Mailx

A few hints on the program (Ver 1.0)

With many thanks to both the mailx man page and all the websites wherein people have answered so many mailx-related questions.

Sending mail:

• mail [recipient email address] The program will ask for a subject line, and then you can begin writing your email. Type Ctrl+D when you're finished writing to send the email. Type "~e" or "~v" on the next line to open an editor if you make a mistake and need to edit the email.

  While composing an email, typing Ctrl+C will interrupt it if you decide you don't want to send. Type Ctrl+C a second time to exit the mail program and the aborted letter will be saved in a file called "dead.letter"

• mail -a [filename] [recipient email address] Adds [filename] as an attachment to the email.

Receiving mail:

• mail -f [file] Use [file] for the inbox instead of mbox

• mail -H Print headers for all messages and exit. This is a good for a quick mail check to see if there's anything new in your mailbox.

Once inside the "mail" program:

• Moving around the list of messages (ex. your inbox)
  • Type a message number to see that message.
  • Type z to return to the list of messages
  • Type n to show you the next message
  • Type q to quit mail, removing any messages marked for deletion. Deleted messages cannot be recovered.
  • Type x to exit without removing any deleted mail.

• Working with folders:
  • Mailx keeps your messages in files (which it confusingly calls folders). Mailx will keep your messages in files located in your home directory unless you tell it to store them in another directory. To do this, put the following command in your .mailrc file:
    set folder=[directory where you want to store your mail]
  • To reference a file/folder (say to save a document into another file), you can use the folder name with a "+" in front of it. For example:
    save +project This will remove the message from your inbox and save it to the "project" folder. If you save a message to a folder which doesn't yet exit, mailx will create it.

  • The "copy" command saves a copy of a message to a folder but does *not* delete it from your inbox.
  • The "folder" command has several uses. For example, typing folder +project will make "project" your current, active, folder where messages can be edited and replied to. Typing folder by itself will show you the folder you're currently reading/editing. And typing folders (notice the plural) will show you all your existing folders.
• Working with messages:
  • Type d[num] to delete a message
  • Type u[num] to undelete a message
  • Both delete and undelete can have multiple addresses such as "d1-4,23" (delete messages 1 through four and number 23). d* deletes all messages. You can also use "d /string" to delete all messages that contain "string" in the Subject: line and "d address" to delete all messages from a specified sender. These two methods work with the undelete command, too.
  • Typing u* for undelete all does *not* work. You have to specify the message numbers to undelete or use one of the methods listed above.
  • Type r to reply to mail
  • Type R to reply only to the sender and not anyone on the Bcc or Cc lines
  • When composing or replying to an email, lines that begin with "~" become commands to the mail program.
    • ~@ [filename . . . ] -- add a file to the attachment list. Typing "~@" by itself allows you to remove attachments, too.
    • ~b [addresses] -- add the named email addresses to the Bcc line
    • ~c [addresses] -- add the named email addresses to the Cc line
    • ~d -- add the contents of the 'dead.letter' file into current email draft
    • ~e -- open a text editor to continue editing the email draft (default is ed...)
    • ~f [message numbers] -- copy the named messages into the current email draft
    • ~h -- edit the To:, Cc:, Bcc:, and Subject: headers of the current draft
    • ~m [message numbers] -- copy named messages into current draft, but indented
    • ~p -- print out the current draft with its headers and attachment list
    • ~q -- abort the current draft and save into the file "dead.letter"
    • ~r [filename] -- copy the named file into the current draft
    • ~s [string] -- change the Subject: to the string supplied
    • ~tname [email addresses] -- add the named email addresses to the To: line
    • ~v -- open the alternate text editor program (must be named in the VISUAL line in the .mailrc file)
    • ~w [filename] -- write the current message draft into the named file. If the file already exists, the message will be appended to it
    • ~x -- quit mail without saving the current draft

• Email attachments:
  • Mailx has no native capability to separate an email from its attachments, especially if the attachment is in MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) format. You'll need to run your emails through programs such as mpack or ripmime (or create/find a Perl script) to separate/save an attachment.
• HTML emails
  • Emails formatted in HTML can be read by piping them through either w3m or lynx. Put one (or both) of the following lines in your .mailrc file: set pipe-text/html="lynx -set dump -force_html /dev/stdin" set pipe-text/html="w3m -dump -T text/html"

The .mailrc file:

The .mailrc file sets how you want your mail program to receive, send and display your mail. Some options require an equals sign (=) between the option and the modifier, some don't use an equals sign, and some options take no modifier at all, so check the mailx man page for more information.

• retain [header fields you wish to display] -- this easier than using "ignore" and then having to list all the fields you *don't* want displayed
• alias [name] [email address(es)] -- creates an alias for a particular email address or set of addresses
• append -- saved messages are added to the end of the mbox file instead of the beginning
• ask or asksub -- prompts for the message subject
• askatend -- prompts for Cc: and Bcc: after the message has been edited
• askattach -- prompts for files to attach at the end of the message
• askcc -- prompts for Cc: after the message has been edited
• askbcc -- prompts for Bcc: after the message has been edited
• dot -- use a period all by itself at the start of a line to indicate the end of the message being written/edited
• editheaders -- allows for all the headers such as To:, Cc: and Subject: to be edited along with the message body
• emptybox -- do not remove an empty mailbox
• keep -- do not delete an empty mailbox file/folder
• verbose -- provide more information about the connection and downloading/sending of mail as it happens
• DEAD=[filename] -- save aborted messages here instead of in the file "dead.letter"
• EDITOR=[path to editor program] -- sets the editor to be used editing emails
• folder=[path to directory where message files/folders will be stored] -- self-explanatory
• headline -- lists how the message summaries will be shown by the mailx program. Attributes can be followed by a number to indicate the field's width. A negative number makes the number left-justified. Here is a list of valid format fields:
  • %a -- message attributes
  • %c -- message score
  • %d -- date received
  • %e -- indenting level in thread
  • %f -- sender's email address
  • %i -- message thread structure
  • %l -- number of lines in the message
  • %m -- message number
  • %o -- number of bytes/message size
  • %s -- message subject
  • %S -- message subject inside quote marks
  • %t -- message position in threaded/sorted order
  • %> -- mark current message with a ">" character
  • %< -- mark current message with a "<" character
  • %% -- a "%"character

  The default is `%>%a%m %18f %16d %4l/%-5o %i%s'

• MAIL=[filename] -- makes [filename] your inbox
• MBOX=[filename] -- use [filename] instead of mbox for the inbox file.
• PAGER=[path/to/program] -- sets the pager program. The default is "more."
• signature=[filename] -- location of your signature file. This cannot be edited from inside a message itself.
• VISUAL=[path/to/program] -- sets the text editor called by the ~v command while editing a message
• record=[filename] -- location of the file storing your sent messages. A commonly used name is "Sent."
• ttycharset -- sets the character set for mail to use. Use "set ttycharset=utf-8" to increase the number of characters which can be displayed.