BSD 2 development

[unix-history] / man / Mail.u

.TH MAIL UCB 2/24/79 UCB
.SH NAME
Mail \- interactive mail processing system
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B Mail
[
.B \-f
[
name
]
]
[
people ...
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Mail
is a intelligent mail processing system, which has
a command syntax reminiscent of
.I ed
with lines replaced by messages.
In normal usage, it is given no arguments and checks your mail out of the
post office, then
printing out a one line header of each message there.
The current message is initially the first message (numbered 1)
and can be printed using the
.B print
command (which can be abbreviated \fBp\fR).
You can move among the messages much as you move between lines in
.I ed,
with the commands `+' and `-' moving backwards and forwards, and
simple numbers typing the addressed message.
.PP
After examining a message you can
.B delete
(\fBd\fR)
the message or
.B reply
(\fBr\fR)
to it.
Deletion causes the
.I Mail
program to forget about the message.
This is not irreversible, the message can be
.B undeleted
(\fBu\fR)
by giving its number, or
the
.I Mail
session can be aborted by giving the
.B exit
(\fBx\fR)
command.
Deleted messages will, however, usually disappear never to be seen again.
.PP
When you give the
.B reply
command,
.I Mail
sets up a response to the original message, sending it back to the
person who it was from.
Text you then type in, up to an end-of-file, defines the contents of
the message.
While you are composing a message,
.I Mail
treats lines beginning with the character `~' specially.
The following `~' escapes are the most useful:
.TP 5
.B ~m
Places a copy of the current message in the response message text,
right shifting it by a tab stop.
.TP 5
.B ~s
Sets a subject for the message.  The subject follows the `~s' on
the same line, and appears in the header for the message when received
with
.I Mail.
If there was a subject in the mail being responded to, then this is the
subject of the response unless you give a new one.
.TP 5
.B ~c
Adds carbon copies, users who will receive the message also.
By default, only the originator of the message receives a
.B reply.
.TP 5
.B ~e
Invokes an editor on the response composed so far.
When editing terminates, message composition continues.
.TP 5
.B ~p
Prints the message composed so far.
.PP
You can end a
.I Mail
session with the
.B quit
(\fBq\fR)
command.
Messages which have been examined go to your
.I mbox
file unless they have been deleted in which case they are discarded.
Unexamined messages go back to the post office.
.PP
By giving `people' arguments to
.I Mail
on the command line, or by using the internal
.B mail
(\fBm\fR)
command you can originate mail.
The escapes available during
.I reply
commands are available here also.
.PP
The
.B \-f
option causes
.I Mail
to read in the contents of your
.I mbox
(or the specified file)
for processing; when you
.B quit
.I Mail
writes undeleted messages back to this file.
.PP
.I Mail
has a number of other facilities as well as options which can be set
in the file
.I \&.mailrc
in your home directory.
See the `Mail Reference Manual' for details.
.SH FILES
.if n .ta 2.5i
.if t .ta 1.8i
/usr/spool/mail/*	post office
.br
~/mbox	your old mail
.br
~/.mailrc	file giving initial mail commands
.br
/tmp/R#	temporary for editor escape
.br
/usr/lib/Mail.groups	named groupings for bulk mailing
.br
/usr/lib/Mail.help*	help files
.br
/usr/lib/Mail.rc	system-wide initialization file
.br
/bin/mail		to do actual mailing
.SH "SEE ALSO"
mail(1),
`The Mail Reference Manual'
.SH AUTHOR
Kurt Shoens
.SH BUGS