritten from within resource files,
545 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
547 (\*(ID In the future such a setting may instead become
549 until the startup is complete.)
553 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
554 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
555 normalized to space (SP) characters.
559 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
560 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
565 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
566 specified on the command line.
567 If a message subject is specified via
569 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
585 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
586 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
587 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
589 Any other custom header field (also see
593 is passed through entirely
594 unchanged, and in conjunction with the options
598 it is possible to embed
599 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
607 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
610 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
611 .Ql Fl \&\&f Ns \0%user .
620 will also show the list of
622 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
627 ting the internal variable
629 enables display of some informational context messages.
630 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
634 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
636 to the list of commands to be executed,
637 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
638 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
639 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
640 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
650 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
651 in compose mode even in non-interactive use cases.
652 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
653 text before sending the message:
654 .Bd -literal -offset indent
655 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.';\e
656 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
657 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d~:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 bob@exam.ple
662 Enables batch mode: standard input is made line buffered, the complete
663 set of (interactive) commands is available, processing of
664 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
665 is enabled in compose mode, and diverse
666 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
667 are adjusted for batch necessities, exactly as if done via
683 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
684 .Bd -literal -offset indent
685 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' |\e
686 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d#:/ -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
691 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
694 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
695 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
701 arguments and all receivers established via
705 are subject to the checks established by
708 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
711 allows their recognition all
713 arguments given at the end of the command line after a
715 separator will be passed through to a file-based
717 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for the entire session.
719 constraints do not apply to the content of
723 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
726 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
728 Mail, itself a successor of the Research
731 .Dq was there from the start
734 It thus represents the user side of the
736 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
737 traditionally taken by
739 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
744 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
748 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
750 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
751 using it is a smooth experience.
752 (Rather complete configuration examples can be found in the section
756 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
757 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
758 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety already.
766 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to the
768 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
770 that would otherwise occur (see
771 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
774 to not remove empty system MBOX mailbox files in order not to mangle
775 file permissions when files eventually get recreated (all empty (MBOX)
776 mailbox files will be removed unless this variable is set whenever
778 mode has been enabled).
783 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
790 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
792 to allow editing of headers as well as
794 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
796 to include the message that is being responded to when
802 The file mode creation mask can be explicitly managed via the variable
804 Sufficient system support provided symbolic links will not be followed
805 when files are opened for writing.
806 Files and shell pipe output can be
808 d for evaluation, also during startup from within the
809 .Sx "Resource files" .
812 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
813 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
815 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a built-in
817 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
818 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
819 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
823 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
825 .Bd -literal -offset indent
827 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
829 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
830 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
831 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
832 -. '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
835 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
836 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=none \e
837 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
843 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
844 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
845 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
847 special \(en these are so-called
848 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
849 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
850 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
852 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
854 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
856 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
859 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
862 will leave compose mode and send the message once it is completed.
866 at the beginning of an empty line has the same effect, whereas typing
869 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
880 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
881 can be used to alter default behavior.
882 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
885 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
890 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
892 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content, whereas
896 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
897 recipients, respectively.
900 Especially when using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
902 it is often necessary to set
906 (even finer control via
907 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
908 which (even if empty) also causes creation of
915 Saving a copy of sent messages in a
917 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
919 targets the value will undergo
920 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
923 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
924 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
927 has example configurations for some of the well-known public mail
928 providers, and also gives a compact overview on how to setup a secure
929 SSL/TLS environment.)
934 sandbox dry-run tests will prove correctness.
938 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
939 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
940 account credentials, the
942 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
945 goes into the details of character encodings, and how to use them for
946 interpreting the input data given in
948 and representing messages and MIME part contents in
950 and reading the section
951 .Sx "The mime.types files"
952 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
953 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
954 Over the wire a configurable
956 .Pf ( Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding: )
957 may be applied to the message data.
960 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
965 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
966 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
969 is not set then only network addresses (see
971 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
972 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
976 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
978 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
979 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
983 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
984 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
986 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
988 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
989 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
991 or the character sequence dot solidus
993 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
994 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
996 Any other name which contains a commercial at
998 character is treated as a network address;
999 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
1001 character specifies a mailbox name;
1002 Any other name which contains a solidus
1004 character but no exclamation mark
1008 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
1009 What remains is treated as a network address.
1011 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1012 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
1013 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
1014 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1015 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf8 \e
1016 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1021 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1023 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1025 and have it go to a group of people.
1026 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1027 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1031 and are often tracked in a file
1037 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1038 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1039 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1046 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1049 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
1051 .Va on-compose-cleanup
1052 hook variables may be set to
1054 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
1055 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
1056 .Va on-compose-splice
1058 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
1059 variables, the former also to be set to a
1061 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
1062 adjustments are available.
1063 (\*(ID These hooks work for commands which newly create messages, namely
1064 .Ic forward , mail , reply
1069 for now provide only the hooks
1072 .Va on-resend-cleanup . )
1075 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1077 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1078 environment, ideally with the command line options
1080 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1082 to specify variables:
1084 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1085 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1086 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1087 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1088 -S mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465 -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1089 -S from=scriptreply@exam.ple \e
1090 -s 'Subject to go' -a attachment_file \e
1091 -. 'Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>' rec2@exam.ple \e
1096 As shown, scripts can
1098 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1101 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1103 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1104 can be sent by calling the
1106 command with a list of recipient addresses:
1108 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1109 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1110 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1111 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1113 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1114 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1118 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1119 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1121 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1123 When used like that the user's system
1125 (for more on mailbox types please see the command
1127 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed if
1131 The visual style of this summary of
1133 can be adjusted through the variable
1135 and the possible sorting criterion via
1141 can be performed with the command
1143 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1144 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1153 will give a listing of all available commands and
1155 will give a summary of some common ones.
1156 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1159 and see the actual expansion of
1161 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1162 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1163 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1164 however possible to define overwrites with
1165 .Ic commandalias ) .
1166 These commands can also produce a more
1171 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1172 messages; the current message \(en the
1174 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1175 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1177 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1182 ful of header summaries containing the
1186 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1190 Message content can be displayed with the command
1197 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1199 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1201 the sole difference to the command
1203 which will always use the
1207 will instead only show the first
1209 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1212 Message display experience may improve by setting and adjusting
1213 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
1215 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" .
1218 By default the current message
1220 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1221 a fancy message specification (see
1222 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1225 will display all unread messages,
1230 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1232 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1236 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1239 (a more substantial alias for
1241 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1242 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1245 .Dl ? from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1248 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1250 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1251 applications by using the command
1253 e.g., to restrict their display to a very restricted set for
1255 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain Ar \:from to cc subject .
1256 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1257 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1262 will show the raw message content.
1263 Note that historically the global
1265 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1269 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1270 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1271 aims at making the user experience with the many
1274 When reading the system
1280 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1282 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1284 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1285 then messages which have been read will be automatically moved to a
1287 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1290 file, when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1291 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1292 .Sx "Message states" )
1293 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1294 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1297 Messages can also be explicitly
1299 d to other mailboxes, whereas
1301 keeps the original message.
1303 can be used to write out data content of specific parts of messages.
1306 After examining a message the user can
1308 to the sender and all recipients (which will also be placed in
1311 .Va recipients-in-cc
1314 exclusively to the sender(s).
1316 ing a message will allow editing the new message: the original message
1317 will be contained in the message body, adjusted according to
1319 When replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses will be
1320 stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1327 messages: the former will add a series of
1329 headers, whereas the latter will not; different to newly created
1330 messages editing is not possible and no copy will be saved even with
1332 unless the additional variable
1335 Of course messages can be
1337 and they can spring into existence again via
1339 or when the \*(UA session is ended via the
1344 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1346 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1347 automatic moving of read messages to the
1349 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1351 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1355 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1358 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1359 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1361 Messages which are HTML-only become more and more common and of course
1362 many messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME (Multipurpose Internet
1363 Mail Extensions) parts for, e.g., attachments.
1364 To get a notion of MIME types, \*(UA will first read
1365 .Sx "The mime.types files"
1366 (as configured and allowed by
1367 .Va mimetypes-load-control ) ,
1368 and then add onto that types registered directly with
1370 It (normally) has a default set of types built-in, too.
1371 To improve interaction with faulty MIME part declarations which are
1372 often seen in real-life messages, setting
1373 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1374 will allow \*(UA to verify the given assertion and possibly provide
1375 an alternative MIME type.
1378 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter for
1379 HTML messages, it cannot handle MIME types other than plain text itself.
1380 Instead programs need to become registered to deal with specific MIME
1381 types or file extensions.
1382 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input in
1383 order to enable \*(UA to integrate their output neatlessly in its own
1384 message visualization (a mode which is called
1385 .Cd copiousoutput ) ,
1386 or display the content themselves, for example in an external graphical
1387 window: such handlers will only be considered by and for the command
1391 To install a handler program for a specific MIME type an according
1392 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1393 variable needs to be set; to instead define a handler for a specific
1394 file extension the respective
1396 variable can be used \(en these handlers take precedence.
1397 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1398 RFC 1524; this mechanism (see
1399 .Sx "The Mailcap files" )
1400 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1401 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1402 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1403 A last source for handlers is the MIME type definition itself, when
1404 a (\*(UA specific) type-marker was registered with the command
1406 (which many built-in MIME types do).
1409 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1410 fancy plain text representation than the built-in converter is capable to
1411 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1415 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1416 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1417 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1419 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1420 ? if [ "$features" !% +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1421 ? #set pipe-text/html='@* elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1422 ? set pipe-text/html='@* lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1423 ? # Display HTML as plain text instead
1424 ? #set pipe-text/html=@
1426 ? mimetype @ application/mathml+xml mathml
1427 ? wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1428 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1429 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1430 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1434 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1437 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1440 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1442 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1447 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1448 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1449 currently defined mailing lists.
1454 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1455 in the header display.
1458 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1459 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1461 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1462 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1463 (are) matched sequentially.
1465 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1466 ? set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
1467 reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1468 ? wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1469 ? mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1474 .Va followup-to-honour
1476 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1477 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1483 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1484 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1486 .Dq mailing list specific
1491 is used to respond to a message with its
1492 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1496 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1497 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1498 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1499 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1500 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1501 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1503 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1504 address that is presented in the
1506 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1508 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1510 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1513 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1514 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1515 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1519 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
1520 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
1522 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
1523 message signing and message encryption.
1524 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
1525 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
1526 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
1527 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
1528 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
1529 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
1531 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
1534 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
1535 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
1536 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
1538 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
1539 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
1541 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
1542 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
1546 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
1547 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
1548 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
1549 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
1551 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
1553 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
1554 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
1556 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
1557 to avoid using the default certificates and point
1561 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1562 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
1563 certificate has been retrieved with.
1566 This trusted pool of certificates is used by the command
1568 to ensure that the given S/MIME messages can be trusted.
1569 If so, verified sender certificates that were embedded in signed
1570 messages can be saved locally with the command
1572 and used by \*(UA to encrypt further communication with these senders:
1574 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1576 ? set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
1577 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
1581 To sign outgoing messages in order to allow receivers to verify the
1582 origin of these messages a personal S/MIME certificate is required.
1583 \*(UA supports password-protected personal certificates (and keys),
1584 for more on this, and its automatization, please see the section
1585 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
1587 .Sx "S/MIME step by step"
1588 shows examplarily how such a private certificate can be obtained.
1589 In general, if such a private key plus certificate
1591 is available, all that needs to be done is to set some variables:
1593 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1594 ? set smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
1595 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
1600 Variables of interest for S/MIME in general are
1603 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
1604 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
1606 .Va smime-crl-file .
1607 For S/MIME signing of interest are
1609 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
1610 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
1612 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
1613 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
1616 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
1619 \*(ID Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to
1620 message subjects or other header fields yet.
1621 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
1622 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
1623 When sending signed messages,
1624 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
1628 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
1629 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
1631 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
1632 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
1633 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
1636 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
1637 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
1638 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
1640 is used by the local maildir and the IMAP protocol, but not by POP3);
1645 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
1651 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
1654 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
1655 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
1656 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
1657 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
1658 a well-known notation.
1661 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
1662 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
1667 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
1674 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
1680 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
1683 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
1684 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
1685 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
1686 must not be URL percent encoded.
1689 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
1690 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
1691 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
1692 .Ql smtp://our.house
1693 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
1694 .Va smtp-use-starttls
1695 \*(UA first looks for whether
1696 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
1697 is defined, then whether
1698 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
1699 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
1702 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
1703 necessary credential information of an account:
1709 has been given in the URL the variables
1713 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
1714 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
1715 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
1722 specific entry which provides a
1724 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
1727 It is possible to load encrypted
1732 If there is still no
1734 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
1735 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
1736 known to be a valid user on the current host.
1739 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
1740 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
1741 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
1747 has been given in the URL, then if the
1749 has been found through the \*(OPal
1751 that may have already provided the password, too.
1752 Otherwise the variable chain
1753 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
1754 is looked up and used if existent.
1756 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
1757 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
1761 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
1762 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
1763 but with a password).
1765 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
1766 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
1767 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
1772 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
1776 header field(s), which means that the values of
1777 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
1779 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
1780 will not be looked up using the
1784 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
1785 message that is being worked on.
1786 In unusual cases multiple and different
1790 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
1791 unusual cases become possible.
1792 The usual case is as short as:
1794 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1795 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
1796 smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
1802 contains complete example configurations.
1805 .\" .Ss "Encrypted network communication" {{{
1806 .Ss "Encrypted network communication"
1808 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a.k.a. its successor TLS (Transport Layer
1809 Security) are protocols which aid in securing communication by providing
1810 a safely initiated and encrypted network connection.
1811 A central concept to SSL/TLS is that of certificates: as part of each
1812 network connection setup a (set of) certificates will be exchanged, and
1813 by using those the identity of the network peer can be cryptographically
1815 SSL/TLS works by using a locally installed pool of trusted certificates,
1816 and verifying the connection peer succeeds if that provides
1817 a certificate which has been issued or is trusted by any certificate in
1818 the trusted local pool.
1821 The local pool of trusted so-called CA (Certification Authority)
1822 certificates is usually delivered with the used SSL/TLS library (e.g.,
1823 OpenSSL), and will be selected automatically.
1824 It is also possible to create and use an own pool of trusted certificates.
1825 If this is desired, set
1826 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
1827 to avoid using the default certificate pool, and point
1831 to a trusted pool of certificates.
1832 A certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA certificate
1833 has been retrieved with.
1836 It depends on the used protocol whether encrypted communication is
1837 possible, and which configuration steps have to be taken to enable it.
1838 Some protocols, e.g., POP3S, are implicitly encrypted, others, like
1839 POP3, can upgrade a plain text connection if so requested: POP3 offers
1841 which will be used if the variable
1842 .Va pop3-use-starttls
1843 (which is a variable chain, as documented in
1844 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup")
1847 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1848 shortcut encpop1 pop3s://pop1.exam.ple
1850 shortcut encpop2 pop3://pop2.exam.ple
1851 set pop3-use-starttls-pop2.exam.ple
1853 set mta=smtps://smtp.exam.ple:465
1854 set mta=smtp://smtp.exam.ple smtp-use-starttls
1858 Normally that is all there is to do, however plenty of knobs exist to
1859 adjust settings shall the necessity or desire arise.
1860 E.g., it is possible to fine-tune certificate verification via
1862 Also interesting may be the possibility to configure the allowed
1864 s that a communication channel may use: whereas in the past hints of
1865 how to restrict the set of protocols to highly secure ones were
1866 indicated, as of the time of this writing the allowed protocols, or at
1868 .Va ssl-cipher-list ,
1869 may need to become relaxed in order to be able to connect to some
1871 E.g., the following example settings allows connection of a
1873 which uses OpenSSL 0.9.8za from June 2014:
1875 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1876 set ssl-protocol-LION=ALL,-SSLv3,-TLSv1
1877 set ssl-cipher-list-LION=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
1878 ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
1879 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
1885 can be used and should be referred to when creating a custom cipher list.
1886 Variables of interest for SSL/TLS in general are
1890 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
1892 .Va ssl-cipher-list ,
1893 .Va ssl-config-file ,
1904 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1905 .Ss "Character sets"
1907 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1908 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1910 environment variable
1915 in that order, see there).
1916 The internal variable
1918 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly,
1919 and will thus show up in the output of commands like, e.g.,
1925 However, the user may give a value for
1927 during startup, so that it is possible to send mail in a completely
1929 locale environment, an option which can be used to generate and send,
1930 e.g., 8-bit UTF-8 input data in a pure 7-bit US-ASCII
1932 environment (an example of this can be found in the section
1933 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" ) .
1934 Changing the value does not mean much beside that, because several
1935 aspects of the real character set are implied by the locale environment
1936 of the system, which stays unaffected by
1940 Messages and attachments which consist of 7-bit clean data will be
1941 classified as consisting of
1944 This is a problem if the
1946 character set is a multibyte character set that is also 7-bit clean.
1947 For example, the Japanese character set ISO-2022-JP is 7-bit clean but
1948 capable to encode the rich set of Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana
1949 characters: in order to notify receivers of this character set the mail
1950 message must be MIME encoded so that the character set ISO-2022-JP can
1952 To achieve this, the variable
1954 must be set to ISO-2022-JP.
1955 (Today a better approach regarding email is the usage of UTF-8, which
1956 uses 8-bit bytes for non-US-ASCII data.)
1959 If the \*(OPal character set conversion capabilities are not available
1961 does not include the term
1965 will be the only supported character set,
1966 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1967 (over the wire an intermediate, configurable
1970 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1971 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1972 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to
1973 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./config.h:CHARSET_*!)
1974 LATIN1 a.k.a. ISO-8859-1.
1977 \*(OP When reading messages, their text is converted into
1979 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1980 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1981 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1982 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1985 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1986 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1987 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1989 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1990 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1993 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1994 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1995 appear to be binary data,
1996 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1997 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1998 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1999 Permissible values for character sets used in outgoing messages can be
2004 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
2005 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
2009 When replying to a message and the variable
2010 .Va reply-in-same-charset
2011 is set, then the character set of the message being replied to
2012 is tried first (still being a subject of
2013 .Ic charsetalias ) .
2014 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
2015 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
2016 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
2017 please see there for more information.
2020 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
2021 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
2022 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
2023 content of the part or attachment,
2024 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
2028 In general, if a message saying
2029 .Dq cannot convert from a to b
2030 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
2031 selected (terminal) character set,
2032 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
2033 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
2035 locale and/or the variable
2039 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
2040 locale on an UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
2041 spectrum of characters is available.
2042 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
2043 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
2044 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
2047 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
2048 .Dq portable character set
2049 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
2050 restricted subset named
2051 .Dq portable filename character set
2052 consists of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
2060 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
2061 .Ss "Message states"
2063 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
2064 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
2066 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
2068 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
2070 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
2071 When operating on the system
2075 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
2076 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
2078 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2080 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
2081 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
2083 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
2086 mail-user-agents, the default global
2092 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
2094 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
2096 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
2097 Such messages are retained even in the
2099 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2102 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
2103 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
2104 Such messages are retained even in the
2106 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
2109 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2128 will always try to automatically
2134 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
2136 command will do so if the internal variable
2141 command is used, messages that are in a
2143 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2146 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in the
2148 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2150 unless the internal variable
2155 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2161 can be used to access such messages.
2164 The message has been processed by a
2166 command and it will be retained in its current location.
2169 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
2175 command is used, messages that are in a
2177 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
2180 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in the
2182 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
2184 when the internal variable
2190 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
2191 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
2192 addressing them when
2193 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2194 can be set on messages.
2195 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
2196 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
2198 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
2200 Mark messages as having been answered.
2202 Mark messages as being a draft.
2204 Mark messages which need special attention.
2208 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
2209 .Ss "Specifying messages"
2216 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
2217 of messages at once.
2220 deletes messages 1 and 2,
2223 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
2224 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
2228 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
2229 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
2232 The following special message names exist:
2235 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
2237 The current message, the so-called
2241 The message that was previously the current message.
2244 The parent message of the current message,
2245 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
2247 field or the last entry of the
2249 field of the current message.
2252 The next previous undeleted message,
2253 or the next previous deleted message for the
2256 In sorted/threaded mode,
2257 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2260 The next undeleted message,
2261 or the next deleted message for the
2264 In sorted/threaded mode,
2265 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2268 The first undeleted message,
2269 or the first deleted message for the
2272 In sorted/threaded mode,
2273 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
2277 In sorted/threaded mode,
2278 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
2282 selects the message addressed with
2286 is any other message specification,
2287 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
2288 Otherwise it is identical to
2293 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
2298 All messages that were included in the
2299 .Sx "Message list arguments"
2300 of the previous command.
2303 An inclusive range of message numbers.
2304 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
2309 .Dq any substring matches
2312 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
2314 is set (and POSIX says
2315 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
2318 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
2319 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
2321 is completely ignored.
2322 For finer control and match boundaries use the
2326 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
2327 All messages that contain
2329 in the subject field (case ignored).
2336 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
2338 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
2341 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
2343 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
2345 support is available
2347 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
2349 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
2350 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
2354 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
2355 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
2358 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
2360 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
2362 In order to search for a string that includes a
2364 (commercial at) character the
2366 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
2367 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
2381 respectively and case-insensitively.
2386 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2395 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2396 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2398 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2399 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2400 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2401 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2402 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2403 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2404 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2407 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2410 All messages of state
2414 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2416 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2421 Old messages (any not in state
2443 messages (cf. the variable
2444 .Va markanswered ) .
2449 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2450 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2452 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2458 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2459 This addressing mode is available with all types of mailbox
2461 s; \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2462 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2464 in their entirety if they contain whitespace or parentheses;
2465 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2467 is recognized as an escape character.
2468 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2469 When the description indicates that the
2471 representation of an address field is used,
2472 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2475 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2476 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2481 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2482 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2486 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2487 .It Ar ( criterion )
2488 All messages that satisfy the given
2490 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2491 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2493 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2494 All messages that satisfy either
2499 To connect more than two criteria using
2501 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2503 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2507 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2510 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2511 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2515 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2516 All messages that do not satisfy
2518 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2519 All messages that contain
2521 in the envelope representation of the
2524 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2525 All messages that contain
2527 in the envelope representation of the
2530 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2531 All messages that contain
2533 in the envelope representation of the
2536 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2537 All messages that contain
2542 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2543 All messages that contain
2545 in the envelope representation of the
2548 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2549 All messages that contain
2554 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2555 All messages that contain
2558 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2559 All messages that contain
2561 in their header or body.
2562 .It Ar ( larger size )
2563 All messages that are larger than
2566 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2567 All messages that are smaller than
2571 .It Ar ( before date )
2572 All messages that were received before
2574 which must be in the form
2578 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2580 is the name of the month \(en one of
2581 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2584 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2588 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2589 .It Ar ( since date )
2590 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2591 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2592 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2593 .It Ar ( senton date )
2594 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2595 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2596 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2598 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2599 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2600 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2601 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2605 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2606 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2608 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2610 libraries, either the
2612 or, alternatively, the
2614 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2616 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2617 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2618 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2619 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys.
2622 The internal variable
2624 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2625 \*(UA may also become a fullscreen application by entering the
2626 so-called ca-mode and switching to an alternative exclusive screen
2627 (content) shall the terminal support it and the internal variable
2629 has been set explicitly.
2630 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2631 setting the internal variable
2632 .Va termcap-disable ;
2634 will be queried regardless, which is true even if the \*(OPal library
2635 support has not been enabled at configuration time as long as some other
2636 \*(OP which (may) query terminal control sequences has been enabled.
2639 \*(OP The built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2640 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2642 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2643 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2645 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2647 .Va line-editor-disable .
2648 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2649 entries in the internal variable
2651 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2652 The MLE can support a little bit of
2658 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2659 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2660 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2662 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2663 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2667 .Va history-gabby-persist
2672 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2673 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2674 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2675 be generated by holding the
2677 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2681 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2682 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2683 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2685 to establish its built-in key bindings
2686 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2687 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2688 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2689 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2690 notation is used in the following;
2691 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2692 generate a (unique) keycode:
2696 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql \eBa"
2698 Go to the start of the line
2700 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2703 Move the cursor backward one character
2705 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2708 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2709 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2713 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2716 Go to the end of the line
2718 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2721 Move the cursor forward one character
2723 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2726 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2727 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2728 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2729 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2731 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2734 Backspace: backward delete one character
2736 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2740 Horizontal tabulator:
2741 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2742 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2744 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2746 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2750 commit the current line
2752 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2755 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2757 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2762 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2765 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2767 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2770 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2774 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2776 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2779 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2782 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2783 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2784 is committed; also see
2788 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2790 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2793 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2795 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2798 Paste the snarf buffer
2800 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2808 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2811 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2813 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2814 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2815 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2816 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2817 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2818 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2820 function immediately.
2823 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2826 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2829 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2831 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2834 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2836 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2839 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2840 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2842 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2843 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2844 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2845 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2847 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2848 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2849 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2852 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2856 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2860 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2864 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2867 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2878 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2883 ring the audible bell.
2887 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2888 .Ss "Coloured display"
2890 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2891 attributes by emitting ANSI a.k.a. ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic
2892 rendition) escape sequences.
2893 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2894 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2895 environment variable
2897 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2901 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2903 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2904 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2905 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2910 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2911 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2912 support those sequences.
2913 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2914 environment it is often enough to simply set
2916 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2921 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2922 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2927 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2928 command family exists:
2930 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2933 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2934 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2935 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2938 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2939 if terminal && [ "$features" =% +colour ]
2940 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2941 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red from,subject
2942 colour iso view-header fg=red
2944 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2945 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2946 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 "subject,from"
2947 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2948 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2953 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
2956 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
2957 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
2958 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
2960 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
2961 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
2963 state can be prompted: the
2967 message specifications will address respective messages and their
2969 entries will be used when displaying the
2971 in the header display.
2976 rates the given messages and sets their
2979 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
2980 the header display by including the
2990 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
2991 the given messages as
2995 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
2997 of messages; it adheres to their current
2999 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
3004 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
3006 message flag, without any interface interaction.
3015 requires a running instance of the
3017 server in order to function, started with the option
3019 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
3021 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3022 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
3023 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
3024 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
3028 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
3030 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3031 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3032 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3033 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
3035 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3036 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
3037 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
3041 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
3043 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
3046 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3047 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
3048 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
3049 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
3050 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
3051 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
3052 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
3053 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
3057 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
3058 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
3059 perform the local spam check last:
3061 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3062 define spamdelhook {
3064 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
3065 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
3066 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
3067 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
3073 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
3077 See also the documentation for the variables
3078 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
3079 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
3080 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
3083 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
3086 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
3089 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
3092 \*(UA reads input in lines.
3093 An unquoted reverse solidus
3095 at the end of a command line
3097 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
3098 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
3099 once an entire line is completed, the whitespace characters
3100 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3101 as well as those defined by the variable
3103 are removed from the beginning and end.
3104 Placing any whitespace characters at the beginning of a line will
3105 prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
3109 The beginning of such input lines is then scanned for the name of
3110 a known command: command names may be abbreviated, in which case the
3111 first command that matches the given prefix will be used.
3112 .Sx "Command modifiers"
3113 may prefix a command in order to modify its behaviour.
3114 A name may also be a
3116 which will become expanded until no more expansion is possible.
3117 Once the command that shall be executed is known, the remains of the
3118 input line will be interpreted according to command-specific rules,
3119 documented in the following.
3122 This behaviour is different to the
3124 ell, which is a programming language with syntactic elements of clearly
3125 defined semantics, and therefore capable to sequentially expand and
3126 evaluate individual elements of a line.
3127 \*(UA will never be able to handle
3128 .Ql ? set one=value two=$one
3129 in a single statement, because the variable assignment is performed by
3137 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
3138 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
3139 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
3140 \*(OPally the command
3144 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
3145 command matching the expanded argument, as in
3147 which should be a shorthand of
3149 with these documentation strings both commands support a more
3151 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command and other
3152 information which applies; a handy suggestion might thus be:
3154 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3156 # Before v15: need to enable sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
3157 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
3159 ? commandalias xv '\ecall __xv'
3163 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
3164 .Ss "Command modifiers"
3166 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
3170 The modifier reverse solidus
3173 to be placed first, prevents
3175 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
3177 will always evaluate the command
3179 even if an (command)alias of the same name exists.
3181 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
3182 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
3188 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
3189 ignored by the state machine and not cause a program exit with enabled
3191 or for the standardized exit cases in
3196 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3197 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
3200 Some commands support the
3203 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
3204 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
3205 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
3206 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
3208 The given name will be tested for being a valid
3210 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
3211 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
3212 a non-portable extension; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
3213 may not be used as last characters.
3214 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
3215 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3216 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
3217 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
3218 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
3219 Any error during these operations causes the command as such to fail,
3220 and the error number
3223 .Va ^ERR Ns -NOTSUP ,
3230 Last, but not least, the modifier
3233 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
3234 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3235 rules over the traditional
3236 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
3240 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
3241 .Ss "Message list arguments"
3243 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
3244 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
3245 .Sx "Specifying messages"
3247 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
3248 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
3249 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
3250 the search proceeds backwards;
3251 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
3252 shown and the command is aborted.
3255 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
3256 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
3258 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
3259 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
3260 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
3261 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3262 may be available even for those via
3265 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
3266 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
3267 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
3268 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
3271 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3273 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
3278 any whitespace, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
3279 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
3280 part of the argument.
3281 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
3283 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
3284 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
3290 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
3291 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
3295 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
3296 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
3300 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
3301 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
3303 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
3305 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
3307 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
3308 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
3310 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
3313 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
3314 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
3315 Metacharacters are vertical bar
3321 as well as all characters from the variable
3324 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
3325 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
3327 and less-than and greater-than signs
3331 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
3332 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it seems
3333 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
3335 .Bd -filled -offset indent
3336 .Sy Compatibility note:
3337 \*(ID Please note that even many new-style commands do not yet honour
3339 to parse their arguments: whereas the
3341 ell is a language with syntactic elements of clearly defined semantics,
3342 \*(UA parses entire input lines and decides on a per-command base what
3343 to do with the rest of the line.
3344 This also means that whenever an unknown command is seen all that \*(UA
3345 can do is cancellation of the processing of the remains of the line.
3347 It also often depends on an actual subcommand of a multiplexer command
3348 how the rest of the line should be treated, and until v15 we are not
3349 capable to perform this deep inspection of arguments.
3350 Nonetheless, at least the following commands which work with positional
3351 parameters fully support
3353 for an almost shell-compatible field splitting:
3354 .Ic call , call_if , read , vpospar , xcall .
3358 Any unquoted number sign
3360 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
3361 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
3362 An unquoted dollar sign
3364 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
3366 ell-style variable name (see
3368 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3371 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
3372 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
3375 Whereas the metacharacters
3376 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
3377 only complete an input token, vertical bar
3383 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
3384 For now supported is semicolon
3386 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
3387 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
3388 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
3389 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
3390 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
3393 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3394 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
3397 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
3398 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
3399 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
3400 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
3403 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3405 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
3406 with the escape character reverse solidus
3410 Arguments which are enclosed in
3411 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3412 retain their literal value.
3413 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3416 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3417 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3418 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3420 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3422 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3424 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3426 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3430 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3432 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3433 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3436 Arguments enclosed in
3437 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3438 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3439 expanded as follows:
3441 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3443 bell control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 BEL).
3445 backspace control characer (ASCII and ISO-10646 BS).
3447 escape control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 ESC).
3451 form feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 FF).
3453 line feed control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 LF).
3455 carriage return control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 CR).
3457 horizontal tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 HT).
3459 vertical tabulator control character (ASCII and ISO-10646 VT).
3461 emits a reverse solidus character.
3465 double quote (escaping is optional).
3467 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3469 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3471 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3473 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3475 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3476 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3478 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3480 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3481 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3486 This escape is only supported in locales that support Unicode (see
3487 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3488 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3489 point is ASCII compatible or (if the \*(OPal character set conversion is
3490 available) can be represented in the current locale.
3491 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3495 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3497 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3498 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3499 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3500 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3501 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3502 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3503 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3505 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3506 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3508 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3509 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3511 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3513 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO-10646, ISO C) aliases,
3514 as shown above (e.g.,
3518 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3519 The control code NUL
3521 a non-standard extension) will suppress further output for the remains
3522 of the token (which may extend beyond the current quote), or, depending
3523 on the context, the remains of all arguments for the current command.
3525 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3526 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3528 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3535 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3536 ? echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3537 ? echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3538 ? echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3542 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3543 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3545 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3547 in their name, e.g.,
3551 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3552 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3553 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3554 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3555 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3556 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3560 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3561 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3563 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3565 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3566 ? eval shcodec d $res
3567 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3571 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3572 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3574 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3575 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3578 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3580 If the given name is a registered
3582 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3585 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3587 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3589 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3591 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3592 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3593 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3595 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3597 if that is set, or a built-in compile-time default otherwise.
3599 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3601 (and never the value of
3603 regardless of its actual setting).
3605 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3606 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3607 secondary mailbox, the
3614 directory (if that variable is set).
3616 Expands to the same value as
3618 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3620 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3624 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3625 session will be moved to the
3627 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3631 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3632 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3633 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3634 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3635 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3637 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3639 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3641 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3642 directory of the given user is used instead.
3644 In addition a shell expansion as if specified in double-quotes (see
3645 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" )
3646 is applied, so that any occurrence of
3650 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3651 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3654 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism.
3656 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3658 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3659 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3661 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3665 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3668 The following commands are available:
3670 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3677 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3678 previously executed command if the internal variable
3681 This command supports
3684 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
3685 and manages the error number
3687 A 0 or positive exit status
3689 reflects the exit status of the command, negative ones that
3690 an error happened before the command was executed, or that the program
3691 did not exit cleanly, but, e.g., due to a signal: the error number is
3692 .Va ^ERR Ns -CHILD ,
3696 In conjunction with the
3698 modifier the following special cases exist:
3699 a negative exit status occurs if the collected data could not be stored
3700 in the given variable, which is a
3702 error that should otherwise not occur.
3703 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED
3704 indicates that no temporary file could be created to collect the command
3705 output at first glance.
3706 In case of catchable out-of-memory situations
3708 will occur and \*(UA will try to store the empty string, just like with
3709 all other detected error conditions.
3714 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3716 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3719 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3720 on a line are not possible.
3724 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3730 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3731 a numeric argument n.
3735 Show the current message number (the
3740 Show a brief summary of commands.
3741 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3742 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3743 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3744 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3749 and see how the output changes.
3750 This mode also supports a more
3752 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3763 .It Ic account , unaccount
3764 (ac, una) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3765 Accounts are special incarnations of
3767 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3768 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3769 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3771 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3776 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted by the
3777 latter command, and in one operation with the special name
3780 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3781 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3783 of that account will be activated (as via
3785 a possibly installed
3787 will be run, and the internal variable
3790 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3792 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3794 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3795 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3796 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3803 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3804 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3808 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
3809 and manages the error number
3811 The first argument must be either
3812 .Ar [+[+[+]]]e[ncode] ,
3816 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3819 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3820 argument, which should be an email address.
3821 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3822 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3824 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3825 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3828 Skinning is identical to decoding but only outputs the plain address,
3829 without any string, comment etc. components.
3830 Another difference is that it may fail with the error number
3834 if decoding fails to find a(n) (valid) email address, in which case the
3835 unmodified input will be output again.
3838 Encoding supports four different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3839 chosen by prefixing one, two or three plus signs: the standard imposes
3840 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3841 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3843 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3844 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3845 Specify one plus sign to remark that parenthesis shall be left alone,
3846 two for not turning double quotation marks into quoted-pairs, and three
3847 for also leaving any user-specified reverse solidus alone.
3848 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported.
3849 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3852 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3853 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3855 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3856 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3857 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3858 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3859 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
3860 ? addrc s "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3867 .It Ic alias , unalias
3868 (a, una) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists
3869 that map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3870 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed.
3871 The latter command removes the given list of aliases, the special name
3873 will discard all existing aliases.
3875 The former command shows all currently defined aliases when used without
3876 arguments, and with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
3877 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3878 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3879 Alias names adhere to the Postfix MTA
3881 rules and are thus restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3882 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon and commercial at,
3883 the last character can also be the dollar sign; the regular expression:
3884 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@-]+$? .
3885 As extensions the exclamation mark
3890 .Dq any character that has the high bit set
3895 .It Ic alternates , unalternates
3896 \*(NQ (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3897 members of which will be removed from recipient lists.
3898 The latter command removes the given list of alternates, the special name
3900 will discard all existing aliases.
3901 The former command manages the error number
3903 and shows the current set of alternates when used without arguments; in
3904 this mode it supports
3907 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3908 Otherwise the given arguments (after being checked for validity) are
3909 appended to the list of alternate names; in
3911 mode they replace that list instead.
3912 There is a set of implicit alternates which is formed of the values of
3921 .It Ic answered , unanswered
3922 Take a message lists and mark each message as having been answered,
3923 having not been answered, respectively.
3924 Messages will be marked answered when being
3926 to automatically if the
3930 .Sx "Message states" .
3935 .It Ic bind , unbind
3936 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3937 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3938 with freely configurable key bindings.
3939 The latter command removes from the given context the given key binding,
3940 both of which may be specified as a wildcard
3944 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
3945 Due to initialization order unbinding will not work for built-in key
3946 bindings upon program startup, however: please use
3947 .Va line-editor-no-defaults
3948 for this purpose instead.
3951 With one argument the former command shows all key bindings for the
3952 given context, specifying an asterisk
3954 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3955 produced if either of
3960 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3961 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3962 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3964 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3965 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3966 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3968 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3969 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3970 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3973 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3974 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3975 This is not true for the shared binding
3977 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3978 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3979 The available contexts are the shared
3983 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3985 which applies to compose mode only.
3989 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3990 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3991 A list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3993 also refer to the name of a terminal capability; several dozen names
3994 will be compiled in and may be specified either by their
3996 or, if existing, by their
3998 name, regardless of the actually used \*(OPal terminal control library.
3999 It is possible to use any capability, as long as the name is resolvable
4000 by the \*(OPal control library or was defined via the internal variable
4002 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
4003 required to update or remove a binding.
4006 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4007 ? bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
4008 ? bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
4009 ? bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
4010 ? bind default a,b,c rm -irf / @ # Another editable binding
4011 ? bind default :kf1 File %
4012 ? bind compose :kf1 ~e
4016 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
4017 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
4018 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
4019 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
4020 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
4021 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
4022 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
4023 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
4024 and using terminal capabilities does so if no (corresponding) terminal
4025 control support is (currently) available.
4028 The following terminal capability names are built-in and can be used in
4030 or (if available) the two-letter
4033 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
4036 can be used to show all the capabilities of
4038 or the given terminal type;
4041 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
4044 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
4045 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
4047 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
4049 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
4050 \(em shifted variant.
4051 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
4052 Clear to end of line.
4053 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
4055 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
4057 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
4058 \(em shifted variant.
4059 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
4061 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
4062 \(em shifted variant.
4063 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
4065 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
4067 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
4069 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
4070 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
4071 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
4072 \(em shifted variant.
4073 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
4074 Right cursor (ditto).
4075 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
4076 \(em shifted variant.
4077 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
4078 Down cursor (ditto).
4080 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4081 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
4084 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
4085 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
4087 Add one for each function key up to
4092 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
4094 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
4096 Add one for each function key up to
4104 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
4106 For example, the delete key,
4108 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
4110 then a number is appended for the states
4122 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
4124 The same for the left cursor key,
4126 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
4129 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
4131 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
4132 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
4133 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
4136 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
4141 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
4146 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
4147 may be accessed via special (positional) parameters, e.g.,
4152 The positional parameters may be removed by
4154 ing them off the stack (exceeding the supported number of arguments
4156 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW ) ,
4157 and are otherwise controllable via
4162 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4163 can be reverted before the current level regains control by setting
4165 for called macro(s) (or in them, of course).
4166 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
4170 Calling macros recursively will at some time excess the stack size
4171 limit, causing a hard program abortion; if recursively calling a macro
4172 is the last command of the current macro, consider to use the command
4174 which will first release all resources of the current macro before
4175 replacing the current macro with the called one.
4176 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
4180 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
4182 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4184 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
4187 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
4195 if the given macro has been created via
4197 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
4201 (ch) Change the working directory to
4203 or the given argument.
4209 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
4210 Takes a message list and a filename and saves the certificates
4211 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
4212 human-readable and PEM format.
4213 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
4214 respective message senders by setting
4215 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
4220 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
4221 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
4222 as documented in the section
4223 .Sx "Character sets" .
4224 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
4225 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
4227 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
4228 is not available (i.e., no
4232 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown,
4233 with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4234 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
4235 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
4236 existing aliases, as necessary.
4238 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
4240 will remove all aliases.
4244 (ch) Change the working directory to
4246 or the given argument.
4252 .It Ic collapse , uncollapse
4253 Only applicable to threaded mode.
4254 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
4255 in header summaries, except for
4259 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
4260 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
4261 The latter command undoes collapsing.
4266 .It Ic colour , uncolour
4267 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
4268 .Sx "Coloured display" .
4269 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
4270 which must be one of
4272 for 256-colour terminals,
4277 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
4281 for monochrome terminals.
4282 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
4286 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
4287 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
4291 will show the mappings of all types).
4292 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
4293 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
4294 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
4295 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
4296 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
4297 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
4299 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
4300 .Sx "Coloured display"
4301 for some examples), the following of which exist:
4304 Mappings prefixed with
4306 are used for the \*(OPal built-in Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
4307 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
4308 and do not support preconditions.
4310 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4312 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
4313 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
4320 Mappings prefixed with
4322 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
4324 (the current message) and
4326 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
4327 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
4329 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4331 This mapping is used for the
4333 that can be created with the
4337 formats of the variable
4340 For the complete header summary line except the
4342 and the thread structure.
4344 For the thread structure which can be created with the
4346 format of the variable
4351 Mappings prefixed with
4353 are used when displaying messages.
4355 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
4357 This mapping is used for so-called
4359 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
4362 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
4363 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
4364 available then if any of the
4366 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
4367 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
4369 For the introductional message info line.
4370 .It Ar view-partinfo
4371 For MIME part info lines.
4375 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
4376 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
4386 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
4387 attributes for a single mapping.
4390 foreground colour attribute:
4400 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
4401 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
4403 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
4405 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
4407 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
4409 216 colors in tuples of 6.
4411 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
4413 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4415 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4416 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
4418 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4419 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4421 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
4422 printf "\e033[0m\en"
4426 background colour attribute (see
4428 for possible values).
4434 will remove for the given colour type (the special type
4436 selects all) the given mapping; if the optional precondition argument is
4437 given only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
4440 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed), thus
4442 will remove all established mappings.
4447 .It Ic commandalias , uncommandalias
4448 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, command aliases.
4449 An (command)alias can be used everywhere a normal command can be used,
4450 but always takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command
4451 alias are joined onto the alias expansion, and the resulting string
4452 forms the command line that is, in effect, executed.
4453 The latter command removes all given aliases, the special name
4455 will remove all existing aliases.
4456 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4457 known aliases, with one argument only the expansion of the given one.
4459 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4460 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4461 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4462 An alias may itself expand to another alias, but to avoid expansion loops
4463 further expansion will be prevented if an alias refers to itself or if
4464 an expansion depth limit is reached.
4465 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4468 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4469 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4471 \*(uA: `commandalias': no such alias: xx
4472 ? commandalias xx echo hello,
4474 commandalias xx 'echo hello,'
4483 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
4484 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
4485 otherwise identical to
4490 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
4491 otherwise identical to
4496 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
4501 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
4502 The return status is tracked via
4507 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4509 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4513 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
4515 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
4519 .It Ic define , undefine
4520 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
4521 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined, replacing an existing macro of
4523 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
4524 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4533 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
4538 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
4540 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
4542 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
4545 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
4547 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
4549 switch) the macro is invoked.
4550 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
4554 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
4556 ed, or become completely replaced, removed etc. via
4559 The latter command deletes the given macro, the special name
4561 will discard all existing macros.
4562 Creation and deletion of (a) macro(s) can be performed from within
4567 .It Ic delete , undelete
4568 (d, u) Marks the given message list as being or not being
4570 respectively; if no argument has been specified then the usual search
4571 for a visible message is performed, as documented for
4572 .Sx "Message list arguments" ,
4573 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
4574 Deleted messages will neither be saved in the
4576 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4578 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4581 variable is set, the new
4583 or the last message restored, respectively, is automatically
4593 Superseded by the multiplexer
4599 Delete the given messages and automatically
4603 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4610 up or down by one message when given
4614 argument, respectively.
4618 .It Ic draft , undraft
4619 Take message lists and mark each given message as being draft, or not
4620 being draft, respectively, as documented in the section
4621 .Sx "Message states" .
4625 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4626 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4629 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4631 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4632 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4638 except that is echoes to standard error.
4641 In interactive sessions the \*(OPal message ring queue for
4643 will be used instead, if available.
4649 but does not write a trailing newline.
4655 but does not write a trailing newline.
4659 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4661 at each message from the given list in turn.
4662 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4664 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
4665 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
4670 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4671 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4673 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4674 if it evaluates true.
4679 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4680 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4684 commands was true, the
4690 (en) Marks the end of an
4691 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
4692 conditional execution block.
4697 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4698 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4699 and which are managed in the program
4701 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4702 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4703 internal variables via
4707 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4708 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4709 process environment where they normally are not, a
4711 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4714 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB TZ
4717 Afterwards changing such variables with
4719 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4720 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4721 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4722 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4724 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4725 the knowledge they ever have been
4728 Note that this implies that
4730 may cause loss of such links.
4735 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4736 Additionally the subcommands
4740 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4744 but (additionally un)link the variable(s) with the program environment
4745 and thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4746 respectively, the program environment.
4751 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4752 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4753 An error message ring queue is available which stores duplicates of any
4754 error message and notifies the user in interactive sessions whenever
4755 a new error has occurred.
4756 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4757 replaces the eldest.
4760 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4762 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4764 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4768 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4769 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4770 This command passes through the exit status
4774 of the evaluated command; also see
4776 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4787 call yyy '\ecall xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4795 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4796 any saving of messages in the
4798 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
4800 as well as a possibly tracked line editor
4802 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
4804 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
4805 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
4806 otherwise success indicating status.
4812 but open the mailbox read-only.
4817 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4818 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4819 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4820 the user has made, open a new mailbox, update the internal variables
4821 .Va mailbox-resolved
4823 .Va mailbox-display ,
4824 and optionally display a summary of
4831 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4832 will be applied to the
4836 prefixes are, i.e., URL syntax is understood, e.g.,
4837 .Ql maildir:///tmp/mdirbox :
4838 if a protocol prefix is used the mailbox type is fixated and neither
4839 the auto-detection (read on) nor the
4842 \*(OPally URLs can also be used to access network resources, which may
4843 be accessed securely via
4844 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
4845 if so supported, and it is possible to proxy all network traffic over
4846 a SOCKS5 server given via
4850 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4851 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4854 \*(OPally supported network protocols are
4858 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport),
4864 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4866 Network URLs require a special encoding as documented in the section
4867 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4870 If the resulting file protocol (MBOX database)
4872 is located on a local filesystem then the list of all registered
4874 s is traversed in order to see whether a transparent intermediate
4875 conversion step is necessary to handle the given mailbox, in which case
4876 \*(UA will use the found hook to load and save data into and from
4877 a temporary file, respectively.
4878 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes.
4879 For example, the following creates hooks for the
4881 compression tool and a combined compressed and encrypted format:
4883 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4885 gzip 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' \e
4886 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
4890 MBOX database files are generally locked during file operations in order
4891 to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent modifications.
4892 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4897 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4898 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4899 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4903 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4904 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4905 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4906 the dotlock file in the same directory
4907 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4910 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4911 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4912 complain (even more with
4914 if any is seen: in this case
4916 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4919 If no protocol has been fixated, and
4921 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4926 then it is treated as a folder in
4929 The maildir format stores each message in its own file, and has been
4930 designed so that file locking is not necessary when reading or writing
4934 \*(ID If no protocol has been fixated and no existing file has
4935 been found, the variable
4937 controls the format of mailboxes yet to be created.
4942 .It Ic filetype , unfiletype
4943 \*(NQ Define or list, and remove, respectively, file handler hooks,
4944 which provide (shell) commands that enable \*(UA to load and save MBOX
4945 files from and to files with the registered file extensions;
4946 it will use an intermediate temporary file to store the plain data.
4947 The latter command removes the hooks for all given extensions,
4949 will remove all existing handlers.
4951 When used without arguments the former shows a list of all currently
4952 defined file hooks, with one argument the expansion of the given alias.
4953 Otherwise three arguments are expected, the first specifying the file
4954 extension for which the hook is meant, and the second and third defining
4955 the load- and save commands, respectively, to deal with the file type,
4956 both of which must read from standard input and write to standard
4958 Changing hooks will not affect already opened mailboxes (\*(ID except below).
4959 \*(ID For now too much work is done, and files are oftened read in twice
4960 where once would be sufficient: this can cause problems if a filetype is
4961 changed while such a file is opened; this was already so with the
4962 built-in support of .gz etc. in Heirloom, and will vanish in v15.
4963 \*(ID For now all handler strings are passed to the
4964 .Ev SHELL for evaluation purposes; in the future a
4966 prefix to load and save commands may mean to bypass this shell instance:
4967 placing a leading space will avoid any possible misinterpretations.
4968 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4969 ? filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
4970 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
4971 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
4972 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
4973 ? set record=+sent.zst.pgp
4978 .It Ic flag , unflag
4979 Take message lists and mark the messages as being flagged, or not being
4980 flagged, respectively, for urgent/special attention.
4982 .Sx "Message states" .
4991 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
4992 With an existing folder as an argument,
4993 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
4999 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5000 recipient's address (instead of in
5007 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5008 recipient's address (instead of in
5015 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
5020 .It Ic followupsender
5023 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
5031 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
5032 recipient's address (instead of in
5037 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
5038 and forwards the message to him.
5039 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
5040 with the value of the
5041 .Va forward-inject-head
5042 variable preceding it.
5043 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
5045 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
5047 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
5048 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
5049 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names
5050 etc. unless the internal variable
5054 This may generate the errors
5055 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5056 if no receiver has been specified,
5058 if some addressees where rejected by
5061 if no applicable messages have been given,
5063 if multiple messages have been specified,
5065 if an I/O error occurs,
5067 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5073 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
5074 their message headers, exactly as via
5076 An alias of this command is
5079 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5090 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5094 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5097 .It Ic ghost , unghost
5100 .Ic uncommandalias .
5104 .It Ic headerpick , unheaderpick
5105 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to manage white- and blacklisting
5106 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
5107 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
5108 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
5109 command applies, one of (case-insensitive)
5111 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
5114 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
5120 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
5121 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
5123 for stripping down messages when
5125 ing message (has no effect if
5126 .Va forward-as-attachment
5129 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
5132 The current settings of the given context are displayed if it is the
5134 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
5135 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
5139 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
5140 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
5143 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
5144 will be displayed, otherwise the remaining arguments specify header
5145 fields, which \*(OPally may be given as regular expressions, to be added
5147 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
5149 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields.
5151 The latter command always takes three or more arguments and can be used
5152 to remove selections, i.e., from the given context, the given type of
5153 list, all the given headers will be removed, the special argument
5155 will remove all headers.
5159 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
5162 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
5164 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
5165 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
5178 (this mode also supports a more
5182 the list of history entries;
5185 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
5186 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
5187 offset to the current command, e.g.,
5189 will select the last command, the history top.
5190 The default mode if no arguments are given is
5193 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
5194 for more on this topic.
5200 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
5205 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5207 Does not override the
5210 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
5212 command issued after
5214 will display the following message, not the current one.
5219 (i) Part of the nestable
5220 .Ic if Ns \0/\: Ic elif Ns \0/\: Ic else Ns \0/\: Ic endif
5221 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
5222 the encapsulated block is executed.
5223 The POSIX standards supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
5228 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions.
5229 \*(ID These commands do not yet use
5230 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5231 and therefore do not know about input tokens, so that syntax
5232 elements have to be surrounded by whitespace; in v15 \*(UA will inspect
5233 all conditions bracket group wise and consider the tokens, representing
5234 values and operators, therein, which also means that variables will
5235 already have been expanded at that time (just like in the shell).
5237 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5246 The (case-insensitive) condition
5248 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
5249 in interactive sessions.
5250 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
5251 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5252 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
5255 .Dq always execute .
5256 (It shall be remarked that a faulty condition skips all branches until
5261 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
5262 will be used, and this command will simply interpret expanded tokens.)
5263 It is possible to check
5264 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5267 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
5268 value or another variable by using the
5270 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
5271 conditional trigger character;
5272 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
5274 Variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
5275 When this mode has been triggered, several operators are available:
5278 Integer operators treat the arguments on the left and right hand side of
5279 the operator as integral numbers and compare them arithmetically.
5280 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
5281 argument (which implies it had been quoted) is treated as if it were 0.
5282 Available operators are
5286 (less than or equal to),
5292 (greater than or equal to), and
5297 String data operators compare the left and right hand side according to
5298 their textual content.
5299 Unset variables are treated as the empty string.
5300 The behaviour of string operators can be adjusted by prefixing the
5301 operator with the modifier trigger commercial at
5303 followed by none to multiple modifiers: for now supported is
5305 which turns the comparison into a case-insensitive one: this is
5306 implied if no modifier follows the trigger.
5309 Available string operators are
5313 (less than or equal to),
5319 (greater than or equal to),
5323 (is substring of) and
5325 (is not substring of).
5326 By default these operators work on bytes and (therefore) do not take
5327 into account character set specifics.
5328 If the case-insensitivity modifier has been used, case is ignored
5329 according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding, i.e., bytes are
5333 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
5339 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
5340 matched according to the active locale (see
5341 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
5342 i.e., character sets should be honoured correctly.
5345 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
5347 and the OR operator is
5349 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
5350 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
5352 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
5353 them in pairs of brackets
5354 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
5355 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
5359 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
5360 via unary operators: the unary operator
5362 will reverse the result.
5364 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5365 # (This not in v15, there [ -n "$debug"]!)
5369 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" @i== UTF8 ]
5370 echo *ttycharset* is UTF-8, the former case-sensitive!
5373 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
5374 echo These two variables are equal
5376 if [ "$features" =% +regex ] && [ "$TERM" @i=~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
5377 echo ..in an X terminal
5379 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
5380 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
5383 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
5384 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
5393 Superseded by the multiplexer
5398 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
5399 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
5400 in which command prefixes are searched.
5401 \*(OP In conjunction with a set variable
5403 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
5404 type will be indicated, the documentation string will be shown,
5405 and the set of command flags will show up:
5407 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
5408 .It Ql "vput modifier"
5409 command supports the command modifier
5411 .It Ql "errno in *!*"
5412 the error number is tracked in
5415 commands needs an active mailbox, a
5417 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
5418 command may only be used in interactive or
5421 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
5422 command can be used in send mode.
5423 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
5424 command is not available when in compose mode.
5425 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
5426 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
5427 .Sx "Resource files" .
5428 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
5429 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
5430 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
5431 .Va on-compose-splice .
5437 This command can be used to localize changes to (linked)
5440 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
5441 meaning that their state will be reverted to the former one once the
5444 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
5448 The covered scope of an
5450 is left once a different account is activated, and some macros, notably
5451 .Va folder-hook Ns s ,
5452 use their own specific notion of covered scope, here it will be extended
5453 until the folder is left again.
5456 This setting stacks up: i.e., if
5458 enables change localization and calls
5460 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
5462 will still be reverted when the scope of
5465 (Caveats: if in this example
5467 changes to a different
5469 which sets some variables that are already covered by localizations,
5470 their scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
5472 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
5473 were defined in a local, macro private context!)
5476 This command takes one or two arguments, the optional first one
5477 specifies an attribute that may be one of
5479 which refers to the current scope and is thus the default,
5481 which causes any macro that is being
5483 ed to be started with localization enabled by default, as well as
5485 which (if enabled) disallows any called macro to turn off localization:
5486 like this it can be ensured that once the current scope regains control,
5487 any changes made in deeper levels have been reverted.
5488 The latter two are mutually exclusive.
5489 The (second) argument is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
5490 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" )
5491 and states whether the given attribute shall be turned on or off.
5493 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5494 define temporary_settings {
5495 set possibly_global_option1
5500 set possibly_global_option2
5507 Reply to messages that come in via known
5510 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
5511 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
5512 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
5515 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
5516 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
5518 For example it will also implicitly generate a
5519 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
5520 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
5522 For more documentation please refer to
5523 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5525 This may generate the errors
5526 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5527 if no receiver has been specified,
5529 if some addressees where rejected by
5532 if no applicable messages have been given,
5534 if an I/O error occurs,
5536 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5539 Any error stops processing of further messages.
5545 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
5546 recipient's address (instead of in
5551 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
5552 or asks on standard input if none were given;
5553 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
5554 For more documentation please refer to
5555 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
5557 This may generate the errors
5558 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5559 if no receiver has been specified,
5561 if some addressees where rejected by
5564 if no applicable messages have been given,
5566 if multiple messages have been specified,
5568 if an I/O error occurs,
5570 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
5576 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to the
5578 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5580 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
5583 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
5585 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5589 .It Ic mimetype , unmimetype
5590 Without arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed;
5591 a more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5596 When given arguments they will be joined, interpreted as shown in
5597 .Sx "The mime.types files"
5599 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) ,
5600 and the resulting entry will be added (prepended) to the cache.
5601 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
5602 .Va mimetypes-load-control
5603 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
5605 The latter command deletes all specifications of the given MIME type, thus
5606 .Ql ? unmimetype text/plain
5607 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5611 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5613 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5614 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5618 .It Ic mlist , unmlist
5619 The latter command removes all given mailing-lists, the special name
5621 can be used to remove all registered lists.
5622 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists (and their
5623 attributes, if any) when used without arguments; a more verbose listing
5624 will be produced if either of
5629 Otherwise all given arguments will be added and henceforth be recognized
5631 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
5632 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
5638 \*(ID Only available in interactive mode, this command allows to display
5639 MIME parts which require external MIME handler programs to run which do
5640 not integrate in \*(UAs normal
5643 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
5644 (\*(ID No syntax to directly address parts, this restriction may vanish.)
5645 The user will be asked for each non-text part of the given message in
5646 turn whether the registered handler shall be used to display the part.
5650 .It Ic mlsubscribe , unmlsubscribe
5651 The latter command removes the subscription attribute from all given
5652 mailing-lists, the special name
5654 can be used to do so for any registered list.
5655 The former will list all currently defined mailing lists which have
5656 a subscription attribute when used without arguments; a more verbose
5657 listing will be produced if either of
5662 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
5663 newly creating them as necessary (as via
5672 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
5673 sender address of the first message (instead of in
5680 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
5687 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5689 selection, and all MIME parts.
5697 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5698 standard output is a terminal.
5704 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
5706 has been given the content of the
5708 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
5711 then the cache will only be initialized and
5713 will remove its contents.
5714 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
5715 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
5716 to unlock further attempts.
5721 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5723 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5724 documents the file format in detail.
5728 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5730 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5734 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5735 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5743 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5744 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5758 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5760 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5766 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5768 selection, and all MIME parts.
5776 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5777 standard output is a terminal.
5785 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5787 selection, and all parts of MIME
5788 .Ql multipart/alternative
5793 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5794 and pipes the messages through the command.
5795 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5802 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5823 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5826 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
5828 preserving all messages marked with
5832 or never referenced in the system
5834 and removing all other messages from the
5836 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5837 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5839 .Dq You have new mail
5841 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5843 then the edit file is rewritten.
5844 A return to the shell is effected,
5845 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5846 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5847 The optional status number argument will be passed through to
5849 \*(ID For now it can happen that the given status will be overwritten,
5850 later this will only occur if a later error needs to be reported onto an
5851 otherwise success indicating status.
5855 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, or the channel set active via
5857 and assign the data, which will be splitted as indicated by
5859 to the given variables.
5860 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
5862 and the same error codes will be seen in
5866 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
5868 with the error number
5872 in case of I/O errors, or
5875 If there are more fields than variables, assigns successive fields to the
5876 last given variable.
5877 If there are less fields than variables, assigns the empty string to the
5879 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5882 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5884 ? wysh set ifs=:; read a b c;unset ifs
5885 hey2.0,:"'you ",:world!:mars.:
5886 ? echo $?/$^ERRNAME / <$a><$b><$c>
5887 0/NONE / <hey2.0,><"'you ",><world!:mars.:><><>
5892 \*(NQ Read anything from standard input, or the channel set active via
5894 and assign the data to the given variable.
5895 The variable name is checked by the same rules as documented for
5897 and the same error codes will be seen in
5901 indicates the number of bytes read, it will be
5903 with the error number
5907 in case of I/O errors, or
5910 \*(ID The input data length is restricted to 31-bits.
5914 \*(NQ Manages input channels for
5918 to be used to avoid complicated or impracticable code, like calling
5920 from within a macro in non-interactive mode.
5921 Without arguments, or when the first argument is
5923 a listing of all known channels is printed.
5924 Channels can otherwise be
5926 d, and existing channels can be
5930 d by giving the string used for creation.
5932 The channel name is expected to be a file descriptor number, or,
5933 if parsing the numeric fails, an input file name that undergoes
5934 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
5935 E.g. (this example requires a modern shell):
5936 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5937 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enyou\enecho $a' |\e
5940 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'echon "hey, "\enread a\enecho $a' |\e
5941 LC_ALL=C 6<<< 'you' \*(uA -R#X'readctl create 6'
5955 Removes the named files or directories.
5956 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5957 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5958 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5962 Takes the name of an existing folder
5963 and the name for the new folder
5964 and renames the first to the second one.
5965 Both folders must be of the same type.
5969 (R) Replies to only the sender of each message of the given message
5970 list, by using the first message as the template to quote, for the
5974 will exchange this command with
5976 Unless the internal variable
5978 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5980 headers will be inspected if
5984 This may generate the errors
5985 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
5986 if no receiver has been specified,
5988 if some addressees where rejected by
5991 if no applicable messages have been given,
5993 if an I/O error occurs,
5995 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6001 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
6002 and all recipients, subject to
6006 .Va followup-to-honour ,
6009 .Va recipients-in-cc
6010 influence response behaviour.
6011 Unless the internal variable
6013 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
6023 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
6024 For more documentation please refer to
6025 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
6027 This may generate the errors
6028 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6029 if no receiver has been specified,
6031 if some addressees where rejected by
6034 if no applicable messages have been given,
6036 if an I/O error occurs,
6038 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6041 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6047 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
6054 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
6061 but does not add any header lines.
6062 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
6063 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
6067 Takes a list of messages and a user name
6068 and sends each message to the named user.
6070 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
6073 is only performed if
6077 This may generate the errors
6078 .Va ^ERR Ns -DESTADDRREQ
6079 if no receiver has been specified,
6081 if some addressees where rejected by
6084 if no applicable messages have been given,
6086 if an I/O error occurs,
6088 if a necessary character set conversion fails, and
6091 Any error stops processing of further messages.
6109 .It Ic respondsender
6115 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
6120 Only available inside the scope of a
6124 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
6125 execution control to the caller.
6126 The two optional parameters must be specified as positive decimal
6127 numbers and default to the value 0:
6128 the first argument specifies the signed 32-bit return value (stored in
6130 \*(ID and later extended to signed 64-bit),
6131 the second the signed 32-bit error number (stored in
6135 a non-0 exit status may cause the program to exit.
6141 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
6142 sender of the first message instead of (in
6144 and) taking a filename argument; the variable
6146 is inspected to decide on the actual storage location.
6150 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
6151 to the end of the file.
6152 If no filename is given, the
6154 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6157 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
6158 is echoed on the user's terminal.
6161 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
6162 the messages are marked for deletion.
6163 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6165 To filter the saved header fields to the desired subset use the
6167 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
6171 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6175 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6179 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6184 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
6185 all matching messages, as via
6187 This command is an alias of
6190 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
6194 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
6200 (se, \*(NQ uns) The latter command will delete all given variables,
6201 the former, when used without arguments, will show all variables which
6202 are currently known to \*(UA.
6203 A more verbose listing will be produced if
6209 Remarks: the list mode will not automatically link-in known
6211 variables, but only explicit addressing will, e.g., via
6213 using a variable in an
6215 condition or a string passed to
6219 ting, as well as some program-internal use cases.
6222 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
6223 Arguments are of the form
6225 (no space before or after
6229 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
6230 \*(ID In conjunction with the
6233 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
6234 can be used to quote arguments as necessary.
6235 \*(ID Otherwise quotation marks may be placed around any part of the
6236 assignment statement to quote blanks or tabs.
6239 .Dl ? wysh set indentprefix=' -> '
6242 If an argument begins with
6246 the effect is the same as invoking the
6248 command with the remaining part of the variable
6249 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
6254 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
6255 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
6256 environment requires corresponding system support) \(em use the command
6258 for further environmental control.
6263 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6270 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
6274 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6275 The first argument specifies the operation:
6279 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
6280 expanded away thereof, respectively.
6281 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
6282 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
6283 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
6284 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
6285 If the coding operation fails the error number
6288 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6289 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6290 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6294 \*(NQ (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell,
6295 and returns its exit status.
6299 .It Ic shortcut , unshortcut
6300 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
6301 shown, with one argument the expansion of the given shortcut.
6302 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
6303 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
6305 The latter command will remove all given shortcuts, the special name
6307 will remove all registered shortcuts.
6311 \*(NQ Shift the positional parameter stack (starting at
6313 by the given number (which must be a positive decimal),
6314 or 1 if no argument has been given.
6315 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
6316 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
6317 The stack as such can be managed via
6319 Note this command will fail in
6321 and hook macros unless the positional parameter stack has been
6322 explicitly created in the current context via
6329 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
6330 message text is shown.
6334 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
6339 \*(NQ Sleep for the specified number of seconds (and optionally
6340 milliseconds), by default interruptably.
6341 If a third argument is given the sleep will be uninterruptible,
6342 otherwise the error number
6346 if the sleep has been interrupted.
6347 The command will fail and the error number will be
6348 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6349 if the given duration(s) overflow the time datatype, and
6351 if the given durations are no valid integers.
6356 .It Ic sort , unsort
6357 The latter command disables sorted or threaded mode, returns to normal
6358 message order and, if the
6361 displays a header summary.
6362 The former command shows the current sorting criterion when used without
6363 an argument, but creates a sorted representation of the current folder
6364 otherwise, and changes the
6366 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
6368 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
6372 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
6373 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
6375 variable, as in, e.g.,
6376 .Ql set autosort=thread .
6377 Possible sorting criterions are:
6380 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
6382 Sort the messages by their
6384 field, that is by the time they were sent.
6386 Sort messages by the value of their
6388 field, that is by the address of the sender.
6391 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
6393 Sort the messages by their size.
6395 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
6398 Sort the messages by their message status.
6400 Sort the messages by their subject.
6402 Create a threaded display.
6404 Sort messages by the value of their
6406 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
6409 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
6415 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
6416 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6418 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
6420 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
6421 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
6422 Dependent on the settings of
6426 and also dependent on whether the command modifier
6428 had been used, encountering errors will stop sourcing of the given input.
6431 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
6432 .Va folder-hook Ns s
6435 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
6440 \*(NQ The difference to
6442 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
6443 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
6444 argument cannot be opened successfully.
6448 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
6454 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
6456 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
6457 Unless otherwise noted the
6459 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
6467 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6471 This also clears the
6473 flag of the messages in question.
6477 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
6478 .Va spam-interface ,
6479 without modifying the messages, but setting their
6481 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
6482 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
6483 Refer to the manual section
6485 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
6489 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
6495 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
6501 flag of the messages in question.
6517 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
6521 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
6523 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
6524 Unless a special selection has been established for the
6528 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
6539 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
6541 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6546 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in the
6548 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
6550 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
6553 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
6559 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
6561 selection, and all visualizable parts of MIME
6562 .Ql multipart/alternative
6567 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users terminal.
6568 The display of message headers is selectable via
6570 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
6572 all parts which have a registered MIME type handler (see
6573 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
6574 which produces plain text output, and all
6576 parts are shown, others are hidden except for their headers.
6577 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
6581 can be used to display parts which are not displayable as plain text.
6624 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6628 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6633 Superseded by the multiplexer
6644 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
6655 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
6659 Superseded by the multiplexer
6663 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6667 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
6689 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
6690 according to RFC 3986.
6694 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
6695 and manages the error number
6697 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
6698 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current
6700 \*(ID This command does not know about URLs beside that.
6702 The first argument specifies the operation:
6706 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
6710 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
6711 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
6713 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
6717 as an initial character.
6718 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
6719 If the coding operation fails the error number
6722 .Va ^ERR Ns -CANCELED ,
6723 and the unmodified input is used as the result; the error number may
6724 change again due to output or result storage errors.
6728 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
6730 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
6736 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
6740 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
6744 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
6745 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
6746 verification will fail for it.
6747 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
6749 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
6750 within the certificate,
6751 and if the message content has been altered.
6764 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
6765 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
6766 numeric calculations as well as byte string and string operations.
6767 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
6768 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
6769 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
6773 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6776 The result that is shown in case of errors is always
6778 for usage errors and numeric operations, and the empty string for byte
6779 string and string operations;
6780 if the latter two fail to provide result data for
6782 errors, e.g., when a search operation failed, they also set the
6785 .Va ^ERR Ns -NODATA .
6786 Except when otherwise noted numeric arguments are parsed as signed 64-bit
6787 numbers, and errors will be reported in the error number
6789 as the numeric error
6790 .Va ^ERR Ns -RANGE .
6793 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
6794 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
6796 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
6797 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
6799 which creates the bitwise complement.
6800 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
6802 subtraction (hyphen-minus
6804 multiplication (asterisk
6808 and modulo (percent sign
6810 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
6813 bitwise and (ampersand
6816 bitwise xor (circumflex
6818 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
6821 as well as for the unsigned right shift
6825 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
6829 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
6830 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are no longer reported
6831 via the exit status, but the result will linger at the minimum or
6832 maximum possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
6833 This is true also for the argument parse step.
6834 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
6835 Any catched overflow will be reported via the error number
6838 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6841 Character set agnostic string functions have no notion of locale
6842 settings and character sets.
6845 which performs the usual
6846 .Sx "Filename transformations"
6847 on its argument, and
6849 which generates a random string of the given length, or of
6851 bytes (a constant from
6853 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
6854 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a (portable) filename.
6857 Byte string operations work on 8-bit bytes and have no notion of locale
6858 settings and character sets, effectively assuming ASCII data.
6859 Operations that take one argument are
6861 which queries the length of the given argument, and
6863 which calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given argument.
6866 Byte string operations with two or more arguments are
6868 which byte-searches in the first for the second argument, and shows the
6869 resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found,
6871 which is identical to
6873 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
6876 will show a substring of its first argument:
6877 the second argument is the 0-based starting offset, the optional third
6878 argument can be used to specify the length of the desired substring,
6879 by default the entire string is used;
6880 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments (set
6882 for error logs), but reports them via the error number
6885 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW .
6888 String operations work, sufficient support provided, according to the
6889 active user's locale encoding and character set (see
6890 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
6891 There is the one argument operation
6893 which (one-way) converts the argument to something safely printable on
6899 is a string operation that will try to match the first argument with the
6900 regular expression given as the second argument, as does
6902 but which is case-insensitive.
6903 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
6904 the match offset a replacement operation is performed:
6905 the third argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote
6907 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
6908 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
6910 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression.
6912 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6913 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
6914 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama (.*)NanA(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
6921 \*(NQ Manage the positional parameter stack (see
6925 If the first argument is
6927 then the positional parameter stack of the current context, or the
6928 global one, if there is none, is cleared.
6931 then the remaining arguments will be used to (re)create the stack,
6932 if the parameter stack size limit is excessed an
6933 .Va ^ERR Ns -OVERFLOW
6937 If the first argument is
6939 a round-trip capable representation of the stack contents is created,
6940 with each quoted parameter separated from each other with the first
6943 and followed by the first character of
6945 if that is not empty and not identical to the first.
6946 If that results in no separation at all a
6952 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
6953 I.e., the subcommands
6957 can be used (in conjunction with
6959 to (re)create an argument stack from and to a single variable losslessly.
6961 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6962 ? vpospar set hey, "'you ", world!
6963 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6964 ? vput vpospar x quote
6966 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6967 ? eval vpospar set ${x}
6968 ? echo $#: <${1}><${2}><${3}>
6974 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
6975 Modified contents are discarded unless the
6977 variable is set, and are not used unless the mailbox can be written to
6978 and the editor returns a successful exit status.
6982 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
6983 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
6985 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
6986 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
6987 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
6988 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
6989 depends on the execution mode.
6990 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
6992 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
6993 the processed parts.
6994 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
6995 value, the same result as writing it to
6997 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
6999 character for the filename is supported.
7000 Other user input undergoes the usual
7001 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7002 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
7005 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
7006 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
7007 URL percent encoded (as via
7009 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
7010 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
7011 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
7012 a dot are appended after a number sign
7014 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
7019 \*(NQ The sole difference to
7021 is that the new macro is executed in place of the current one, which
7022 will not regain control: all resources of the current macro will be
7024 This implies that any setting covered by
7026 will be forgotten and covered variables will become cleaned up.
7027 If this command is not used from within a
7029 ed macro it will silently be (a more expensive variant of)
7039 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
7041 fuls as described under the
7044 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
7045 likewise if the argument is
7049 scrolls to the last,
7051 scrolls to the first, and
7056 A number argument prefixed by
7060 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
7061 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
7067 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
7078 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
7079 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7081 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
7082 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
7083 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines, and
7084 consist of a trigger (escape) and a command character.
7085 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
7087 it defaults to the tilde
7089 Otherwise ignored whitespace characters following the escape character
7090 will prevent a possible addition of the command line to the \*(OPal
7094 Unless otherwise noted all compose mode command escapes ensure proper
7095 updates of the variables which represent the error number
7101 is set they will, unless stated otherwise, error out message compose
7102 mode and cause a progam exit if an operation fails.
7103 It is however possible to place the character hyphen-minus
7105 after (possible whitespace following) the escape character, which has an
7106 effect equivalent to the command modifier
7108 If the \*(OPal key bindings are available it is possible to create
7110 ings specifically for the compose mode.
7113 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
7116 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
7118 (If the escape character has been changed,
7119 that character must be doubled instead.)
7122 .It Ic ~! Ar command
7123 Execute the indicated shell
7125 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
7126 executed command if the internal variable
7128 is set, then return to the message.
7132 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
7135 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
7136 Execute the given \*(UA command.
7137 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
7141 Write a summary of command escapes.
7144 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
7149 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
7151 is executed using the shell.
7152 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
7155 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
7156 Append or edit the list of attachments.
7157 Does not manage the error number
7163 instead if this is a concern).
7166 arguments is expected as shell tokens (see
7167 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
7168 token-separating commas are ignored, too), to be
7169 interpreted as documented for the command line option
7171 with the message number exception as below.
7175 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
7176 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
7177 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
7178 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
7182 For all mode, if a given filename solely consists of the number sign
7184 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
7185 the given message is attached as a
7188 As the shell comment character the number sign must be quoted.
7192 Inserts the string contained in the
7195 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
7196 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
7200 are understood (use the
7204 ting the variable(s) instead).
7208 Inserts the string contained in the
7211 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
7212 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
7216 are understood (use the
7220 ting the variable(s) instead).
7223 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
7224 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
7227 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
7228 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
7232 Read the file specified by the
7234 variable into the message.
7238 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
7239 After the editing session is finished,
7240 the user may continue appending text to the message.
7243 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
7244 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
7245 message headers and MIME parts.
7246 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7250 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
7251 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
7252 If no messages are specified, read in the current message, the
7254 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7256 white- and blacklist selection of
7258 For MIME multipart messages,
7259 only the first displayable part is included.
7263 Edit the message header fields
7268 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7269 The default values for these fields originate from the
7277 Edit the message header fields
7283 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
7286 .It Ic ~I Ar variable
7287 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message.
7288 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
7289 \*(OB The escape sequences tabulator
7293 are understood (use the
7297 ting the variable(s) instead).
7300 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
7303 but adds a newline character at the end of a successful insertion.
7306 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
7307 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7310 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7314 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
7315 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
7318 If no messages are specified, read the current message, the
7320 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
7322 white- and blacklist selection of
7324 For MIME multipart messages,
7325 only the first displayable part is included.
7329 Display the message collected so far,
7330 prefaced by the message header fields
7331 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
7335 Abort the message being sent,
7336 copying it to the file specified by the
7343 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
7346 but indent each line that has been read by
7350 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
7351 Read the named file, object to the usual
7352 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7353 into the message; if (the expanded)
7357 then standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
7358 Only in this latter mode
7360 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
7362 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
7364 is a required argument in non-interactive mode; if it is single-quote
7365 quoted then the pasted content will not be expanded, \*(ID otherwise
7366 a future version of \*(UA may perform shell-style expansion on the content.
7370 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
7371 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
7372 normalized to space (SP) characters.
7375 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
7376 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
7379 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
7380 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
7384 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
7385 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
7389 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
7391 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
7392 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
7393 After the editor is quit,
7394 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
7397 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
7398 Write the message onto the named file, which is object to the usual
7399 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
7401 the message is appended to it.
7407 except that the message is not saved at all.
7410 .It Ic ~| Ar command
7411 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
7412 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
7413 retain the original text of the message.
7416 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
7420 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
7421 Low-level command meant for scripted message access, i.e., for
7422 .Va on-compose-splice
7424 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
7425 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
7426 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
7427 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
7428 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
7429 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
7430 Does not manage the error number
7434 because errors are reported via the protocol
7435 (hard errors like I/O failures cannot be handled).
7436 This command has read-only access to several virtual pseudo headers in
7437 the \*(UA private namespace, which may not exist (except for the first):
7441 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7442 .It Ql Mailx-Command:
7443 The name of the command that generates the message, one of
7451 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-To:
7452 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Cc:
7453 .It Ql Mailx-Raw-Bcc:
7454 Represent the frozen initial state of these headers before any
7455 transformation (e.g.,
7458 .Va recipients-in-cc
7461 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-From:
7462 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-To:
7463 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Cc:
7464 .It Ql Mailx-Orig-Bcc:
7465 The values of said headers of the original message which has been
7467 .Ic reply , forward , resend .
7471 The status codes are:
7475 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql 210"
7477 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
7480 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7481 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
7482 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
7483 plain address, e.g.,
7485 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
7486 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
7487 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
7488 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7489 commands can be issued.
7492 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
7493 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
7494 terminated by an empty line.
7495 All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before further
7496 commands can be issued.
7499 Syntax error; invalid command.
7502 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
7505 Error: an argument fails verification.
7506 For example an invalid address has been specified, or an attempt was
7507 made to modify anything in \*(UA's own namespace.
7510 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
7511 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
7512 a single address only.
7517 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
7519 Most commands can fail with
7521 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
7522 The following (case-insensitive) commands are supported:
7525 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm header"
7527 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
7528 Header name case is not normalized, and case-insensitive comparison
7529 should be used when matching names.
7530 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7532 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7534 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
7536 this command is the default command of
7538 if no second argument has been given.
7539 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
7542 if no such field is defined.
7545 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
7546 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
7550 any failure results in
7554 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
7559 if no such header can be found, and
7561 on \*(UA namespace violations.
7564 This will remove from the header given as the third argument the
7565 instance at the list position (counting from one!) given with the fourth
7570 if the list position argument is not a number or on \*(UA namespace
7573 if no such header instance exists.
7576 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
7577 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
7578 (the remains of the line).
7581 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
7582 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
7584 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks or
7585 on \*(UA namespace violations, and
7587 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
7589 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
7592 is returned upon success, followed by the name of the header and the list
7593 position of the newly inserted instance.
7594 The list position is always 1 for single-instance header fields.
7595 All free-form header fields are managed in a single list.
7600 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
7601 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
7603 .Bl -hang -width ".It Cm remove"
7605 List all attachments via
7609 if no attachments exist.
7610 This command is the default command of
7612 if no second argument has been given.
7615 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
7619 if no such attachment can be found.
7620 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
7621 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
7622 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
7623 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
7624 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
7627 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
7629 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
7630 will be searched for
7632 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
7633 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
7638 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
7639 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
7643 if the argument is not a number or
7645 if no such attachment exists.
7648 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
7649 documented for the command line option
7651 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
7655 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
7657 if the given file cannot be opened,
7659 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
7661 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
7662 requested but not available.
7665 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7667 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
7671 if no such attachment can be found.
7672 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
7673 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
7677 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7679 and is otherwise identical to
7682 .It Cm attribute-set
7683 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7685 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
7686 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
7687 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
7688 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
7689 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
7693 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
7695 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
7697 if no such attachment can be found.
7698 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
7700 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".It Ql filename"
7702 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
7703 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
7704 .It Ql content-description
7705 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
7706 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
7708 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
7709 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
7712 upon address content verification failure.
7714 Defines the media type/subtype of the part, which is managed
7715 automatically, but can be overwritten.
7716 .It Ql content-disposition
7717 Automatically set to the string
7721 .It Cm attribute-set-at
7722 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
7724 and is otherwise identical to
7735 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
7736 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
7738 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
7742 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
7746 has the same effect as using
7752 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
7757 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
7759 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
7760 Both commands support a more
7763 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
7766 implicitly, others can be imported explicitly with the command
7768 and henceforth share said properties.
7771 Two different kinds of internal variables exist.
7772 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
7776 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
7777 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
7778 introduction of the section
7780 documents the supported quoting rules.
7782 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7783 ? wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
7784 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
7785 varshow one two three four; \e
7786 unset one two three four
7790 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
7791 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
7792 a special kind of string value, the
7793 .Dq boolean string ,
7794 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
7798 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
7804 for a false boolean and
7810 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
7812 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
7813 (case-insensitive) term
7817 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
7818 boolean as the default value.
7820 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
7821 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
7822 .Ss "Initial settings"
7824 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
7830 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
7844 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
7846 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
7848 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
7856 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
7865 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
7867 variable \(en use command line options or
7869 to pass options through to a
7871 And the default global
7873 file, which is loaded unless the
7875 (with according argument) or
7877 command line options have been used, or the
7878 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
7879 environment variable is set (see
7880 .Sx "Resource files" )
7881 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
7886 to name a few, establishes a default
7888 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
7891 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
7894 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
7898 \*(RO The exit status of the last command, or the
7903 This status has a meaning in the state machine: in conjunction with
7905 any non-0 exit status will cause a program exit, and in
7907 mode any error while loading (any of the) resource files will have the
7911 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
7912 can be used to instruct the state machine to ignore errors.
7916 \*(RO The current error number
7917 .Pf ( Xr errno 3 ) ,
7918 which is set after an error occurred; it is also available via
7920 and the error name and documentation string can be queried via
7924 \*(ID This machinery is new and the error number is only really usable
7925 if a command explicitly states that it manages the variable
7927 for others errno will be used in case of errors, or
7929 if that is 0: it thus may or may not reflect the real error.
7930 The error number may be set with the command
7936 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
7937 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
7940 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
7944 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
7945 The number, documentation, and name of the current
7947 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
7948 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
7949 explicitly states that it manages the variable
7951 which is effectively identical to
7953 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
7954 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
7955 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
7956 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7958 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1: \e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
7959 vput vexpr i + "$1" 1
7971 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
7973 separated by a space character.
7974 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
7976 are not yet supported.
7980 \*(RO Expands all positional parameters (see
7982 separated by a space character.
7983 If placed in double quotation marks, each positional parameter is
7984 properly quoted to expand to a single parameter again.
7988 \*(RO Expands to the number of positional parameters, i.e., the size of
7989 the positional parameter stack in decimal.
7993 \*(RO Inside the scope of a
7997 ed macro this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
7998 string if the macro is running from top-level.
7999 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
8001 this expands to the entire matching expression.
8002 It represents the program name in global context.
8006 \*(RO Access of the positional parameter stack.
8007 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
8010 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
8012 The parameter stack contains, e.g., the arguments of a
8016 d macro, the matching groups of the \*(OPal regular expression search
8017 and replace expression of
8019 and can be explicitly created or overwritten with the command
8024 \*(RO Is set to the active
8028 .It Va add-file-recipients
8029 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
8030 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
8031 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
8032 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
8036 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
8037 when comparing addresses.
8041 \*(BO Causes messages saved in the
8043 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
8045 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
8046 This should always be set.
8050 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject upon entering compose mode
8051 unless a subject already exists.
8055 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
8059 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
8063 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message.
8064 An empty line finalizes the list.
8068 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
8069 (at the end of each message if
8077 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
8078 recipients (at the end of each message if
8086 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
8087 signed at the end of each message.
8090 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
8094 \*(BO Alternative name for
8099 A sequence of characters to display in the
8103 as shown in the display of
8105 each for one type of messages (see
8106 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
8107 with the default being
8110 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
8113 variable is set, in the following order:
8115 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
8137 start of a collapsed thread.
8139 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
8143 classified as possible spam.
8149 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
8150 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
8154 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
8155 message will be sent automatically.
8159 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
8166 \*(BO Enable automatic
8168 ing of a(n existing)
8174 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
8176 is shown automatically, as via
8183 Causes sorted mode (see the
8185 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
8186 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
8187 .Ql set autosort=thread .
8191 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
8194 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
8196 shell escape command and
8198 one of the compose mode
8199 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8200 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
8204 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
8205 input, for example for function and other special keys.
8206 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
8207 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
8208 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
8209 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
8210 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
8216 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
8217 has the same affect as setting
8219 and all other variables prefixed with
8221 it also changes the behaviour of
8223 (which does not exist in BSD).
8227 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
8228 summary to traditional BSD style.
8232 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
8237 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
8243 field to appear immediately after the
8245 field in message headers and with the
8247 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
8251 .It Va build-os , build-osenv
8252 \*(RO The operating system \*(UA has been build for, usually taken from
8258 respectively, the former being lowercased.
8262 The value that should appear in the
8266 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
8268 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
8269 US-ASCII compatible.
8273 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
8274 member of the variable
8276 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
8277 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
8280 and this variable is effectively ignored.
8281 Refer to the section
8282 .Sx "Character sets"
8283 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
8286 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
8287 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
8289 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
8291 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
8292 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
8293 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
8295 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
8296 otherwise the (final) value of
8298 is used for this purpose.
8300 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
8301 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
8302 of a MIME message part that uses the
8304 character set is forcefully treated as text.
8308 The default value for the
8313 .It Va colour-disable
8314 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
8315 Also see the section
8316 .Sx "Coloured display" .
8320 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
8322 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
8330 in order to support colours.
8331 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
8332 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
8334 (see there for more).
8338 .It Va contact-mail , contact-web
8339 \*(RO Addresses for contact per email and web, respectively, e.g., for
8340 bug reports, suggestions, or help regarding \*(UA.
8341 The former can be used directly:
8342 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
8346 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
8347 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
8348 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
8352 can be forced by setting this to the value
8354 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
8355 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
8360 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
8361 format, which, dependent on the
8363 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
8364 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
8368 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
8369 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
8372 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
8373 .Va on-compose-splice
8375 .Va on-compose-splice-shell .
8376 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
8377 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
8379 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
8382 .Dl ? set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
8386 Controls the appearance of the
8388 date and time format specification of the
8390 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
8392 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
8393 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
8395 It is possible to assign a
8397 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
8399 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
8401 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
8403 .Va datefield-markout-older .
8406 .It Va datefield-markout-older
8407 Only used in conjunction with
8409 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
8410 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
8412 option of the POSIX utility
8414 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
8416 will be displayed, but a
8418 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
8424 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
8425 actual delivery of messages and also implies
8431 .It Va disposition-notification-send
8433 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
8434 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
8438 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
8440 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8441 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
8442 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
8444 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
8445 .\"for a specific account.
8449 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
8451 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive or batch
8453 compose mode will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the
8454 normal end-of-file condition).
8455 This behaviour is implied in
8461 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
8462 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
8464 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
8465 es (see, e.g., the notes on
8466 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
8467 as well as the documentation of
8469 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
8470 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
8471 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
8472 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
8473 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
8474 fatal unless this variable is set.
8478 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
8479 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
8481 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8485 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
8489 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
8490 its header is included in the editable text.
8494 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
8495 .Dq \&No mail for user
8496 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
8497 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or non-existent
8498 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
8504 \*(BO Let each command with a non-0 exit status, including every
8508 s a non-0 status, cause a program exit unless prefixed by
8511 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
8513 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
8514 but which use a different modifier for ignoring the error.
8515 Please refer to the variable
8517 for more on this topic.
8521 The first character of this value defines the escape character for
8522 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8524 The default value is the character tilde
8526 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
8530 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
8531 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
8532 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
8533 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
8534 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
8536 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
8537 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8541 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
8543 (it actually acts like
8544 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
8545 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8547 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
8550 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
8551 send error instead of only filtering them out.
8552 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
8553 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
8555 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
8559 addresses all possible address specifications,
8563 command pipeline targets,
8565 plain user names and (MTA) aliases and
8568 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
8569 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
8570 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
8571 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
8575 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
8577 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
8578 To change this so that any encountered invalid email address causes
8579 a hard error it must be ensured that
8581 is an entry in the above list.
8582 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
8583 (it actually acts like
8584 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
8585 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
8589 Unless this variable is set additional
8591 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
8592 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
8594 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
8595 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
8597 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
8598 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
8599 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
8601 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
8602 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
8609 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
8611 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
8614 The output of the command
8616 will include this information in a more pleasant output.
8620 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
8621 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
8622 included in the header of a message
8623 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
8624 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
8625 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
8628 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
8630 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
8631 are not affected by the current setting of
8636 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
8637 filenames that begin with the plus sign
8639 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
8640 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
8641 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8644 for more on this topic.
8645 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
8646 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
8650 will be prefixed automatically.
8651 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
8653 will be updated for caching purposes.
8657 This variable can be set to the name of a
8659 macro which will be called whenever a
8662 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
8663 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
8664 only include newly arrived messages then.
8666 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
8667 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
8670 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
8675 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
8676 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
8677 However, if the mailbox resides under
8681 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
8685 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
8686 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
8688 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
8689 first, but then followed by
8690 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
8693 .It Va folder-resolved
8694 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
8696 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
8700 \*(BO Controls whether a
8701 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
8702 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
8704 .Va followup-to-honour
8706 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
8711 .It Va followup-to-honour
8713 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
8714 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
8718 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
8728 .It Va forward-as-attachment
8729 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
8732 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
8733 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
8735 attachments with all of their parts included.
8738 .It Va forward-inject-head
8739 The string to put before the text of a message with the
8741 command instead of the default
8742 .Dq -------- Original Message -------- .
8743 No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
8744 This variable is ignored if the
8745 .Va forward-as-attachment
8750 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
8752 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
8753 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
8754 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
8757 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
8761 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
8762 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
8764 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
8767 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
8771 contains more than one address,
8774 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
8776 If a file-based MTA is used, then
8778 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8780 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
8781 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
8783 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
8784 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
8785 .Va r-option-implicit .
8789 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
8790 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
8791 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
8792 and comments, names etc. are retained.
8795 \*(OB Predecessor of
8796 .Va forward-inject-head .
8800 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
8801 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
8806 mode a header summary will also be displayed on folder changes.
8807 The command line option
8815 A format string to use for the summary of
8817 similar to the ones used for
8820 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
8822 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
8823 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
8824 Valid format specifiers are:
8827 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
8829 A plain percent sign.
8832 a space character but for the current message
8834 for which it expands to
8838 a space character but for the current message
8840 for which it expands to
8843 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
8846 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
8848 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
8852 The date found in the
8854 header of the message when
8856 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
8857 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
8862 The indenting level in threaded mode.
8864 The address of the message sender.
8866 The message thread tree structure.
8867 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
8869 The number of lines of the message, if available.
8873 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
8875 Message subject (if any).
8877 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
8879 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
8880 subscribed mailing list \(en see
8885 The position in threaded/sorted order.
8889 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
8891 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
8902 .It Va headline-bidi
8903 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
8904 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
8905 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
8906 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
8907 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
8908 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
8910 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
8911 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
8912 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
8914 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
8915 fields that may occur when displaying
8917 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
8919 with special Unicode control sequences;
8920 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
8922 no value (or any value other than
8927 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
8928 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
8929 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
8931 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
8933 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
8935 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
8936 sequences onto the line).
8941 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
8942 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
8946 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
8947 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
8952 .It Va history-gabby
8953 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
8956 .It Va history-gabby-persist
8957 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
8959 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
8960 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
8961 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
8967 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
8969 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
8970 loading and incorporation of the
8972 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
8973 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
8974 entries saved to permanent storage.
8978 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
8980 and it is set by default.
8984 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
8985 the value obtained from
8989 It is used, e.g., in
8993 fields, as well as when generating
8995 MIME part related unique ID fields.
8996 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
8997 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
8998 \*(IN in conjunction with the built-in SMTP
9001 also influences the results:
9002 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
9011 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
9012 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
9014 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
9016 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
9017 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
9021 The input field separator that is used (\*(ID by some functions) to
9022 determine where to split input data.
9024 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9026 Unsetting is treated as assigning the default value,
9029 If set to the empty value, no field splitting will be performed.
9031 If set to a non-empty value, all whitespace characters are extracted
9032 and assigned to the variable
9036 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It MMM"
9039 will be ignored at the beginning and end of input.
9040 Diverging from POSIX shells default whitespace is removed in addition,
9041 which is owed to the entirely different line content extraction rules.
9043 Each occurrence of a character of
9045 will cause field-splitting, any adjacent
9047 characters will be skipped.
9052 \*(RO Automatically deduced from the whitespace characters in
9057 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
9058 messages; instead echo them as
9060 characters and discard the current line.
9064 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
9065 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
9066 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
9067 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
9068 explicitly using one of the commands
9072 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
9075 on a line by itself or by using the
9077 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
9078 Setting this implies the behaviour that
9086 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
9088 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
9091 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
9094 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
9097 for more on this topic.
9098 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
9106 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9109 option for indenting messages,
9110 in place of the normal tabulator character
9112 which is the default.
9113 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
9117 \*(BO If set, an empty
9119 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
9120 file is not removed.
9121 Note that, in conjunction with
9123 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
9124 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
9125 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
9126 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
9127 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
9128 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
9131 .It Va keep-content-length
9132 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing MBOX mailbox files \*(UA can
9137 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
9138 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
9139 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
9140 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
9141 work with with same mailbox files.
9142 Note that, if this is not set but
9143 .Va writebackedited ,
9144 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
9145 fields already marks the message as being modified.
9146 \*(ID At some future time \*(UA will be capable to rewrite and apply an
9148 to modified messages, and then those fields will be stripped silently.
9152 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
9153 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
9154 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
9157 .It Va line-editor-disable
9158 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
9159 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
9163 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
9164 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
9168 Error log message prefix string
9169 .Pf ( Ql "\*(uA: " ) .
9172 .It Va mailbox-display
9173 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
9175 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
9178 .It Va mailbox-resolved
9179 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
9182 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
9183 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
9184 .Sx "Resource files" .
9185 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
9187 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
9188 .Sx "Initial settings" .
9192 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
9193 it is marked as having been
9196 .Sx "Message states" .
9200 \*(BO When opening MBOX mailbox databases \*(UA by default uses tolerant
9201 POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
9203 lines) due to compatibility reasons, instead of the stricter rules that
9204 have been standardized in RFC 4155.
9205 This behaviour can be switched to the stricter RFC 4155 rules by
9206 setting this variable.
9207 (This is never necessary for any message newly generated by \*(UA,
9208 it only applies to messages generated by buggy or malicious MUAs, or may
9209 occur in old MBOX databases: \*(UA itself will choose a proper
9211 to avoid false interpretation of
9213 content lines in the MBOX database.)
9215 This may temporarily be handy when \*(UA complains about invalid
9217 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case setting this variable and
9218 re-opening the mailbox in question may correct the result.
9219 If so, copying the entire mailbox to some other file, as in
9220 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE ,
9221 will perform proper, all-compatible
9223 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
9224 Finally the variable can be unset again:
9225 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9227 localopts yes; wysh set mbox-rfc4155;\e
9228 wysh File "${1}"; eval copy * "${2}"
9230 call mboxfix /tmp/bad.mbox /tmp/good.mbox
9235 \*(BO Internal development variable.
9238 .It Va message-id-disable
9239 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
9241 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
9243 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
9244 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
9245 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
9247 This variable also affects automatic generation of
9252 .It Va message-inject-head
9253 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
9254 The escape sequences tabulator
9261 .It Va message-inject-tail
9262 A string to put at the end of each new message.
9263 The escape sequences tabulator
9271 \*(BO Usually, when an
9273 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
9274 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
9279 option to be passed through to the
9281 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
9282 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
9286 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
9287 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
9288 in order to classify the
9291 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
9294 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
9295 a computation rather similar to what the
9297 command produces when used with the
9301 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
9302 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
9303 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
9308 .Ql application/octet-stream :
9309 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
9311 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
9312 interpret the contents of the part.
9314 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
9315 text data at first glance (by a
9319 file extension), then the original
9321 will not be overwritten.
9324 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
9325 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
9326 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
9327 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
9328 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
9329 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
9330 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
9331 contains topic subjects.)
9334 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
9337 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
9338 Some MUAs, however, do not use
9339 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9341 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" )
9342 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but specify an
9343 unspecific MIME type
9344 .Pf ( Ql application/octet-stream )
9345 even for plain text attachments.
9346 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to re-classify such MIME
9347 message parts, if possible, for example via a possibly existing
9348 attachment filename.
9349 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
9350 actually a carrier of bits.
9351 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
9352 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9353 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
9354 Value should be set to 14
9357 .Bl -bullet -compact
9359 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
9361 will be carried along with the message and be used for deciding which
9362 MIME handler is to be used, for example;
9363 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
9364 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
9367 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
9368 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
9369 overriding the parts given MIME type.
9371 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
9372 .Ql application/octet-stream
9373 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
9378 .It Va mime-encoding
9380 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
9381 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
9382 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
9385 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _%%_"
9388 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
9389 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
9390 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
9391 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
9392 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
9393 .It Ql quoted-printable
9395 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
9396 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
9397 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
9398 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
9399 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
9400 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
9401 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
9403 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
9404 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
9406 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
9407 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
9408 to four bytes of output.
9409 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
9414 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
9415 Can be used to control which of
9416 .Sx "The mime.types files"
9417 are loaded: if the letter
9419 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
9421 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
9423 controls loading of the system wide
9424 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
9425 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
9427 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
9428 Incorporation of the \*(UA-built-in MIME types cannot be suppressed,
9429 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
9432 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
9433 value string contains an equals sign
9435 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
9438 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
9439 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
9440 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
9441 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
9442 the MIME type cache).
9447 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
9448 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
9450 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
9452 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9455 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
9456 The default has been chosen at compile time.
9457 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
9458 run asynchronously and without supervision unless either the
9463 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
9470 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
9472 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
9475 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
9478 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
9481 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
9486 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
9487 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
9488 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
9489 (which will also disable passing
9493 (for not treating a line with only a dot
9495 character as the end of input),
9503 variable is set); in conjunction with the
9505 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
9511 \*(OPally \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
9512 defined SMTP smart host by specifying a SMTP URL as the value (see
9513 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
9514 Encrypted network connections are \*(OPally available, the section
9515 .Sx "Encrypted network communication"
9516 should give an overview and provide links to more information on this.
9517 \*(UA also supports forwarding of all network traffic over a specified
9519 Note that with some mail providers it may be necessary to set the
9521 variable in order to use a specific combination of
9526 The following SMTP variants may be used:
9530 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
9531 server port 25 and requires setting the
9532 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9533 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
9534 Assign a value like \*(IN
9535 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9537 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
9538 to choose this protocol.
9540 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
9541 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
9542 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
9543 be supported by your hosts network service database
9544 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
9547 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
9548 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
9549 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9551 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
9552 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
9557 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
9558 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
9559 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
9560 .Va smtp-use-starttls
9561 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
9562 Assign a value like \*(IN
9563 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
9565 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
9570 .It Va mta-arguments
9571 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
9573 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
9574 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
9575 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
9576 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
9577 .Ql ? wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"' .
9580 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
9581 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
9582 standard command line options to a file-based
9584 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
9588 Many systems use a so-called
9590 environment to ensure compatibility with
9592 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
9594 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
9595 actually executed when calling the file-based
9597 will treat its contents as that name.
9600 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
9601 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
9603 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
9604 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
9608 .Sx "The .netrc file"
9609 documents the file format.
9621 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
9623 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
9624 This can be used to, e.g., store
9627 .Ql ? set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp' .
9631 If this variable has the value
9633 newly created local folders will be in Maildir instead of MBOX format.
9637 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
9638 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
9639 If this variable is set to the special value
9641 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
9642 timestamp changes are detected.
9646 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
9649 and the sender-based filenames for the
9653 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
9655 variable rather than to the current directory,
9656 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
9659 .It Va on-compose-cleanup
9660 Macro hook which will be called after the message has been sent (or not,
9661 in case of failures), as the very last step before unrolling compose mode
9663 This hook is run even in case of fatal errors, and it is advisable to
9664 perform only absolutely necessary actions, like cleaning up
9667 For compose mode hooks that may affect the message content please see
9668 .Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave , on-compose-splice .
9669 \*(ID This hook exists only because
9670 .Ic alias , alternates , commandalias , shortcut ,
9671 to name a few, are currently not covered by
9673 or a similar mechanism: any changes applied in compose mode will
9674 continue to be in effect thereafter.
9678 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
9679 Macro hooks which will be called before compose mode is entered,
9680 and after composing has been finished (but before the
9682 is injected, etc.), respectively.
9684 are enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be forgotten after
9685 the message has been sent;
9686 .Va on-compose-cleanup
9687 can be used to perform any other necessary cleanup.
9688 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
9689 execution of the macros to represent the according message headers, or
9690 the empty string for non-existent; they correspond to accoding virtual
9691 temporary message headers that can be accessed via
9694 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" :
9696 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va mailx_subject"
9697 .It Va mailx-command
9698 The command that generates the message.
9699 .It Va mailx-subject
9705 .It Va mailx-to , mailx-cc , mailx-bcc
9706 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
9707 .It Va mailx-raw-to , mailx-raw-cc , mailx-raw-bcc
9708 The list of receiver addresses before any mangling (due to, e.g.,
9711 .Va recipients-in-cc )
9712 as a space-separated list.
9713 .It Va mailx-orig-from
9714 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
9716 of the given message.
9717 .It Va mailx-orig-to , mailx-orig-cc , mailx-orig-bcc
9718 When replying, forwarding or resending, this will be set to the
9719 receivers of the given message.
9725 .It Va on-compose-splice , on-compose-splice-shell
9726 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
9727 .Va on-compose-leave
9728 macro hook is called, the
9731 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
9732 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
9734 The difference in between them is that the latter is a
9736 command, whereas the former is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
9737 restricted to a small set of commands (the
9741 will indicate said capability).
9743 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
9744 to be forgotten after the message has been sent;
9745 .Va on-compose-cleanup
9746 can be used to perform other cleanup as necessary.
9749 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
9750 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
9751 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9752 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproducibilities sake
9756 will be set to their defaults.
9757 The compose mode command
9759 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
9760 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
9761 version of said command escape, currently
9763 backward incompatible protocol changes have to be expected.
9766 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks and other false control flow:
9767 if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
9768 same time, or one does not expect more input but the other is stuck
9769 waiting for consumption of its output, etc.
9770 There is no automatic synchronization of the hook: it will not be
9771 stopped automatically just because it, e.g., emits
9773 The hooks will however receive a termination signal if the parent enters
9775 \*(ID Protection against and interaction with signals is not yet given;
9776 it is likely that in the future these scripts will be placed in an
9777 isolated session, which is signalled in its entirety as necessary.
9779 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9780 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
9782 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
9783 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
9784 read status result;\e
9785 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
9788 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
9791 echo Splice protocol version is $ver
9792 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substring "${hl}" 0 1
9794 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'; xit
9796 if [ "$hl" @i!% ' cc' ]
9797 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
9798 vput vexpr es substring "${es}" 0 1
9800 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
9808 .It Va on-resend-cleanup
9810 .Va on-compose-cleanup ,
9811 but is only triggered by
9815 .It Va on-resend-enter
9817 .Va on-compose-enter ,
9818 but is only triggered by
9823 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
9825 is followed by a formfeed character
9829 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
9830 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
9831 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
9832 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
9833 the authentication method requires a password.
9834 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
9835 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
9837 .It Va password-USER@HOST
9838 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
9839 Set the password for
9843 If no such variable is defined for a host,
9844 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
9845 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
9846 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
9850 \*(BO Send messages to the
9852 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
9856 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
9857 When a MIME message part of type
9859 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
9860 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
9862 Note that only parts which can be displayed inline as plain text (see
9864 are displayed unless otherwise noted, other MIME parts will only be
9865 considered by and for the command
9869 The special value commercial at
9871 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
9872 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
9873 will henceforth display XML
9875 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
9878 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
9879 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
9880 \(em these directives,
9882 has already been used, should be referred to for further documentation.
9887 can in fact be used as a trigger character to adjust usage and behaviour
9888 of a following shell command specification more thoroughly by appending
9889 more special characters which refer to further mailcap directives, e.g.,
9890 the following hypothetical command specification could be used:
9892 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9893 ? set pipe-X/Y='@!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
9897 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
9899 The command produces plain text to be integrated in \*(UAs output:
9903 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
9904 but only when it will be displayed:
9905 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
9908 Run the command asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA:
9912 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
9913 temporarily release the terminal to it:
9917 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
9918 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
9919 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY :
9920 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
9921 If given twice then the file will be unlinked automatically by \*(UA
9922 when the command loop is entered again at latest:
9923 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
9926 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
9927 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
9928 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
9929 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
9930 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
9931 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
9936 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
9937 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
9938 remaining characters.
9939 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
9943 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
9944 the environment of the shell command:
9947 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
9949 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
9950 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
9953 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
9955 .Va mime-counter-evidence
9956 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
9957 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
9958 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
9962 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
9963 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
9966 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
9970 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
9971 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
9972 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
9978 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
9979 This is identical to
9980 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
9983 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
9984 names a file extension, e.g.,
9986 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
9989 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
9990 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
9991 The only possible value as of now is
9993 which is thus the default.
9996 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
9997 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
9998 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
9999 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
10000 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
10002 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
10003 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
10005 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
10006 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
10007 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
10008 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
10009 but practical experience may vary.
10010 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
10014 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
10016 .Mx Va pop3-no-apop
10017 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
10018 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
10020 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
10021 advertises support.
10024 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
10025 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
10027 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
10030 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
10031 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
10032 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10034 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
10035 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
10036 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
10038 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
10044 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
10045 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
10046 It will be set implicitly before the
10047 .Sx "Resource files"
10048 are loaded if the environment variable
10049 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10050 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
10052 The following behaviour is covered and enforced by this mechanism:
10055 .Bl -bullet -compact
10057 In non-interactive mode, any error encountered while loading resource
10058 files during program startup will cause a program exit, whereas in
10059 interactive mode such errors will stop loading of the currently loaded
10060 (stack of) file(s, i.e., recursively).
10061 These exits can be circumvented on a per-command base by using
10064 .Sx "Command modifiers" ,
10065 for each command which shall be allowed to fail.
10069 will replace the list of alternate addresses instead of appending to it.
10072 Upon changing the active
10076 will be displayed even if
10083 implies the behaviour described by
10089 is extended to cover any empty mailbox, not only empty
10091 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
10092 es: they will be removed when they are left in empty state otherwise.
10097 .It Va print-alternatives
10098 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
10099 .Ql multipart/alternative
10100 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
10102 other parts are normally discarded.
10103 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
10104 just as if the surrounding part was of type
10105 .Ql multipart/mixed .
10109 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
10110 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
10111 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
10112 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
10113 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
10114 status information, for example
10119 .Va mailbox-display .
10121 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
10122 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
10123 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
10125 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
10127 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
10129 .Ql set noprompt ) .
10133 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
10140 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
10144 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
10145 prefixed by the value of the variable
10147 Normally, a heading consisting of
10148 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
10149 is put before the quotation.
10154 variable, this heading is omitted.
10157 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
10160 selection are put above the message body,
10163 acts like an automatic
10165 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10169 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
10170 parts are included, making
10172 act like an automatic
10175 .Va quote-as-attachment .
10178 .It Va quote-as-attachment
10179 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
10181 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
10182 Note this works regardless of the setting of
10187 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
10189 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
10190 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
10192 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
10193 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
10194 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
10196 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
10197 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
10198 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
10200 plus some additional pad.
10201 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
10204 .It Va r-option-implicit
10205 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
10207 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10209 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
10211 option (empty argument case).
10214 .It Va recipients-in-cc
10221 are by default merged into the new
10223 If this variable is set, only the original
10227 the rest is merged into
10232 Unless this variable is defined, no copies of outgoing mail will be saved.
10233 If defined it gives the pathname, subject to the usual
10234 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
10235 of a folder where all new, replied-to or forwarded messages are saved:
10236 when saving to this folder fails the message is not sent, but instead
10240 The standard defines that relative (fully expanded) paths are to be
10241 interpreted relative to the current directory
10243 to force interpretation relative to
10246 needs to be set in addition.
10249 .It Va record-files
10250 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10252 will be extended to cover messages which target only file and pipe
10255 These address types will not appear in recipient lists unless
10256 .Va add-file-recipients
10260 .It Va record-resent
10261 \*(BO If this variable is set the meaning of
10263 will be extended to also cover the
10270 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
10271 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
10272 character set of the original message for replies.
10273 If this fails, the mechanism described in
10274 .Sx "Character sets"
10275 is evaluated as usual.
10278 .It Va reply-strings
10279 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
10280 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
10281 built-in strings as
10283 reply message indicators \(en built-in are
10285 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
10290 which often has been seen in the wild;
10291 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
10295 A list of addresses to put into the
10297 field of the message header.
10298 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
10307 .It Va reply-to-honour
10310 header is honoured when replying to a message via
10314 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
10318 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
10319 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
10321 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
10323 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
10327 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
10329 upon interrupt or delivery error.
10333 The number of lines that represents a
10342 line display and scrolling via
10344 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
10345 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
10346 terminal, the more will be shown.
10347 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
10348 environment variables
10356 .It Va searchheaders
10357 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
10359 to all messages containing the substring
10361 in the header field
10363 The string search is case insensitive.
10366 .It Va sendcharsets
10367 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
10368 outgoing internet mail.
10369 The value of the variable
10371 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
10372 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
10373 the only supported charset is
10376 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10377 and refer to the section
10378 .Sx "Character sets"
10379 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
10382 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
10383 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
10385 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
10387 had been set to the value of the variable
10389 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
10390 character set of the current locale encoding:
10391 therefore mail message text will be (assumed to be) in ISO-8859-1
10392 encoding when send from within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8
10393 encoding when send from within an UTF-8 locale.
10397 never comes into play as
10399 is implicitly assumed to be 8-bit and capable to represent all files the
10400 user may specify (as is the case when no character set conversion
10401 support is available in \*(UA and the only supported character set is
10403 .Sx "Character sets" ) .
10404 This might be a problem for scripts which use the suggested
10406 setting, since in this case the character set is US-ASCII by definition,
10407 so that it is better to also override
10413 An address that is put into the
10415 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
10416 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
10417 This field should normally not be used unless the
10419 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
10422 address is handled as if it were in the
10426 .Va r-option-implicit .
10429 \*(OB Predecessor of
10432 .It Va sendmail-arguments
10433 \*(OB Predecessor of
10434 .Va mta-arguments .
10436 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
10437 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
10438 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
10440 .It Va sendmail-progname
10441 \*(OB Predecessor of
10446 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
10448 (including the built-in SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
10450 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
10451 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
10452 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
10456 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
10457 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
10461 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
10462 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
10466 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
10467 summary if the message was sent by the user.
10471 The string to expand
10474 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
10478 The string to expand
10481 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
10485 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
10486 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
10487 and to the first part of each multipart message.
10488 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
10489 individual message.
10492 .It Va skipemptybody
10493 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
10494 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
10495 command line option
10500 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
10501 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
10502 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
10503 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
10504 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
10505 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
10506 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
10507 be explicitly turned off by setting
10508 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
10509 and further fine-tuning is possible via
10510 .Va smime-ca-flags .
10513 .It Va smime-ca-flags
10514 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
10515 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
10516 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
10520 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
10521 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
10522 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
10524 .Mx Va smime-cipher
10525 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
10526 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
10527 messages (for the specified account).
10528 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
10531 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
10539 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
10541 is not available) and
10543 (DES CBC, 56 bits).
10545 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
10546 library that \*(UA uses.
10547 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
10548 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
10549 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
10550 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
10553 .It Va smime-crl-dir
10554 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
10555 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
10558 .It Va smime-crl-file
10559 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
10560 verifying S/MIME messages.
10563 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
10564 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
10565 encrypted before sending.
10566 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
10567 contains a certificate in PEM format.
10569 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
10570 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
10571 individually encrypted message;
10572 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
10574 .Va smime-force-encryption
10576 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
10581 .It Va smime-force-encryption
10582 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
10586 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
10587 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
10588 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
10589 a valid certificate,
10590 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
10591 header and that the message content has not been altered.
10592 It does not change the message text,
10593 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
10595 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
10597 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
10599 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
10600 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
10601 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
10602 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
10603 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
10605 For message signing
10607 is always derived from the value of
10609 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10611 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
10612 (certificate) is expected; the command
10614 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
10615 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
10616 gives some details).
10617 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
10619 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
10624 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
10626 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
10627 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
10628 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
10630 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
10631 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
10632 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
10633 for the private key
10635 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
10636 for the certificate stored in the same file)
10637 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
10638 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
10639 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
10640 For example, the hypothetical address
10642 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
10643 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
10644 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
10645 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
10647 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
10648 To include intermediate certificates, use
10649 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
10651 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
10652 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
10653 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
10654 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
10655 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
10656 .Va smime-sign-cert
10658 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
10659 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
10660 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
10661 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
10662 .Va smime-sign-cert .
10663 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
10664 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
10666 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
10668 refers to the content of the internal variable
10670 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10673 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
10674 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
10675 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
10676 via the mechanisms described in
10677 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
10679 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
10680 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
10681 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
10682 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
10684 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
10692 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
10693 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
10694 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
10695 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
10696 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
10697 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
10698 Remember that for this
10700 refers to the variable
10702 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
10706 \*(OB\*(OP To use the built-in SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
10708 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
10710 is used in preference of
10714 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
10715 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
10717 authentication method, possible values are
10723 as well as the \*(OPal methods
10729 method does not need any user credentials,
10731 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
10739 .Va smtp-auth-password
10741 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
10746 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
10747 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
10750 .It Va smtp-auth-password
10751 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
10752 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
10753 .Va smtp-auth-password
10755 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
10757 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
10759 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
10761 .Va smtp-auth-password
10762 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
10765 .It Va smtp-auth-user
10766 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
10767 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
10770 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
10772 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
10774 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
10777 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
10781 .It Va smtp-hostname
10782 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
10784 to derive the necessary
10786 information in order to issue a
10793 can be used to use the
10795 from the SMTP account
10802 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
10804 or the local hostname as a last resort).
10805 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
10806 a provider other than which (in
10808 is about to send the message.
10809 Setting this variable also influences generated
10815 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
10816 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
10817 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
10819 command to make an SMTP
10821 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
10824 .It Va socks-proxy-USER@HOST , socks-proxy-HOST , socks-proxy
10825 \*(OP If this is set to the hostname (SOCKS URL) of a SOCKS5 server then
10826 \*(UA will proxy all of its network activities through it.
10827 This can be used to proxy SMTP, POP3 etc. network traffic through the
10828 Tor anonymizer, for example.
10829 The following would create a local SOCKS proxy on port 10000 that
10830 forwards to the machine
10832 and from which the network traffic is actually instantiated:
10833 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10834 # Create local proxy server in terminal 1 forwarding to HOST
10835 $ ssh -D 10000 USER@HOST
10836 # Then, start a client that uses it in terminal 2
10837 $ \*(uA -Ssocks-proxy-USER@HOST=localhost:10000
10841 .It Va spam-interface
10842 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
10844 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
10845 Please refer to the manual section
10846 .Sx "Handling spam"
10847 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
10848 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
10850 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
10856 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
10858 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
10859 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
10860 knowledge to parse the program's output.
10861 A default value for
10863 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
10867 during compilation.
10868 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
10869 using a configuration file for that), the variable
10870 .Va spamc-arguments
10871 can be used as in, e.g.,
10872 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
10873 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
10875 Note that this interface does not inspect the
10877 flag of a message for the command
10881 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
10882 This interface is meant for programs like
10884 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
10885 status for at least the command
10888 meaning a message is spam,
10892 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
10893 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
10894 can be intercepted as necessary.
10896 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
10899 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
10901 .Sx "Handling spam"
10902 contains examples for some programs.
10903 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
10904 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
10906 Note that spam score support for
10908 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
10910 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
10916 .It Va spam-maxsize
10917 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
10919 .Va spam-interface .
10920 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
10923 .It Va spamc-command
10924 \*(OP The path to the
10928 .Va spam-interface .
10929 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
10931 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
10932 executable had been found during compilation.
10935 .It Va spamc-arguments
10936 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
10939 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
10940 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
10941 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
10945 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
10947 .Va spam-interface .
10948 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
10957 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
10958 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
10959 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
10961 .Va spam-interface .
10963 .Sx "Handling spam"
10964 contains examples for some programs.
10967 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
10968 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
10971 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
10972 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
10973 be used to overcome this restriction.
10974 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
10975 must be followed by a semicolon
10977 and an extended regular expression.
10978 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
10979 .Va spamfilter-rate
10980 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
10981 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
10985 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
10986 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
10987 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
10988 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
10989 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
10990 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
10991 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
10992 be explicitly turned off by setting
10993 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
10994 and further fine-tuning is possible via
10997 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
10998 for more information.
10999 \*(UA will try to use the TLS/SNI (ServerNameIndication) extension when
11000 establishing TLS connections to servers identified with hostnames.
11004 .It Va ssl-ca-flags
11005 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
11006 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
11008 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
11009 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
11010 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
11011 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
11012 which are usually defined in a file
11013 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
11014 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
11015 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
11017 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
11020 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11021 .It Cd no-alt-chains
11022 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
11024 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
11025 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
11026 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
11027 .Cd trusted-first .
11028 .It Cd no-check-time
11029 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
11030 .It Cd partial-chain
11031 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
11032 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
11033 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
11034 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
11036 The OpenSSL manual page
11037 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
11038 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
11040 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
11041 .It Cd trusted-first
11042 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
11043 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
11044 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
11045 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
11046 .Cd no-alt-chains .
11051 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
11052 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
11053 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
11056 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
11057 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the filename for a SSL/TLS client
11058 certificate required by some servers.
11059 This is a direct interface to the
11063 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
11065 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
11066 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
11067 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
11068 This is a direct interface to the
11072 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
11075 .Xr SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list 3
11076 for more information.
11077 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
11079 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
11080 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
11081 supports \(en the manual section
11082 .Sx "An example configuration"
11083 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
11086 .It Va ssl-config-file
11087 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
11088 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
11089 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
11091 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
11092 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
11093 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
11094 The application name will always be passed as
11098 .It Va ssl-curves-USER@HOST , ssl-curves-HOST , ssl-curves
11099 \*(OP Specifies a list of supported curves for SSL/TLS connections.
11100 This is a direct interface to the
11104 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
11105 .Xr SSL_CTX_set1_curves_list 3
11106 for more information.
11107 By default \*(UA does not set a list of curves.
11111 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
11112 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
11113 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
11116 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
11117 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the filename for the private key of
11118 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
11119 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
11120 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
11121 This is a direct interface to the
11125 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
11127 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
11128 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
11130 instead: if both values are set,
11132 will take precedence!
11133 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
11135 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
11137 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
11139 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
11141 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
11144 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
11149 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
11150 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
11152 .Mx Va ssl-protocol
11153 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
11154 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
11155 This is a direct interface to the
11159 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
11160 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
11161 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
11167 as well as the special value
11169 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
11170 ignores any whitespace.
11173 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
11175 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
11177 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
11179 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
11180 supported and which protocols are used if
11182 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
11184 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
11185 .Va ssl-cipher-list
11186 may be worthwile, see
11187 .Sx "An example configuration" .
11190 .It Va ssl-rand-egd
11191 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
11193 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
11196 .It Va ssl-rand-file
11197 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
11198 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
11199 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
11200 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11202 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
11203 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
11205 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
11206 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
11207 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
11208 This variable is only used if
11210 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
11213 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
11214 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
11215 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
11216 specified or default trust stores
11219 or the SSL/TLS library built-in defaults (unless usage disallowed via
11220 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
11221 and as fine-tuned via
11223 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
11225 (fail and close connection immediately),
11227 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
11229 (show a warning and continue),
11231 (do not perform validation).
11237 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
11243 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
11244 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
11245 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
11246 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
11247 to track down the originating mail user agent.
11248 If set to the value
11254 suppression does not occur.
11259 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
11264 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11265 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
11268 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11269 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11272 String capabilities form
11274 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
11275 Numerics have to be notated as
11277 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
11278 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
11279 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
11280 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
11281 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
11282 for one notations like
11285 .Ql control-LETTER ,
11286 and for clarification purposes
11288 can be used to specify
11290 (the control notation
11292 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
11293 the standard CSI sequence);
11294 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
11297 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
11298 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
11300 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11301 ? set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
11305 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
11306 operation of the built-in line editor or \*(UA in general:
11309 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd yay"
11311 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
11313 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
11314 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
11315 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
11318 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
11321 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
11322 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen ca-mode,
11323 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
11324 This must be enabled explicitly by setting
11325 .Va termcap-ca-mode .
11327 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
11331 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
11332 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
11333 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
11334 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
11336 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
11340 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
11342 clear the screen and home cursor.
11343 (Will be simulated via
11348 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
11353 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
11355 clear to the end of line.
11356 (Will be simulated via
11358 plus repetitions of space characters.)
11360 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
11361 .Cd column_address :
11362 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
11363 (Will be simulated via
11369 .Cd carriage_return :
11370 move to the first column in the current row.
11371 The default built-in fallback is
11374 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
11376 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
11377 The default built-in fallback is
11380 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
11382 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
11383 The default built-in fallback is
11385 which is used by most terminals.
11393 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
11398 .It Va termcap-ca-mode
11399 \*(OP Allow usage of the
11403 terminal capabilities, effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen
11404 application, as documented for
11407 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11408 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11411 .It Va termcap-disable
11412 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
11413 If set only some generic fallback built-ins and possibly the content of
11415 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
11417 this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
11418 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
11422 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
11425 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
11428 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
11429 unsigned right shifting (see
11437 \*(BO If set then the
11439 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
11443 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
11444 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
11445 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
11446 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
11447 from the locale specified in the
11449 environment variable (if supported, see there for more).
11450 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
11451 Refer to the section
11452 .Sx "Character sets"
11453 for the complete picture about character sets.
11456 .It Va typescript-mode
11457 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
11458 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
11461 .Va colour-disable ,
11462 .Va line-editor-disable
11463 and (before startup completed only)
11464 .Va termcap-disable .
11465 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
11469 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
11473 but this variable can be used to override that:
11474 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting (on
11475 startup), otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to
11477 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
11480 .It Va user-HOST , user
11481 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
11482 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
11484 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
11488 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
11489 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
11490 how they are handled.
11491 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
11492 doing things, respectively.
11496 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
11498 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
11499 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
11500 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
11501 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
11502 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
11505 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
11512 .It Va version , version-date , version-major , version-minor , version-update
11513 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
11514 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
11515 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
11516 The date is in ISO 8601 notation.
11517 The output of the command
11519 will include this information.
11522 .It Va writebackedited
11523 If this variable is set messages modified using the
11527 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
11528 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
11529 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
11530 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
11531 performed, and proper RFC 4155
11533 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
11536 .\" }}} (Variables)
11538 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
11541 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
11545 .Dq environment variable
11546 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
11547 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
11548 commonly found in there.
11549 The process environment is inherited from the
11551 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
11552 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
11553 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
11554 from \*(UA's point of view.
11555 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
11559 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
11560 newly created child processes).
11563 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
11564 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
11566 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
11567 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
11568 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
11570 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
11572 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
11574 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11575 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
11577 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
11580 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
11583 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
11585 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
11586 processes and the MLE (see
11587 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
11588 in interactive mode thereafter.
11589 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 80 columns, unless in
11595 The name of the (mailbox)
11597 to use for saving aborted messages if
11599 is set; this defaults to
11606 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
11611 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
11615 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11616 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
11620 The user's home directory.
11621 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11622 The calling user's home directory will be used instead if this directory
11623 does not exist, is not accessible or cannot be read.
11624 (No test for being writable is performed to allow usage by
11625 non-privileged users within read-only jails, but dependent on the
11626 variable settings this directory is a default write target, e.g. for
11634 .It Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , LANG
11635 \*(OP The (names in lookup order of the)
11639 which indicates the used
11640 .Sx "Character sets" .
11641 Runtime changes trigger automatic updates of the entire locale system,
11642 updating and overwriting also a
11648 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
11649 or window size in lines.
11650 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
11651 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
11652 Ignored in non-interactive mode, which always uses 24 lines, unless in
11658 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
11660 command when operating on local mailboxes.
11663 (path search through
11668 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
11669 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
11670 name to any newly created child process.
11674 Is used as the users
11676 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
11680 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
11684 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
11685 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
11686 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
11687 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
11688 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
11689 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
11690 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
11694 Is used as a startup file instead of
11697 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
11698 either this variable should be set to
11702 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
11703 reading their configuration files.
11704 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11707 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
11708 If this variable is set then reading of
11710 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
11711 had been started up with the option
11713 (and according argument) or
11715 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
11719 The name of the users
11721 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
11723 A logical subset of the special
11724 .Sx "Filename transformations"
11730 Traditionally this MBOX is used as the file to save messages from the
11732 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
11733 that have been read.
11735 .Sx "Message states" .
11739 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
11745 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
11749 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
11750 The default paginator is
11752 (path search through
11755 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
11757 then a non-existing environment variable
11764 will optionally be set to
11771 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
11772 looking for commands, e.g.,
11773 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
11776 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
11777 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
11783 The shell to use for the commands
11788 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
11789 and when starting subprocesses.
11790 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
11793 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
11794 This specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch (1970-01-01) to be
11795 used in place of the current time.
11796 This variable is looked up upon program startup, and its existence will
11797 switch \*(UA to a completely reproducible mode which causes
11798 deterministic random numbers, a special fixed (non-existent?)
11800 and more to be used and set.
11801 It is to be used during development or by software packagers.
11802 \*(ID Currently an invalid setting is only ignored, rather than causing
11803 a program abortion.
11805 .Dl $ SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=`date +%s` \*(uA
11809 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
11810 For extended colour and font control please refer to
11811 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
11812 and for terminal management in general to
11813 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
11817 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
11819 if set, existent, accessible as well as read- and writable.
11820 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
11821 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
11822 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
11828 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
11829 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
11833 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
11837 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
11847 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
11849 File giving initial commands, one of the
11850 .Sx "Resource files" .
11853 System wide initialization file, one of the
11854 .Sx "Resource files" .
11858 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
11859 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
11860 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
11861 a configuration option and can be overridden via
11865 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
11866 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
11867 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
11868 This location is part of the RFC 1524 standard search path, which is
11869 a configuration option and can be overridden via
11873 The default value for
11875 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11878 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
11879 Personal MIME types, see
11880 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
11881 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11884 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
11885 System wide MIME types, see
11886 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
11887 The actually used path is a configuration option.
11891 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
11893 file \(en the section
11894 .Sx "The .netrc file"
11895 documents the file format.
11896 The actually used path is a configuration option and can be overridden via
11903 The actually used path is a compile-time constant.
11907 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
11908 .Ss "Resource files"
11910 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
11912 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
11915 System wide initialization file.
11916 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
11918 (and according argument) or
11920 command line options, or by setting the
11923 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
11927 File giving initial commands.
11928 A different file can be chosen by setting the
11932 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
11934 command line option.
11936 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
11937 Defines a startup file to be read after all other resource files.
11938 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
11940 implementations, for example.
11941 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
11943 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
11947 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
11950 .Bl -bullet -compact
11952 The whitespace characters space, tabulator and newline,
11953 as well as those defined by the variable
11955 are removed from the beginning and end of input lines.
11957 Empty lines are ignored.
11959 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
11960 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
11962 by placing a reverse solidus character
11964 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
11965 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
11966 remains in the input.
11968 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
11970 then it is a comment-command and also ignored.
11971 (The comment-command is a real command, which does nothing, and
11972 therefore the usual follow lines mechanism applies!)
11976 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
11977 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
11978 More files with syntactically equal content can be
11980 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
11982 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11983 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
11984 es, it is really continued here.
11991 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
11992 .Ss "The mime.types files"
11995 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
11996 \*(UA needs to learn about MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
11997 media types in order to classify message and attachment content.
11998 One source for them are
12000 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
12001 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12002 Another is the command
12004 which also offers access to \*(UAs MIME type cache.
12006 files have the following syntax:
12008 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12009 type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12010 # E.g., text/html html htm
12016 define the MIME media type, as standardized in RFC 2046:
12018 is used to declare the general type of data, while the
12020 specifies a specific format for that type of data.
12021 One or multiple filename
12023 s, separated by whitespace, can be bound to the media type format.
12024 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
12026 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
12028 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in especially
12029 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
12030 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12031 and prepends an optional
12035 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
12038 The following type markers are supported:
12041 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
12043 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
12048 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
12049 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
12050 the content as plain text instead.
12054 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
12055 handler to be defined.
12060 for sending messages:
12062 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
12063 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
12064 For reading etc. messages:
12065 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12066 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
12068 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12069 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
12070 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12071 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12074 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
12075 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
12077 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
12078 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
12080 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
12081 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports (see
12082 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ) .
12083 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
12084 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
12085 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
12086 et cetera MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that
12087 includes multiple possible locations of
12091 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
12092 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
12093 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
12094 the list of MIME type handler directives.
12098 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
12099 Comment lines start with a number sign
12101 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
12102 Empty lines are also ignored.
12103 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
12105 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
12106 follow lines if newline characters are
12108 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
12110 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
12111 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
12115 entries consist of a number of semicolon
12117 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
12119 character can be used to escape any following character including
12120 semicolon and itself.
12121 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
12122 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
12123 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
12126 The first field defines the MIME
12128 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
12129 escaping is possible in this field).
12130 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
12132 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
12134 would match any audio type.
12135 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
12137 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
12144 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
12145 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
12148 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
12149 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
12152 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
12153 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
12155 In any case any given
12157 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
12158 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
12160 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
12161 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
12162 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12164 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12165 flags had been set; see below for more.
12168 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
12169 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
12170 naming the field followed by an equals sign
12172 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
12174 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
12175 Optional fields include the following:
12178 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12180 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
12182 (Currently unused.)
12184 .It Cd composetyped
12187 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
12189 header field to be applied to the composed data.
12190 (Currently unused.)
12193 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
12195 (Currently unused.)
12198 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
12200 (Currently unused.)
12203 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
12204 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
12205 this mailcap entry applies.
12206 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
12207 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
12210 .It Cd needsterminal
12211 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
12212 an interactive terminal.
12213 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
12214 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
12215 ignored; this flag implies
12216 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
12219 .It Cd copiousoutput
12220 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
12222 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
12223 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
12224 It is mutually exclusive with
12225 .Cd needsterminal .
12227 .It Cd textualnewlines
12228 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
12229 that, if encoded in
12231 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
12232 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
12233 (Currently unused.)
12235 .It Cd nametemplate
12236 This field gives a filename format, in which
12238 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
12239 will be used as the filename denoted by
12240 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12241 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
12242 have a name ending in
12245 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
12246 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
12247 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
12248 characters, the underscore and dot only.
12251 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
12252 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
12253 This field is not used by \*(UA.
12256 A textual description that describes this type of data.
12259 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
12260 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
12262 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
12263 then their use will be considered.
12264 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
12265 .Cd needsterminal .
12268 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
12269 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
12272 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
12273 (as it would be by default).
12276 .It Cd x-mailx-async
12277 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
12279 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
12280 Cannot be used in conjunction with
12281 .Cd needsterminal .
12284 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
12285 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
12287 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
12288 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
12289 .Dq running under the X Window System .
12292 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12293 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
12294 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
12295 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
12296 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12301 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
12302 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
12303 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
12305 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
12306 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
12307 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12309 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12314 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
12315 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
12316 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
12317 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
12318 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
12320 format, or in conjunction with
12321 .Cd x-mailx-async ,
12322 or without also setting
12323 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
12325 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
12328 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12331 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
12333 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
12335 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
12340 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
12341 entry fields, prefixed by
12343 Flag fields apply to the entire
12345 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
12346 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
12347 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
12348 one does not provide enough information.
12351 command needs to specify the
12355 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
12359 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
12361 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12362 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
12363 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
12367 In fields any occurrence of the format string
12369 will be replaced by the
12372 Named parameters from the
12374 field may be placed in the command execution line using
12376 followed by the parameter name and a closing
12379 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
12380 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
12382 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12384 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
12387 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
12388 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
12390 # Executed shell command
12391 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
12395 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
12396 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
12397 shown in this example (as of today).
12398 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
12402 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
12404 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
12405 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
12406 in additional user-provided quotes:
12408 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12410 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
12412 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
12414 application/pdf; \e
12416 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
12417 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
12419 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
12421 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
12422 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
12423 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
12428 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
12429 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
12432 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
12433 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
12434 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
12437 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
12438 .Ss "The .netrc file"
12442 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
12443 The default location in the user's
12445 directory may be overridden by the
12447 environment variable.
12448 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
12449 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
12450 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
12451 of that file format, shall their
12453 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
12456 .Bl -bullet -compact
12458 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
12459 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
12461 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
12462 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
12464 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
12466 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
12468 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
12469 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
12470 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
12472 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
12473 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
12474 whitespace, with a number sign
12476 then the rest of the line is ignored.
12478 Whereas other programs may require that the
12480 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
12482 token for any other
12486 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
12490 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
12495 At runtime the command
12497 can be used to control \*(UA's
12501 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
12502 .It Cd machine Ar name
12503 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
12505 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
12510 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
12513 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
12514 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
12516 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12517 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
12518 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
12519 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
12525 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
12529 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
12530 Note that in the example neither
12531 .Ql pop3.example.com
12533 .Ql smtp.example.com
12534 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
12535 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
12538 This is the same as
12540 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
12541 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
12542 and it must be the last first-class token.
12544 .It Cd login Ar name
12545 The user name on the remote machine.
12547 .It Cd password Ar string
12548 The user's password on the remote machine.
12550 .It Cd account Ar string
12551 Supply an additional account password.
12552 This is merely for FTP purposes.
12554 .It Cd macdef Ar name
12556 A macro is defined with the specified
12558 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
12559 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
12562 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
12563 defined following the
12565 they are intended to be used with.)
12568 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
12569 This is merely for FTP purposes.
12576 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
12579 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
12580 .Ss "An example configuration"
12582 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12583 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
12586 # Request strict transport security checks!
12587 set ssl-verify=strict
12589 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
12590 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
12591 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
12592 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
12593 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
12594 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
12595 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
12596 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
12597 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
12599 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
12600 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
12601 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
12602 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
12603 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
12604 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
12606 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
12607 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
12608 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
12609 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
12610 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
12611 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
12613 # - TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:\e
12614 # ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
12615 # DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
12616 # -ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
12617 # Especially with TLSv1.3 curves selection may be desired:
12618 #set ssl-curves=P-521:P-384:P-256
12620 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
12621 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
12623 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
12624 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
12625 set reply-in-same-charset
12627 # When replying, do not merge From: and To: of the original message
12628 # into To:. Instead old From: -> new To:, old To: -> merge Cc:.
12629 set recipients-in-cc
12631 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
12632 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
12633 # exit status of the MTA (including the built-in SMTP one)!
12636 # Only use built-in MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
12637 set mimetypes-load-control
12639 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
12641 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
12642 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
12643 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt \e
12644 record=+sent.mbox record-files record-resent
12646 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
12647 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
12649 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
12650 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12652 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
12653 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
12654 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
12655 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
12656 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
12659 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
12661 colour-pager crt= \e
12662 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
12663 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
12664 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
12665 prompt='?\e$?!\e$!/\e$^ERRNAME[\e$account#\e$mailbox-display]? ' \e
12666 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
12669 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
12670 headerpick type retain from_ date from to cc subject \e
12671 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
12672 # ...when forwarding messages
12673 headerpick forward retain subject date from to cc
12674 # ...when saving message, etc.
12675 #headerpick save ignore ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
12677 # Some mailing lists
12678 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
12679 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
12681 # Handle a few file extensions (to store MBOX databases)
12682 filetype bz2 'bzip2 -dc' 'bzip2 -zc' \e
12683 gz 'gzip -dc' 'gzip -c' xz 'xz -dc' 'xz -zc' \e
12684 zst 'zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc' \e
12685 zst.pgp 'gpg -d | zstd -dc' 'zstd -19 -zc | gpg -e'
12687 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
12688 # Instead of directly placing content inside `account',
12689 # we `define' a macro: like that we can switch "accounts"
12690 # from within *on-compose-splice*, for example!
12692 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12693 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
12695 set pop3-no-apop-pop.gmXil.com
12696 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.gmXil.com
12697 shortcut imap %:imaps://imap.gmXil.com
12699 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
12701 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.gmail.com:465
12707 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
12708 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
12709 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
12710 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
12711 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
12712 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
12714 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12715 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12717 shortcut pop %:pop3s://pop.yaXXex.ru
12719 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
12720 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
12726 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
12727 commandalias lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
12728 commandalias llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
12730 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
12731 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
12734 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
12735 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
12736 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
12738 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
12741 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
12742 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
12743 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
12747 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
12748 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
12755 commandalias V '\e'call V
12759 When storing passwords in
12761 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
12762 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
12765 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
12767 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
12768 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
12770 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12772 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
12773 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
12775 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
12776 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
12778 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
12779 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
12780 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
12781 commandalias xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
12793 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12794 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
12798 This configuration should now work just fine:
12801 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -dvv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
12804 .\" .Ss "S/MIME step by step" {{{
12805 .Ss "S/MIME step by step"
12807 \*(OP The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message
12808 exchange is your personal certificate, including a private key.
12809 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
12810 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
12811 encrypt messages for you,
12812 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
12813 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
12814 The private key must be kept secret.
12815 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
12816 public key, and to sign messages.
12819 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
12820 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
12821 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
12823 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
12824 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
12825 community for free; their root certificate
12826 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
12827 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
12828 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
12829 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
12832 or as a vivid member of the
12833 .Va smime-ca-file .
12834 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
12835 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
12838 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
12839 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
12840 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
12841 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
12842 entries of the web interface.
12843 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
12844 .Dq client certificate ,
12845 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
12846 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
12850 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
12851 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
12852 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
12855 .Dl $ openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
12858 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
12860 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
12861 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
12862 .Dq advanced options
12863 to see the corresponding text field).
12864 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
12865 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
12866 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
12867 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
12868 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
12873 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
12874 (certificate) file has to be created:
12877 .Dl $ cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
12880 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
12881 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
12882 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
12883 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
12885 is of interest for verification only):
12887 .Bd -literal -offset indent
12888 ? set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
12889 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
12890 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
12896 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
12897 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
12899 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
12900 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
12901 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
12902 declared invalid after they have been issued.
12903 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
12905 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
12906 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
12907 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
12908 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
12909 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
12910 invalidated certificates.
12911 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
12912 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
12915 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
12916 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
12919 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
12922 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
12923 (and no other files) must be created.
12928 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
12929 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
12930 to verify a certificate.
12939 In general it is a good idea to turn on
12945 twice) if something does not work well.
12946 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
12947 problems' solution.
12949 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
12950 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
12952 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
12953 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
12955 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
12956 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
12958 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
12962 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
12965 return the expected value?
12966 Does this local hostname have a domain suffix?
12967 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
12969 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
12972 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
12973 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
12975 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
12977 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
12978 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
12979 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
12982 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
12983 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
12984 her- and himself with the locally installed
12986 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
12987 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
12988 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
12989 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
12992 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
12993 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
12994 .Dq less secure app
12995 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
12996 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
13001 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
13004 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
13006 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
13008 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
13009 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
13010 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
13014 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
13015 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
13017 It can happen that the terminal library (see
13018 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
13021 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
13022 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
13023 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
13024 Especially without the \*(OPal terminal capability library support one
13025 reason for this may be that the (possibly even non-existing) keypad
13026 is not turned on and the resulting layout reports the keypad control
13027 codes for the normal keyboard keys.
13032 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
13035 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
13037 in conjunction with the command line option
13039 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
13040 by keypresses, and use the variable
13042 to make \*(UA aware of them.
13043 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
13044 an example showing the shifted home key:
13046 .Bd -literal -offset indent
13049 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
13054 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
13064 .\" .Sh "IMAP CLIENT" {{{
13067 \*(OPally there is IMAP client support available.
13068 This part of the program is obsolete and will vanish in v15 with the
13069 large MIME and I/O layer rewrite, because it uses old-style blocking I/O
13070 and makes excessive use of signal based long code jumps.
13071 Support can hopefully be readded later based on a new-style I/O, with
13072 SysV signal handling.
13073 In fact the IMAP support had already been removed from the codebase, but
13074 was reinstantiated on user demand: in effect the IMAP code is at the
13075 level of \*(UA v14.8.16 (with
13077 being the sole exception), and should be treated with some care.
13084 protocol prefixes, and an IMAP-based
13087 IMAP URLs (paths) undergo inspections and possible transformations
13088 before use (and the command
13090 can be used to manually apply them to any given argument).
13091 Hierarchy delimiters are normalized, a step which is configurable via the
13093 variable chain, but defaults to the first seen delimiter otherwise.
13094 \*(UA supports internationalised IMAP names, and en- and decodes the
13095 names from and to the
13097 as necessary and possible.
13098 If a mailbox name is expanded (see
13099 .Sx "Filename transformations" )
13100 to an IMAP mailbox, all names that begin with `+' then refer to IMAP
13101 mailboxes below the
13103 target box, while folder names prefixed by `@' refer to folders below
13104 the hierarchy base.
13107 Note: some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in
13108 the hierarchy base, but require that they are created as subfolders of
13109 `INBOX' \(en with such servers a folder name of the form
13111 .Dl imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.
13113 should be used (the last character is the server's hierarchy
13115 The following IMAP-specific commands exist:
13118 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
13121 Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes;
13122 takes a message list and reads the specified messages into the IMAP
13127 If operating in disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
13128 switch to online mode and connect to the mail server while retaining
13129 the mailbox status.
13130 See the description of the
13132 variable for more information.
13136 If operating in online mode on an IMAP mailbox,
13137 switch to disconnected mode while retaining the mailbox status.
13138 See the description of the
13141 A list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
13142 the respective messages are then read into the cache before the
13143 connection is closed, thus
13145 makes the entire mailbox available for disconnected use.
13149 Sends command strings directly to the current IMAP server.
13150 \*(UA operates always in IMAP `selected state' on the current mailbox;
13151 commands that change this will produce undesirable results and should be
13153 Useful IMAP commands are:
13154 .Bl -tag -offset indent -width ".Ic getquotearoot"
13156 Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and creates it.
13158 (RFC 2087) Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument
13159 and prints the quotas that apply to the mailbox.
13160 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13162 (RFC 2342) Takes no arguments and prints the Personal Namespaces,
13163 the Other User's Namespaces and the Shared Namespaces.
13164 Each namespace type is printed in parentheses;
13165 if there are multiple namespaces of the same type,
13166 inner parentheses separate them.
13167 For each namespace a prefix and a hierarchy separator is listed.
13168 Not all IMAP servers support this command.
13173 Perform IMAP path transformations.
13177 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) ,
13178 and manages the error number
13180 The first argument specifies the operation:
13182 normalizes hierarchy delimiters (see
13184 and converts the strings from the locale
13186 to the internationalized variant used by IMAP,
13188 performs the reverse operation.
13193 The following IMAP-specific internal variables exist:
13196 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
13198 .It Va disconnected
13199 \*(BO When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable is set,
13200 no connection to the server is initiated.
13201 Instead, data is obtained from the local cache (see
13204 Mailboxes that are not present in the cache
13205 and messages that have not yet entirely been fetched from the server
13207 to fetch all messages in a mailbox at once,
13209 .No ` Ns Li copy * /dev/null Ns '
13210 can be used while still in connected mode.
13211 Changes that are made to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued
13212 and committed later when a connection to that server is made.
13213 This procedure is not completely reliable since it cannot be guaranteed
13214 that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs) on the server still match the
13215 ones in the cache at that time.
13218 when this problem occurs.
13220 .It Va disconnected-USER@HOST
13221 The specified account is handled as described for the
13224 but other accounts are not affected.
13227 .It Va imap-auth-USER@HOST , imap-auth
13228 Sets the IMAP authentication method.
13229 Valid values are `login' for the usual password-based authentication
13231 `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication that does not send
13232 the password over the network in clear text,
13233 and `gssapi' for GSS-API based authentication.
13237 Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes.
13238 The value of this variable must point to a directory that is either
13239 existent or can be created by \*(UA.
13240 All contents of the cache can be deleted by \*(UA at any time;
13241 it is not safe to make assumptions about them.
13244 .It Va imap-delim-USER@HOST , imap-delim-HOST , imap-delim
13245 The hierarchy separator used by the IMAP server.
13246 Whenever an IMAP path is specified it will undergo normalization.
13247 One of the normalization steps is the squeezing and adjustment of
13248 hierarchy separators.
13249 If this variable is set, any occurrence of any character of the given
13250 value that exists in the path will be replaced by the first member of
13251 the value; an empty value will cause the default to be used, it is
13253 If not set, we will reuse the first hierarchy separator character that
13254 is discovered in a user-given mailbox name.
13256 .Mx Va imap-keepalive
13257 .It Va imap-keepalive-USER@HOST , imap-keepalive-HOST , imap-keepalive
13258 IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of
13259 inactivity; the standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes,
13260 but practical experience may vary.
13261 Setting this variable to a numeric `value' greater than 0 causes
13262 a `NOOP' command to be sent each `value' seconds if no other operation
13266 .It Va imap-list-depth
13267 When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the
13269 command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid possible
13271 The value of this variable sets the maximum depth allowed.
13273 If the folder separator on the current IMAP server is a slash `/',
13274 this variable has no effect and the
13276 command does not descend to subfolders.
13278 .Mx Va imap-use-starttls
13279 .It Va imap-use-starttls-USER@HOST , imap-use-starttls-HOST , imap-use-starttls
13280 Causes \*(UA to issue a `STARTTLS' command to make an unencrypted
13281 IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted.
13282 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
13283 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the IMAPS method.
13289 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
13299 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
13308 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
13314 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
13317 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
13318 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
13319 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
13322 command already appeared in First Edition
13326 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
13327 Electronic mail was there from the start.
13328 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
13329 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
13330 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
13331 freeloaders, or whatever.
13332 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
13333 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
13334 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
13340 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
13343 distribution until 1995.
13344 Mail has then seen further development in open source
13346 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
13348 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
13349 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
13350 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
13351 This man page is derived from
13352 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
13353 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
13361 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
13362 .An "Edward Wang" ,
13363 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
13364 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
13365 .An "Gunnar Ritter" .
13366 \*(UA is developed by
13367 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq steffen@sdaoden.eu .
13370 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
13373 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
13377 from anywhere else but a command prompt is very problematic and likely
13378 to leave the program in an undefined state: many library functions
13379 cannot deal with the
13381 that this software (still) performs; even though efforts have been taken
13382 to address this, no sooner but in v15 it will have been worked out:
13383 interruptions have not been disabled in order to allow forceful breakage
13384 of hanging network connections, for example (all this is unrelated to
13388 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
13389 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
13390 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
13395 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
13396 that is capable of message queuing.
13403 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
13404 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
13405 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
13407 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
13408 occasionally (this is may and very).
13412 in the source repository lists future directions.
13415 Please report bugs to the
13417 address, e.g., from within \*(uA:
13418 .\" v15-compat: drop eval as `mail' will expand variable?
13419 .Ql ? Ns \| Ic eval Ns \| Ic mail Ns \| $contact-mail .
13420 More information is available on the web:
13421 .Ql $ \*(uA -X 'echo Ns \| $ Ns Va contact-web Ns ' -Xx .