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MAILX(1)			 User Commands			      MAILX(1)

NAME
       mailx - send and receive Internet mail

SYNOPSIS
       mailx [-BDdEFintv~] [-s subject] [-a attachment ] [-c cc-addr] [-b bcc-
	      addr] [-r from-addr] [-h hops] [-A account] [-S vari‐
	      able[=value]] to-addr . . .
       mailx [-BDdeEHiInNRv~] [-T name] [-A account] [-S variable[=value]] -f
	      [name]
       mailx [-BDdeEinNRv~] [-A account] [-S variable[=value]] [-u user]

DESCRIPTION
       Mailx is an intelligent mail processing system,	which  has  a  command
       syntax  reminiscent  of	ed(1)  with lines replaced by messages.	 It is
       based on Berkeley Mail 8.1, is intended to provide the functionality of
       the  POSIX  mailx  command, and offers extensions for MIME, IMAP, POP3,
       SMTP, and S/MIME.  Mailx provides  enhanced  features  for  interactive
       use,  such  as  caching	and  disconnected  operation for IMAP, message
       threading, scoring, and filtering.  It is also usable as a  mail	 batch
       language, both for sending and receiving mail.

       The following options are accepted:

       -A name
	      Executes	an  account  command  (see  below)  for name after the
	      startup files have been read.

       -a file
	      Attach the given file to the message.

       -B     Make standard input and standard output line-buffered.

       -b address
	      Send blind carbon copies to list.	 List should be a  comma-sepa‐
	      rated list of names.

       -c address
	      Send carbon copies to list of users.

       -D     Start  in disconnected mode; see the description for the discon‐
	      nected variable option.

       -d     Enables debugging messages and disables the actual  delivery  of
	      messages.	 Unlike -v, this option is intended for mailx develop‐
	      ment only.

       -e     Just check if mail is present in the system  mailbox.   If  yes,
	      return an exit status of zero, else, a non-zero value.

       -E     If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
	      only message part, do not	 send  it  but	discard	 it  silently,
	      effectively   setting  the  skipemptybody	 variable  at  program
	      startup.	This is	 useful	 for  sending  messages	 from  scripts
	      started by cron(8).

       -f [file]
	      Read  in the contents of the user's mbox (or the specified file)
	      for processing; when mailx is quit, it writes undeleted messages
	      back  to this file.  The string file is handled as described for
	      the folder command below.

       -F     Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of
	      the first recipient's address.

       -H     Print header summaries for all messages and exit.

       -h hops
	      Invoke  sendmail	with the specified hop count.  This option has
	      no effect when SMTP is used for sending mail.

       -i     Ignore tty interrupt signals.  This is particularly useful  when
	      using mailx on noisy phone lines.

       -I     Shows  the  `Newsgroup:'	or  `Article-Id:' fields in the header
	      summary.	Only applicable in combination with -f.

       -n     Inhibits reading /etc/nail.rc upon startup.  This option	should
	      be activated for mailx scripts that are invoked on more than one
	      machine, because the contents of that file  may  differ  between
	      them.

       -N     Inhibits	the  initial  display  of message headers when reading
	      mail or editing a mail folder.

       -q file
	      Start the message with the contents of the specified file.   May
	      be given in send mode only.

       -r address
	      Sets  the From address. Overrides any from variable specified in
	      environment or startup files.  Tilde escapes are disabled.   The
	      -r  address options are passed to the mail transfer agent unless
	      SMTP is used.  This option exists for compatibility only; it  is
	      recommended to set the from variable directly instead.

       -R     Opens any folders read-only.

       -s subject
	      Specify  subject	on command line (only the first argument after
	      the -s flag is used as a subject; be careful to  quote  subjects
	      containing spaces).

       -S variable[=value]
	      Sets  the	 internal  option  variable  and,  in case of a string
	      option, assigns value to it.

       -T name
	      Writes the `Message-Id:' and `Article-Id:' header fields of each
	      message  read  in	 the file name.	 Implies -I.  Compressed files
	      are handled as described for the folder command below.

       -t     The message to be sent is expected to contain a  message	header
	      with  `To:',  `Cc:',  or	`Bcc:'	fields	giving its recipients.
	      Recipients specified on the command line are ignored.

       -u user
	      Reads the mailbox of the given user name.

       -v     Verbose mode.  The details of  delivery  are  displayed  on  the
	      user's terminal.

       -V     Print mailx's version and exit.

       -~     Enable tilde escapes even if not in interactive mode.

   Sending mail
       To  send	 a  message  to	 one or more people, mailx can be invoked with
       arguments which are the names of people to whom the mail will be	 sent.
       The  user is then expected to type in his message, followed by an `con‐
       trol-D' at the beginning of a line.  The section below Replying	to  or
       originating  mail,  describes  some features of mailx available to help
       when composing letters.

   Reading mail
       In normal usage mailx is given no arguments and checks the user's  mail
       out  of the post office, then prints out a one line header of each mes‐
       sage found.  The current message is initially the first	message	 (num‐
       bered 1) and can be printed using the print command which can be abbre‐
       viated `p').  The user can move among the messages  much	 as  he	 moves
       between	lines in ed(1), with the commands `+' and `-' moving backwards
       and forwards, and simple numbers.

   Disposing of mail
       After examining a message the user can delete `d') the message or reply
       `r') to it.  Deletion causes the mailx program to forget about the mes‐
       sage.  This is not irreversible; the message can be undeleted  `u')  by
       giving  its  number,  or the mailx session can be aborted by giving the
       exit `x') command.  Deleted messages will, however,  usually  disappear
       never to be seen again.

   Specifying messages
       Commands	 such  as print and delete can be given a list of message num‐
       bers as arguments to apply to a	number	of  messages  at  once.	  Thus
       `delete	1 2' deletes messages 1 and 2, while `delete 1-5' deletes mes‐
       sages 1 through 5.  In sorted or threaded mode (see the sort and thread
       commands),  `delete  1-5' deletes the messages that are located between
       (and including) messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded  order,  as
       shown  in  the  header  summary.	  The  following special message names
       exist:

       :n     All new messages.

       :o     All old messages (any not in state read or new).

       :u     All unread messages.

       :d     All deleted messages (for the undelete command).

       :r     All read messages.

       :f     All `flagged' messages.

       :a     All answered messages (cf. the markanswered variable).

       :t     All messages marked as draft.

       :k     All `killed' messages.

       :j     All messages classified as junk.

       .      The current message.

       ;      The message that was previously the current message.

       ,      The parent message of the current message, that is  the  message
	      with  the	 Message-ID  given  in the `In-Reply-To:' field or the
	      last entry of the `References:' field of the current message.

       -      The next	previous  undeleted  message,  or  the	next  previous
	      deleted  message	for  the undelete command.  In sorted/threaded
	      mode, the next previous  such  message  in  the  sorted/threaded
	      order.

       +      The  next undeleted message, or the next deleted message for the
	      undelete command.	 In sorted/threaded mode, the next  such  mes‐
	      sage in the sorted/threaded order.

       ^      The  first  undeleted  message, or the first deleted message for
	      the undelete command.  In sorted/threaded mode, the  first  such
	      message in the sorted/threaded order.

       $      The  last message.  In sorted/threaded mode, the last message in
	      the sorted/threaded order.

       &x     In threaded mode, selects the message addressed with x, where  x
	      is  any  other  message specification, and all messages from the
	      thread that begins at it.	 Otherwise, it is identical to x.   If
	      x	 is  omitted, the thread beginning with the current message is
	      selected.

       *      All messages.

       `      All messages that were included in the message list for the pre‐
	      vious command.

       /string
	      All  messages  that  contain  string  in the subject field (case
	      ignored).	 See also the searchheaders variable.	If  string  is
	      empty,  the  string from the previous specification of that type
	      is used again.

       address
	      All messages from address.

       (criterion)
	      All messages that satisfy the given IMAP-style SEARCH criterion.
	      This addressing mode is available with all types of folders; for
	      folders not located on IMAP servers, or for  servers  unable  to
	      execute  the  SEARCH  command,  mailx  will  perform  the search
	      locally.	Strings must be enclosed by double quotes `"' in their
	      entirety	if they contain white space or parentheses; within the
	      quotes, only backslash `\' is recognized as an escape character.
	      All  string searches are case-insensitive.  When the description
	      indicates that the `envelope' representation of an address field
	      is  used,	 this  means that the search string is checked against
	      both a list constructed as

	      ("real name" "source-route" "local-part" "domain-part")

	      for each address, and the addresses without real names from  the
	      respective header field.	Criteria can be nested using parenthe‐
	      ses.

       (criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN)
	      All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.

       (or criterion1 criterion2)
	      All messages that satisfy either criterion1  or  criterion2,  or
	      both.  To connect more than two criteria using `or', (or) speci‐
	      fications have to be nested  using  additional  parentheses,  as
	      with  `(or a (or b c))';	`(or a b c)'  means  ((a or b) and c).
	      For a simple `or' operation of independent criteria on the  low‐
	      est  nesting level, it is possible to achieve similar effects by
	      using three separate criteria, as with `(a) (b) (c)'.

       (not criterion)
	      All messages that do not satisfy criterion.

       (bcc string)
	      All messages that contain string in the  `envelope'  representa‐
	      tion of the Bcc: field.

       (cc string)
	      All  messages  that contain string in the `envelope' representa‐
	      tion of the Cc: field.

       (from string)
	      All messages that contain string in the  `envelope'  representa‐
	      tion of the From: field.

       (subject string)
	      All messages that contain string in the Subject: field.

       (to string)
	      All  messages  that contain string in the `envelope' representa‐
	      tion of the To: field.

       (header name string)
	      All messages that contain string in the specified Name: field.

       (body string)
	      All messages that contain string in their body.

       (text string)
	      All messages that contain string in their header or body.

       (larger size)
	      All messages that are larger than size (in bytes).

       (smaller size)
	      All messages that are smaller than size (in bytes).

       (before date)
	      All messages that were received before date; date must be in the
	      form d[d]-mon-yyyy, where d[d] is the day of the month as one or
	      two digits, mon is the name of the month—one  of	`Jan',	`Feb',
	      `Mar',  `Apr',  `May', `Jun', `Jul', `Aug', `Sep', `Oct', `Nov',
	      or  `Dec',  and  yyyy  is	 the  year  as	 four	digits;	  e.g.
	      "30-Aug-2004".

       (on date)
	      All messages that were received on the specified date.

       (since date)
	      All messages that were received since the specified date.

       (sentbefore date)
	      All messages that were sent on the specified date.

       (senton date)
	      All messages that were sent on the specified date.

       (sentsince date)
	      All messages that were sent since the specified date.

       ()     The  same criterion as for the previous search.  This specifica‐
	      tion cannot be used as part of another criterion.	 If the previ‐
	      ous  command line contained more than one independent criterion,
	      the last of those criteria is used.

       A practical method to read a set of messages is to issue a from command
       with  the  search criteria first to check for appropriate messages, and
       to read each single message then by typing ``' repeatedly.

   Replying to or originating mail
       The reply command can be used to set up a response to a message,	 send‐
       ing  it	back  to  the  person who it was from.	Text the user types in
       then, up to an end-of-file, defines the contents of the message.	 While
       the  user is composing a message, mailx treats lines beginning with the
       character `~' specially.	 For instance, typing `~m' (alone on  a	 line)
       will place a copy of the current message into the response right shift‐
       ing it by a tabstop (see indentprefix variable, below).	Other  escapes
       will  set  up subject fields, add and delete recipients to the message,
       attach files to it and allow the user to escape to an editor to	revise
       the  message  or	 to  a shell to run some commands.  (These options are
       given in the summary below.)

   Ending a mail processing session
       The user can end a mailx session with the quit (`q') command.  Messages
       which  have  been  examined go to the user's mbox file unless they have
       been deleted in which case they are discarded.  Unexamined messages  go
       back to the post office.	 (See the -f option above).

   Personal and systemwide distribution lists
       It  is  also  possible to create a personal distribution lists so that,
       for instance, the user can send mail to `cohorts' and have it go	 to  a
       group of people.	 Such lists can be defined by placing a line like

	       alias cohorts bill ozalp jkf mark kridle@ucbcory

       in  the file .mailrc in the user's home directory.  The current list of
       such aliases can be displayed with the alias command in mailx.	System
       wide  distribution  lists  can  be created by editing /etc/aliases, see
       aliases(5) and sendmail(8); these are kept in a different  syntax.   In
       mail  the user sends, personal aliases will be expanded in mail sent to
       others so that they will be able to reply to  the  recipients.	System
       wide  aliases  are  not	expanded  when the mail is sent, but any reply
       returned to the machine will have the system wide alias expanded as all
       mail goes through sendmail.

   Recipient address specifications
       When an address is used to name a recipient (in any of To, Cc, or Bcc),
       names of local mail folders and pipes to external commands can also  be
       specified;  the	message	 text is then written to them.	The rules are:
       Any name which starts with a `|' character specifies a pipe,  the  com‐
       mand  string  following	the `|' is executed and the message is sent to
       its standard input; any other name which contains a  `@'	 character  is
       treated as a mail address; any other name which starts with a `+' char‐
       acter specifies a folder name; any other	 name  which  contains	a  `/'
       character  but  no `!'  or `%' character before also specifies a folder
       name; what remains is treated as a mail	address.   Compressed  folders
       are handled as described for the folder command below.

   Network mail (Internet / ARPA, UUCP, Berknet)
       See  mailaddr(7)	 for  a description of network addresses.  Mailx has a
       number of options which can be set in the .mailrc  file	to  alter  its
       behavior;  thus	`set askcc' enables the askcc feature.	(These options
       are summarized below).

   MIME types
       For any outgoing attachment, mailx tries to determine the content type.
       It  does this by reading MIME type files whose lines have the following
       syntax:

	       type/subtype	 extension [extension . . .]

       where type/subtype are strings describing the file contents, and exten‐
       sion  is	 the part of a filename starting after the last dot.  Any line
       not immediately beginning  with	an  ASCII  alphabetical	 character  is
       ignored	by  mailx.  If there is a match with the extension of the file
       to attach, the given type/subtype pair is used.	Otherwise, or  if  the
       filename	 has  no  extension,  the content types text/plain or applica‐
       tion/octet-stream are used, the first for text  or  international  text
       files,  the  second  for	 any  file that contains formatting characters
       other than newlines and horizontal tabulators.

   Character sets
       Mailx normally detects the character set	 of  the  terminal  using  the
       LC_CTYPE	 locale	 setting.  If the locale cannot be used appropriately,
       the ttycharset variable should be set to	 provide  an  explicit	value.
       When  reading messages, their text is converted to the terminal charac‐
       ter set if possible.  Unprintable characters and illegal byte sequences
       are  detected and replaced by Unicode substitute characters or question
       marks unless the print-all-chars is set at initialization time.

       The character set for outgoing messages is not necessarily the same  as
       the  one	 used  on  the terminal.  If an outgoing text message contains
       characters not representable in US-ASCII, the character set being  used
       must be declared within its header.  Permissible values can be declared
       using the sendcharsets variable, separated by commas; mailx tries  each
       of the values in order and uses the first appropriate one.  If the mes‐
       sage contains characters that cannot be represented in any of the given
       character  sets,	 the  message  will  not be sent, and its text will be
       saved to the `dead.letter' file.	 Messages that contain NUL  bytes  are
       not converted.

       Outgoing	 attachments  are  converted  if  they are plain text.	If the
       sendcharsets variable contains more than one character set name, the ~@
       tilde escape will ask for the character sets for individual attachments
       if it is invoked without arguments.

       Best results are usually achieved when mailx is run in a	 UTF-8	locale
       on  a  UTF-8  capable terminal.	In this setup, characters from various
       countries can be displayed, while it is still possible to use more sim‐
       ple  character  sets  for  sending to retain maximum compatibility with
       older mail clients.

   Commands
       Each command is typed on a line by itself, and may take arguments  fol‐
       lowing the command word.	 The command need not be typed in its entirety
       – the first command which matches the typed prefix is used.   For  com‐
       mands  which  take  message  lists  as arguments, if no message list is
       given, then the next message  forward  which  satisfies	the  command's
       requirements  is used.  If there are no messages forward of the current
       message, the search proceeds backwards, and if there are no  good  mes‐
       sages at all, mailx types `applicable messages' and aborts the command.
       If the command begins with a # sign, the line is ignored.

       The arguments to commands can be quoted, using the following methods:

       ·      An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes	""  or
	      single-quotes  '';  any  white  space,  shell word expansion, or
	      backslash characters within the quotes are treated literally  as
	      part  of the argument.  A double-quote will be treated literally
	      within single-quotes and vice versa. These special properties of
	      the quote marks occur only when they are paired at the beginning
	      and end of the argument.

       ·      A backslash outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded and the
	      following	 character  is	treated literally as part of the argu‐
	      ment.

       ·      An unquoted backslash at the end of a command line is  discarded
	      and the next line continues the command.

       Filenames,  where  expected, are subjected to the following transforma‐
       tions, in sequence:

       ·      If the filename begins with  an  unquoted	 plus  sign,  and  the
	      folder  variable	is  defined, the plus sign will be replaced by
	      the value of the folder variable followed by  a  slash.  If  the
	      folder variable is unset or is set to null, the filename will be
	      unchanged.

       ·      Shell word expansions are applied to the filename.  If more than
	      a single pathname results from this expansion and the command is
	      expecting one file, an error results.

       The following commands are provided:

       -      Print out the preceding message.	If given a numeric argument n,
	      goes to the n'th previous message and prints it.

       ?      Prints a brief summary of commands.

       !      Executes the shell (see sh(1) and csh(1)) command which follows.

       |      A synonym for the pipe command.

       account
	      (ac)  Creates, selects or lists an email account.	 An account is
	      formed by a group of commands, primarily of those to  set	 vari‐
	      ables.   With  two  arguments, of which the second is a `{', the
	      first argument gives an account name, and	 the  following	 lines
	      create  a	 group	of commands for that account until a line con‐
	      taining a single `}' appears.  With one argument, the previously
	      created  group of commands for the account name is executed, and
	      a folder command is executed for the system mailbox or inbox  of
	      that account.  Without arguments, the list of accounts and their
	      contents are printed.  As an example,

		  account myisp {
		      set folder=imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example
		      set record=+Sent
		      set from="myname@myisp.example (My Name)"
		      set smtp=smtp.myisp.example
		  }

	      creates an account named `myisp' which can later be selected  by
	      specifying `account myisp'.

       alias  (a) With no arguments, prints out all currently-defined aliases.
	      With one argument, prints out that alias.	 With  more  than  one
	      argument, creates a new alias or changes an old one.

       alternates
	      (alt)  The alternates command is useful if the user has accounts
	      on several machines.  It can be used to inform  mailx  that  the
	      listed  addresses	 all  belong  to  the  invoking user.  When he
	      replies to messages, mailx will not send a copy of  the  message
	      to  any  of the addresses listed on the alternates list.	If the
	      alternates command is given with no argument, the current set of
	      alternate names is displayed.

       answered
	      (ans)  Takes  a  message list and marks each message as a having
	      been answered.  This mark has no technical meaning in  the  mail
	      system;  it just causes messages to be marked in the header sum‐
	      mary, and makes them specially addressable.

       cache  Only applicable to cached IMAP mailboxes; takes a	 message  list
	      and reads the specified messages into the IMAP cache.

       call   Calls a macro (see the define command).

       cd     Same as chdir.

       certsave
	      Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.  Takes a message list
	      and a file name and saves the certificates contained within  the
	      message  signatures to the named file in both human-readable and
	      PEM  format.   The  certificates	can  later  be	used  to  send
	      encrypted	 messages  to the messages' originators by setting the
	      smime-encrypt-user@host variable.

       chdir  (ch) Changes the user's working directory to that specified,  if
	      given.   If  no  directory  is given, then changes to the user's
	      login directory.

       classify
	      (cl) Takes a list of messages and examines  their	 contents  for
	      characteristics of junk mail using Bayesian filtering.  Messages
	      considered to be junk are then marked as such.   The  junk  mail
	      database is not changed.

       collapse
	      (coll)  Only  applicable to threaded mode.  Takes a message list
	      and makes all replies to these messages invisible in header sum‐
	      maries, unless they are in state `new'.

       connect
	      (conn)  If  operating  in	 disconnected mode on an IMAP mailbox,
	      switch to online mode and	 connect  to  the  mail	 server	 while
	      retaining	 the  mailbox status.  See the description of the dis‐
	      connected variable for more information.

       copy   (c) The copy command does the same thing that save does,	except
	      that  it	does  not mark the messages it is used on for deletion
	      when the user quits.  Compressed files and  IMAP	mailboxes  are
	      handled as described for the folder command.

       Copy   (C)  Similar  to	copy,  but  saves the messages in a file named
	      after the local part of the sender address of the first message.

       decrypt
	      (dec) For unencrypted messages, this  command  is	 identical  to
	      copy.   Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and
	      then copied.

       Decrypt
	      (Dec) Similar to decrypt, but saves the messages in a file named
	      after the local part of the sender address of the first message.

       define (def) Defines a macro.  A macro definition is a sequence of com‐
	      mands in the following form:

		  define name {
		      command1
		      command2
		      ...
		      commandN
		  }

	      Once defined, a macro can be explicitly invoked using  the  call
	      command, or can be implicitly invoked by setting the folder-hook
	      or folder-hook-fullname variables.

       defines
	      Prints the currently defined macros including their contents.

       delete (d) Takes a list of messages as argument and marks them  all  as
	      deleted.	 Deleted  messages will not be saved in mbox, nor will
	      they be available for most other commands.

       discard
	      Same as ignore.

       disconnect
	      (disco) If operating in online mode on an IMAP  mailbox,	switch
	      to  disconnected	mode  while retaining the mailbox status.  See
	      the description of the disconnected variable for	more  informa‐
	      tion.   A	 list of messages may optionally be given as argument;
	      the respective messages are then read into the cache before  the
	      connection  is  closed.  Thus `disco *' makes the entire current
	      mailbox available for disconnected use.

       dp or dt
	      Deletes the current message and prints  the  next	 message.   If
	      there is no next message, mailx says `at EOF'.

       draft  Takes  a	message	 list and marks each message as a draft.  This
	      mark has no technical meaning in the mail system; it just causes
	      messages to be marked in the header summary, and makes them spe‐
	      cially addressable.

       echo   Echoes its arguments, resolving special names as documented  for
	      the  folder  command.   The  escape  sequences `\a', `\b', `\c',
	      `\f', `\n', `\r', `\t', `\v', `\\', and `\0num' are  interpreted
	      as with the echo(1) command.

       edit   (e)  Takes a list of messages and points the text editor at each
	      one in turn.  Modified contents are discarded unless the	write‐
	      backedited variable is set.

       else   Marks the end of the then-part of an if statement and the begin‐
	      ning of the part to take effect  if  the	condition  of  the  if
	      statement is false.

       endif  Marks the end of an if statement.

       exit   (ex or x) Effects an immediate return to the Shell without modi‐
	      fying the user's system mailbox, his mbox file, or his edit file
	      in -f.

       file   (fi) The same as folder.

       flag   (fl)  Takes  a  message list and marks the messages as `flagged'
	      for urgent/special attention.  This mark has no technical	 mean‐
	      ing  in  the  mail  system;  it just causes messages to be high‐
	      lighted in the header summary, and makes them specially address‐
	      able.

       folders
	      With  no	arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder
	      directory.  With an existing folder as an argument,  lists  then
	      names of folders below the named folder; e.g. the command `fold‐
	      ers @' lists the folders on the base level of the	 current  IMAP
	      server.  See also the imap-list-depth variable.

       folder (fold) The folder command switches to a new mail file or folder.
	      With no arguments, it tells the user which file he is  currently
	      reading.	 If  an	 argument  is given, it will write out changes
	      (such as deletions) the user has made in the  current  file  and
	      read  in	the new file.  Some special conventions are recognized
	      for the name.  # means the previous file, % means	 the  invoking
	      user's  system  mailbox,	%user  means  user's system mailbox, &
	      means the invoking user's mbox file, and +file means a  file  in
	      the  folder  directory.  %:filespec expands to the same value as
	      filespec, but the file is handled as a system mailbox  e. g.  by
	      the  mbox	 and  save  commands.	If the name matches one of the
	      strings defined with the shortcut command, it is replaced by its
	      long  form  and expanded.	 If the name ends with .gz or .bz2, it
	      is treated as compressed with gzip(1) or bzip2(1), respectively.
	      Likewise, if name does not exist, but either name.gz or name.bz2
	      exists, the compressed file is used.  If name refers to a direc‐
	      tory  with  the  subdirectories  `tmp',  `new', and `cur', it is
	      treated as a folder in maildir format.  A name of the form

		     protocol://[user@]host[:port][/file]

	      is taken as an Internet mailbox  specification.	The  supported
	      protocols	 are  currently	 imap  (IMAP  v4r1),  imaps (IMAP with
	      SSL/TLS encryption), pop3 (POP3), and pop3s (POP3	 with  SSL/TLS
	      encryption).  If user contains special characters, in particular
	      `/' or `%', they must be escaped in URL notation,	 as  `%2F'  or
	      `%25'.   The  optional  file part applies to IMAP only; if it is
	      omitted, the default `INBOX' is used.  If mailx is connected  to
	      an  IMAP server, a name of the form @mailbox refers to the mail‐
	      box on that server.  If the `folder' variable refers to an  IMAP
	      account,	the  special  name  `%'	 selects  the  `INBOX' on that
	      account.

       Followup
	      (F) Similar to Respond, but saves the message in	a  file	 named
	      after the local part of the first recipient's address.

       followup
	      (fo)  Similar  to respond, but saves the message in a file named
	      after the local part of the first recipient's address.

       followupall
	      Similar to followup, but responds to all	recipients  regardless
	      of the flipr and Replyall variables.

       followupsender
	      Similar  to Followup, but responds to the sender only regardless
	      of the flipr and Replyall variables.

       forward
	      (fwd) Takes a message and the address of a  recipient  and  for‐
	      wards  the  message to him.  The text of the original message is
	      included in the new one, with the value of the fwdheading	 vari‐
	      able printed before.  The fwdignore and fwdretain commands spec‐
	      ify which header fields are included in the new  message.	  Only
	      the  first  part	of  a multipart message is included unless the
	      forward-as-attachment option is set.

       Forward
	      (Fwd) Similar to forward, but saves the message in a file	 named
	      after the local part of the recipient's address.

       from   (f)  Takes  a list of messages and prints their message headers,
	      piped through the pager if  the  output  does  not  fit  on  the
	      screen.

       fwdignore
	      Specifies which header fields are to be ignored with the forward
	      command.	This command has no effect when the forward-as-attach‐
	      ment option is set.

       fwdretain
	      Specifies	 which	header fields are to be retained with the for‐
	      ward command.  fwdretain overrides fwdignore.  This command  has
	      no effect when the forward-as-attachment option is set.

       good   (go) Takes a list of messages and marks all of them as not being
	      junk mail.  Data from these messages is then inserted  into  the
	      junk mail database for future classification.

       headers
	      (h)  Lists  the current range of headers, which is an 18-message
	      group.  If a `+' argument is given,  then	 the  next  18-message
	      group  is	 printed, and if a `-' argument is given, the previous
	      18-message group is printed.

       help   A synonym for ?.

       hold   (ho, also preserve) Takes a message list and marks each  message
	      therein  to  be saved in the user's system mailbox instead of in
	      mbox.  Does not override the  delete  command.   mailx  deviates
	      from  the	 POSIX standard with this command, as a `next' command
	      issued after `hold' will display the following message, not  the
	      current one.

       if     Commands	in mailx's startup files can be executed conditionally
	      depending on whether the user is sending or receiving mail  with
	      the if command.  For example:

		      if receive
			      commands . . .
		      endif

	      An else form is also available:

		      if receive
			      commands . . .
		      else
			      commands . . .
		      endif

	      Note  that  the  only  allowed conditions are receive, send, and
	      term (execute command if standard input is a tty).

       ignore Add the list of header fields named to the ignored list.	Header
	      fields in the ignore list are not printed on the terminal when a
	      message is printed.  This command is very handy for  suppression
	      of  certain machine-generated header fields.  The Type and Print
	      commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, includ‐
	      ing ignored fields.  If ignore is executed with no arguments, it
	      lists the current set of ignored fields.

       imap   Sends command strings  directly  to  the	current	 IMAP  server.
	      Mailx  operates  always  in  IMAP	 selected state on the current
	      mailbox; commands that  change  this  will  produce  undesirable
	      results and should be avoided.  Useful IMAP commands are:

	      create Takes the name of an IMAP mailbox as an argument and cre‐
		     ates it.

	      getquotaroot
		     Takes the name of an IMAP	mailbox	 as  an	 argument  and
		     prints  the  quotas  that	apply to the mailbox.  Not all
		     IMAP servers support this command.

	      namespace
		     Takes no arguments and prints  the	 Personal  Namespaces,
		     the  Other	 User's Namespaces, and the Shared Namespaces.
		     Each namespace type is printed in parentheses;  if	 there
		     are multiple namespaces of the same type, inner parenthe‐
		     ses separate them.	 For each namespace, a namespace  pre‐
		     fix  and  a  hierarchy separator is listed.  Not all IMAP
		     servers support this command.

       inc    Same as newmail.

       junk   (j) Takes a list of messages and marks all of them as junk mail.
	      Data  from  these	 messages  is then inserted into the junk mail
	      database for future classification.

       kill   (k) Takes a list of messages and `kills' them.  Killed  messages
	      are not printed in header summaries, and are ignored by the next
	      command.	The kill command also sets the score of	 the  messages
	      to negative infinity, so that subsequent score commands will not
	      unkill them again.  Killing is only effective  for  the  current
	      session on a folder; when it is quit, all messages are automati‐
	      cally unkilled.

       list   Prints the names of all available commands.

       Mail   (M) Similar to mail, but saves the message in a file named after
	      the local part of the first recipient's address.

       mail   (m)  Takes  as argument login names and distribution group names
	      and sends mail to those people.

       mbox   Indicate that a list of messages be sent to mbox in  the	user's
	      home  directory  when mailx is quit.  This is the default action
	      for messages if unless the hold option is set.   mailx  deviates
	      from  the	 POSIX standard with this command, as a `next' command
	      issued after `mbox' will display the following message, not  the
	      current one.

       move   (mv) Acts like copy, but marks the messages for deletion if they
	      were transferred successfully.

       Move   (Mv) Similar to move, but moves the messages  to	a  file	 named
	      after the local part of the sender address of the first message.

       newmail
	      Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any
	      changes before.  If new mail is present, a message  is  printed.
	      If  the  header variable is set, the headers of each new message
	      are also printed.

       next   (n) like + or CR) Goes to the next message in sequence and types
	      it.  With an argument list, types the next matching message.

       New    Same as unread.

       new    Same as unread.

       online Same as connect.

       noop   If  the  current	folder is located on an IMAP or POP3 server, a
	      NOOP command is sent.  Otherwise, no operation is performed.

       Pipe   (Pi) Like pipe but also pipes  ignored  header  fields  and  all
	      parts of MIME multipart/alternative messages.

       pipe   (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command and pipes the mes‐
	      sages through the command.  Without  an  argument,  the  current
	      message  is piped through the command given by the cmd variable.
	      If the  page variable is set, every message  is  followed	 by  a
	      formfeed character.

       preserve
	      (pre) A synonym for hold.

       Print  (P) Like print but also prints out ignored header fields and all
	      parts of MIME multipart/alternative messages.  See  also	print,
	      ignore, and retain.

       print  (p)  Takes  a  message  list  and	 types out each message on the
	      user's terminal.	If the message is a  MIME  multipart  message,
	      all  parts with a content type of `text' or `message' are shown,
	      the other are hidden except for  their  headers.	 Messages  are
	      decrypted	 and converted to the terminal character set if neces‐
	      sary.

       probability
	      (prob) For each word given as argument, the contents of its junk
	      mail database entry are printed.

       quit   (q)  Terminates  the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved mes‐
	      sages in the user's mbox file in his login directory, preserving
	      all messages marked with hold or preserve or never referenced in
	      his system mailbox, and removing all  other  messages  from  his
	      system mailbox.  If new mail has arrived during the session, the
	      message `You have new mail' is given.  If given while editing  a
	      mailbox  file with the -f flag, then the edit file is rewritten.
	      A return to the Shell is effected, unless the  rewrite  of  edit
	      file fails, in which case the user can escape with the exit com‐
	      mand.

       redirect
	      (red) Same as resend.

       Redirect
	      (Red) Same as Resend.

       remove (rem) Removes the named folders.	The user is asked for  confir‐
	      mation in interactive mode.

       rename (ren)  Takes the name of an existing folder and the name for the
	      new folder and renames the first to the second one.  Both	 fold‐
	      ers  must be of the same type and must be located on the current
	      server for IMAP.

       Reply  (R) Reply to originator.	Does not reply to other recipients  of
	      the original message.

       reply  (r)  Takes  a  message list and sends mail to the sender and all
	      recipients of the specified message.  The default	 message  must
	      not be deleted.

       replyall
	      Similar  to  reply, but responds to all recipients regardless of
	      the flipr and Replyall variables.

       replysender
	      Similar to Reply, but responds to the sender only regardless  of
	      the flipr and Replyall variables.

       Resend Like  resend,  but does not add any header lines.	 This is not a
	      way to hide the sender's identity, but useful for sending a mes‐
	      sage again to the same recipients.

       resend Takes  a list of messages and a user name and sends each message
	      to the named user.  `Resent-From:' and related header fields are
	      prepended to the new copy of the message.

       Respond
	      Same as Reply.

       respond
	      Same as reply.

       respondall
	      Same as replyall.

       respondsender
	      Same as replysender.

       retain Add  the list of header fields named to the retained list.  Only
	      the header fields in the retain list are shown on	 the  terminal
	      when  a  message	is  printed.  All other header fields are sup‐
	      pressed.	The Type and Print commands can be  used  to  print  a
	      message  in  its	entirety.  If retain is executed with no argu‐
	      ments, it lists the current set of retained fields.

       Save   (S) Similar to save, but saves the  messages  in	a  file	 named
	      after  the local part of the sender of the first message instead
	      of taking a filename argument.

       save   (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message
	      in  turn	to  the end of the file.  If no filename is given, the
	      mbox file is used.  The filename in quotes, followed by the line
	      count  and character count is echoed on the user's terminal.  If
	      editing a system mailbox, the messages are marked for  deletion.
	      Compressed files and IMAP mailboxes are handled as described for
	      the -f command line option above.

       savediscard
	      Same as saveignore.

       saveignore
	      Saveignore is to save what ignore is to print and type.	Header
	      fields  thus  marked  are	 filtered out when saving a message by
	      save or when automatically saving to mbox.  This command	should
	      only be applied to header fields that do not contain information
	      needed to decode the message, as MIME  content  fields  do.   If
	      saving  messages	on  an	IMAP account, ignoring fields makes it
	      impossible to copy the data directly on the server, thus	opera‐
	      tion usually becomes much slower.

       saveretain
	      Saveretain  is to save what retain is to print and type.	Header
	      fields thus marked are the only ones saved with a	 message  when
	      saving by save or when automatically saving to mbox.  Saveretain
	      overrides saveignore.  The use of this command is strongly  dis‐
	      couraged	since  it  may	strip header fields that are needed to
	      decode the message correctly.

       score  (sc) Takes a message list and a floating point number  and  adds
	      the  number  to  the  score of each given message.  All messages
	      start at score 0 when a folder is opened.	 When the score	 of  a
	      message  becomes	negative,  it  is  `killed'  with  the effects
	      described for the kill command; otherwise	 if  it	 was  negative
	      before  and  becomes  positive,  it  is `unkilled'.  Scores only
	      refer to the currently opened instance of a folder.

       set    (se) With	 no  arguments,	 prints	 all  variable	values,	 piped
	      through  the  pager  if  the  output does not fit on the screen.
	      Otherwise, sets option.  Arguments are of the form  option=value
	      (no  space before or after =) or option.	Quotation marks may be
	      placed around any part of	 the  assignment  statement  to	 quote
	      blanks  or  tabs,	 i.e. `set indentprefix="->"'.	If an argument
	      begins with no, as in `set nosave', the effect is	 the  same  as
	      invoking	the unset command with the remaining part of the vari‐
	      able (`unset save').

       seen   Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.

       shell  (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.

       shortcut
	      Defines a	 shortcut  name	 and  its  string  for	expansion,  as
	      described	 for the folder command.  With no arguments, a list of
	      defined shortcuts is printed.

       show   (Sh) Like print, but performs neither MIME decoding nor  decryp‐
	      tion so that the raw message text is shown.

       size   Takes  a	message	 list and prints out the size in characters of
	      each message.

       sort   Create a sorted representation of the current folder, and change
	      the  next	 command and the addressing modes such that they refer
	      to messages in the sorted order.	Message numbers are  the  same
	      as  in  regular  mode.   If the header variable is set, a header
	      summary in the new order is also printed.	 Possible sorting cri‐
	      teria are:

	      date   Sort  the messages by their `Date:' field, that is by the
		     time they were sent.

	      from   Sort messages by the value of their `From:'  field,  that
		     is	 by  the address of the sender.	 If the showname vari‐
		     able is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.

	      size   Sort the messages by their size.

	      score  Sort the messages by their score.

	      status Sort the messages by their	 message  status  (new,	 read,
		     old, etc.).

	      subject
		     Sort the messages by their subject.

	      thread Create a threaded order, as with the thread command.

	      to     Sort  messages by the value of their `To:' field, that is
		     by the address of the recipient.  If the  showname	 vari‐
		     able is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.

	      If  no  argument	is  given,  the	 current  sorting criterion is
	      printed.

       source The source command reads commands from a file.

       thread (th) Create a threaded representation  of	 the  current  folder,
	      i.e.  indent  messages that are replies to other messages in the
	      header display, and change the next command and  the  addressing
	      modes  such  that	 they refer to messages in the threaded order.
	      Message numbers are the same as  in  unthreaded  mode.   If  the
	      header  variable	is  set, a header summary in threaded order is
	      also printed.

       top    Takes a message list and prints the top few lines of each.   The
	      number  of  lines printed is controlled by the variable toplines
	      and defaults to five.

       touch  Takes a message list and marks the messages for  saving  in  the
	      mbox  file.   mailx  deviates  from the POSIX standard with this
	      command, as a `next' command issued after	 `mbox'	 will  display
	      the following message, not the current one.

       Type   (T) Identical to the Print command.

       type   (t) A synonym for print.

       unalias
	      Takes a list of names defined by alias commands and discards the
	      remembered groups of users.  The group names no longer have  any
	      significance.

       unanswered
	      Takes  a	message list and marks each message as not having been
	      answered.

       uncollapse
	      (unc) Only applicable to threaded mode.  Takes  a	 message  list
	      and  makes  the  message and all replies to it visible in header
	      summaries again.	When a message becomes the current message, it
	      is  automatically	 made  visible.	 Also when a message with col‐
	      lapsed replies is printed, all of these are automatically uncol‐
	      lapsed.

       undef  Undefines each of the named macros.  It is not an error to use a
	      name that does not  belong  to  one  of  the  currently  defined
	      macros.

       undelete
	      (u)  Takes  a  message  list and marks each message as not being
	      deleted.

       undraft
	      Takes a message list and marks each message as a draft.

       unflag Takes a message  list  and  marks	 each  message	as  not	 being
	      `flagged'.

       unfwdignore
	      Removes  the  header field names from the list of ignored fields
	      for the forward command.

       unfwdretain
	      Removes the header field names from the list of retained	fields
	      for the forward command.

       ungood Takes  a	message	 list  and undoes the effect of a good command
	      that was previously applied on exactly these messages.

       unignore
	      Removes the header field names from the list of ignored fields.

       unjunk Takes a message list and undoes the effect  of  a	 junk  command
	      that was previously applied on exactly these messages.

       unkill Takes  a message list and `unkills' each message.	 Also sets the
	      score of the messages to 0.

       Unread Same as unread.

       unread (U) Takes a message list and marks each message  as  not	having
	      been read.

       unretain
	      Removes the header field names from the list of retained fields.

       unsaveignore
	      Removes  the  header field names from the list of ignored fields
	      for saving.

       unsaveretain
	      Removes the header field names from the list of retained	fields
	      for saving.

       unset  Takes  a list of option names and discards their remembered val‐
	      ues; the inverse of set.

       unshortcut
	      Deletes the shortcut names given as arguments.

       unsort Disable sorted or threaded mode (see the sort  and  thread  com‐
	      mands),  return to normal message order and, if the header vari‐
	      able is set, print a header summary.

       unthread
	      (unth) Same as unsort.

       verify (verif) Takes a message list and verifies each  message.	 If  a
	      message  is not an S/MIME signed message, verification will fail
	      for it.  The verification process	 checks	 if  the  message  was
	      signed  using a valid certificate, if the message sender's email
	      address matches one of those contained within  the  certificate,
	      and if the message content has been altered.

       visual (v)  Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each
	      message.	Modified contents  are	discarded  unless  the	write‐
	      backedited variable is set.

       write  (w)  For	conventional messages, the body without all headers is
	      written.	The output is decrypted and converted  to  its	native
	      format,  if  necessary.	If the output file exists, the text is
	      appended.—If a message is in MIME multipart  format,  its	 first
	      part  is	written to the specified file as for conventional mes‐
	      sages, and the user is asked for a filename to save  each	 other
	      part;  if	 the  contents	of the first part are not to be saved,
	      `write /dev/null' can be used.  For the  second  and  subsequent
	      parts,  if  the  filename given starts with a `|' character, the
	      part is piped through the remainder of the filename  interpreted
	      as  a shell command.  In non-interactive mode, only the parts of
	      the multipart message that have a filename  given	 in  the  part
	      header  are written, the other are discarded.  The original mes‐
	      sage is never  marked  for  deletion  in	the  originating  mail
	      folder.	For  attachments, the contents of the destination file
	      are overwritten if the file previously existed.  No special han‐
	      dling of compressed files is performed.

       xit    (x) A synonym for exit.

       z      Mailx  presents message headers in windowfuls as described under
	      the headers command.  The z command scrolls to the  next	window
	      of  messages.   If an argument is given, it specifies the window
	      to use.  A number prefixed by `+' or `-' indicates that the win‐
	      dow is calculated in relation to the current position.  A number
	      without a prefix specifies an absolute window number, and a  `$'
	      lets mailx scroll to the last window of messages.

       Z      Similar  to  z,  but scrolls to the next or previous window that
	      contains at least one new or `flagged' message.

   Tilde escapes
       Here is a summary of the tilde escapes, which are used  when  composing
       messages	 to  perform special functions.	 Tilde escapes are only recog‐
       nized at the beginning of lines.	 The name `tilde escape'  is  somewhat
       of  a  misnomer	since  the  actual  escape character can be set by the
       option escape.

       ~!command
	      Execute the indicated shell command, then return to the message.

       ~.     Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.

       ~<filename
	      Identical to ~r.

       ~<!command
	      Command is executed using the shell.   Its  standard  output  is
	      inserted into the message.

       ~@ [filename . . . ]
	      With  no	arguments,  edit the attachment list.  First, the user
	      can edit all existing attachment data.  If an attachment's  file
	      name  is	left  empty, that attachment is deleted from the list.
	      When the end of the attachment list is reached, mailx  will  ask
	      for  further attachments, until an empty file name is given.  If
	      filename arguments are specified, all of them  are  appended  to
	      the  end	of the attachment list.	 Filenames which contain white
	      space can only be specified with the first method	 (no  filename
	      arguments).

       ~A     Inserts  the  string contained in the Sign variable (same as `~i
	      Sign').  The escape sequences `\t' (tabulator)  and  `\n'	 (new‐
	      line) are understood.

       ~a     Inserts  the  string contained in the sign variable (same as `~i
	      sign').  The escape sequences `\t' (tabulator)  and  `\n'	 (new‐
	      line) are understood.

       ~bname . . .
	      Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients but do
	      not make the names visible  in  the  Cc:	line  (`blind'	carbon
	      copy).

       ~cname . . .
	      Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.

       ~d     Read  the file `dead.letter' from the user's home directory into
	      the message.

       ~e     Invoke the text editor on the message collected so  far.	 After
	      the editing session is finished, the user may continue appending
	      text to the message.

       ~fmessages
	      Read the named messages into the message being sent.  If no mes‐
	      sages are specified, read in the current message.	 Message head‐
	      ers currently being ignored (by the ignore  or  retain  command)
	      are  not	included.  For MIME multipart messages, only the first
	      printable part is included.

       ~Fmessages
	      Identical to ~f, except all message headers and all  MIME	 parts
	      are included.

       ~h     Edit  the	 message header fields `To:', `Cc:', `Bcc:', and `Sub‐
	      ject:' by typing each one in  turn  and  allowing	 the  user  to
	      append  text to the end or modify the field by using the current
	      terminal erase and kill characters.

       ~H     Edit the message header fields `From:', `Reply-To:',  `Sender:',
	      and `Organization:' in the same manner as described for ~h.  The
	      default  values  for  these  fields  originate  from  the	 from,
	      replyto,	and ORGANIZATION variables.  If this tilde command has
	      been used, changing the variables has no effect on  the  current
	      message anymore.

       ~ivariable
	      Insert  the  value  of  the  specified variable into the message
	      adding a newline character at the end.  If the variable is unset
	      or  empty,  the message remains unaltered.  The escape sequences
	      `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (newline) are understood.

       ~mmessages
	      Read the named messages into the message being sent, indented by
	      a tab or by the value of indentprefix.  If no messages are spec‐
	      ified, read the  current	message.   Message  headers  currently
	      being  ignored  (by  the	ignore	or  retain  command)  are  not
	      included.	 For MIME multipart messages, only the first printable
	      part is included.

       ~Mmessages
	      Identical	 to  ~m, except all message headers and all MIME parts
	      are included.

       ~p     Print out the message collected so far, prefaced by the  message
	      header  fields  and followed by the attachment list, if any.  If
	      the message text is longer than the screen  size,	 it  is	 piped
	      through the pager.

       ~q     Abort  the message being sent, copying the message to `dead.let‐
	      ter' in the user's home directory if save is set.

       ~rfilename
	      Read the named file into the message.

       ~sstring
	      Cause the named string to become the current subject field.

       ~tname . . .
	      Add the given names to the direct recipient list.

       ~v     Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the VISUAL option) on the
	      message collected so far.	 Usually, the alternate editor will be
	      a screen editor.	After the editor is quit, the user may	resume
	      appending text to the end of the message.

       ~wfilename
	      Write  the message onto the named file.  If the file exists, the
	      message is appended to it.

       ~x     Same as ~q,  except  that	 the  message  is  not	saved  to  the
	      `dead.letter' file.

       ~|command
	      Pipe  the	 message through the command as a filter.  If the com‐
	      mand gives no output or terminates abnormally, retain the origi‐
	      nal  text	 of  the message.  The command fmt(1) is often used as
	      command to rejustify the message.

       ~:mailx-command
	      Execute the given mailx command.	Not all commands, however, are
	      allowed.

       ~_mailx-command
	      Identical to ~:.

       ~~string
	      Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single ~.
	      If the escape character has been changed, that character must be
	      doubled in order to send it at the beginning of a line.

   Variable options
       Options	are  controlled	 via set and unset commands, see their entries
       for a syntax description.  An option is also set if  it	is  passed  to
       mailx  as  part	of the environment (this is not restricted to specific
       variables as in the POSIX standard).  A value given in a	 startup  file
       overrides a value imported from the environment.	 Options may be either
       binary, in which case it is only significant to see  whether  they  are
       set or not; or string, in which case the actual value is of interest.

   Binary options
       The binary options include the following:

       allnet Causes  only  the	 local	part  to  be  evaluated when comparing
	      addresses.

       append Causes messages saved in mbox to be appended to the  end	rather
	      than prepended.  This should always be set.

       ask or asksub
	      Causes mailx to prompt for the subject of each message sent.  If
	      the user responds with simply a newline, no subject  field  will
	      be sent.

       askatend
	      Causes  the  prompts  for `Cc:' and `Bcc:' lists to appear after
	      the message has been edited.

       askattach
	      If set, mailx asks for files to attach at the end of  each  mes‐
	      sage.   Responding  with	a  newline indicates not to include an
	      attachment.

       askcc  Causes the user to be prompted for additional carbon copy recip‐
	      ients  (at  the  end of each message if askatend or bsdcompat is
	      set).  Responding with a newline indicates the user's  satisfac‐
	      tion with the current list.

       askbcc Causes  the user to be prompted for additional blind carbon copy
	      recipients (at the end of each message if askatend or  bsdcompat
	      is  set).	 Responding with a newline indicates the user's satis‐
	      faction with the current list.

       asksign
	      Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be signed at
	      the  end	of  each  message.  The smime-sign variable is ignored
	      when this variable is set.

       autocollapse
	      Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded  mode
	      is entered (see the collapse command).

       autoinc
	      Same as newmail.

       autoprint
	      Causes the delete command to behave like dp - thus, after delet‐
	      ing a message, the next one will be typed automatically.

       autothread
	      Causes threaded mode (see the  thread  command)  to  be  entered
	      automatically when a folder is opened.

       bang   Enables  the  substitution  of  `!'  by the contents of the last
	      command line in shell escapes.

       bsdannounce
	      Causes automatic display of a header summary after  executing  a
	      folder command.

       bsdcompat
	      Sets  some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style; has the
	      same affect as setting `askatend' and all other  variables  pre‐
	      fixed  with  `bsd',  setting  prompt  to	`& ', and changing the
	      default pager to more.

       bsdflags
	      Changes the letters printed in the first column of a header sum‐
	      mary to traditional BSD style.

       bsdheadline
	      Changes  the  display  of	 columns in a header summary to tradi‐
	      tional BSD style.

       bsdmsgs
	      Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.

       bsdorder
	      Causes the `Subject:' field  to  appear  immediately  after  the
	      `To:' field in message headers and with the ~h tilde command.

       bsdset Changes  the output format of the set command to traditional BSD
	      style.

       chained-junk-tokens
	      Normally, the Bayesian junk mail filter  bases  its  classifica‐
	      tions  on	 single	 word tokens extracted from messages.  If this
	      option is set, adjacent words are combined to pairs,  which  are
	      then used as additional tokens.  This usually improves the accu‐
	      racy of the filter, but also increases the  junk	mail  database
	      five- to tenfold.

       datefield
	      The date in a header summary is normally the date of the mailbox
	      `From ' line of the message.  If this variable is set, the  date
	      as given in the `Date:' header field is used, converted to local
	      time.

       debug  Prints debugging messages and disables the  actual  delivery  of
	      messages.	  Unlike  verbose,  this  option is intended for mailx
	      development only.

       disconnected
	      When an IMAP mailbox is selected and this variable  is  set,  no
	      connection  to  the  server  is  initiated.   Instead,  data  is
	      obtained from the local cache (see imap-cache).  Mailboxes  that
	      are  not	present	 in  the  cache and messages that have not yet
	      entirely been fetched from the  server  are  not	available;  to
	      fetch  all  messages  in	a mailbox at once, the command `copy *
	      /dev/null' can be used while still in online mode.  Changes that
	      are  made	 to IMAP mailboxes in disconnected mode are queued and
	      committed later when a connection to that server	is  opened  in
	      online mode.  This procedure is not completely reliable since it
	      cannot be guaranteed that the IMAP unique identifiers (UIDs)  on
	      the server still match the ones in the cache at that time.  Data
	      is saved to `dead.letter' when this problem occurs.

       disconnected-user@host
	      The specified account is handled as described  for  the  discon‐
	      nected variable above, but other accounts are not affected.

       dot    The  binary  option dot causes mailx to interpret a period alone
	      on a line as the terminator of a message the user is sending.

       editheaders
	      When a message is edited while being  composed,  its  header  is
	      included	in  the	 editable  text.   `To:', `Cc:', `Bcc:', `Sub‐
	      ject:', `From:',	`Reply-To:',  `Sender:',  and  'Organization:'
	      fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.

       emptybox
	      If  set, an empty mailbox file is not removed.  This may improve
	      the interoperability with other mail user agents	when  using  a
	      common folder directory.

       emptystart
	      If  the  mailbox	is  empty,  mailx normally prints `No mail for
	      user' and exits immediately.   If	 this  option  is  set,	 mailx
	      starts even with an empty mailbox.

       flipr  Exchanges the Respond with the respond commands and vice-versa.

       forward-as-attachment
	      Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the for‐
	      ward command, and only the first part of a multipart message  is
	      included.	  With	this  option,  messages	 are sent as MIME mes‐
	      sage/rfc822 attachments, and all of their	 parts	are  included.
	      The  fwdignore  and  fwdretain options are ignored when the for‐
	      ward-as-attachment option is set.

       fullnames
	      When replying to a message, mailx normally removes  the  comment
	      parts  of	 email addresses, which by convention contain the full
	      names of the recipients.	If this variable is set,  such	strip‐
	      ping is not performed, and comments are retained.

       header Causes  the  header  summary  to be written at startup and after
	      commands that affect the number of messages or the order of mes‐
	      sages in the current folder; enabled by default.

       hold   This  option  is	used to hold messages in the system mailbox by
	      default.

       ignore Causes interrupt signals from the terminal  to  be  ignored  and
	      echoed as @'s.

       ignoreeof
	      An  option  related to dot is ignoreeof which makes mailx refuse
	      to accept a control-d as the end of a message.   Ignoreeof  also
	      applies to mailx command mode.

       imap-use-starttls
	      Causes  mailx to issue a STARTTLS command to make an unencrypted
	      IMAP session SSL/TLS encrypted.  This functionality is not  sup‐
	      ported by all servers, and is not used if the session is already
	      encrypted by the IMAPS method.

       imap-use-starttls-user@host
	      Activates imap-use-starttls for a specific account.

       keep   This option causes mailx to truncate the user's  system  mailbox
	      instead  of deleting it when it is empty.	 This should always be
	      set, since it prevents malicious users from creating  fake  mail
	      folders in a world-writable spool directory.

       keepsave
	      When a message is saved, it is usually discarded from the origi‐
	      nating folder when mailx is quit.	 Setting  this	option	causes
	      all saved message to be retained.

       markanswered
	      When  a  message	is  replied to and this variable is set, it is
	      marked as having been answered.	This  mark  has	 no  technical
	      meaning in the mail system; it just causes messages to be marked
	      in the header summary, and makes them specially addressable.

       metoo  Usually, when a group is expanded that contains the sender,  the
	      sender  is  removed  from	 the  expansion.   Setting this option
	      causes the sender to be included in the group.

       newmail
	      Checks for new mail in the current folder each time  the	prompt
	      is  printed.   For IMAP mailboxes, the server is then polled for
	      new mail, which may result in delayed operation if  the  connec‐
	      tion to the server is slow.  A maildir folder must be re-scanned
	      to determine if new mail has arrived.

	      If this variable is set to the special  value  nopoll,  an  IMAP
	      server  is  not  actively	 asked	for new mail, but new mail may
	      still be detected and announced with any other IMAP command that
	      is sent to the server.  A maildir folder is not scanned then.

	      In  any  case, the IMAP server may send notifications about mes‐
	      sages that have been deleted on the server by another process or
	      client.	In this case, `Expunged n messages' is printed regard‐
	      less of this variable, and message numbers may have changed.

       noheader
	      Setting the option noheader is the same as giving the -N flag on
	      the command line.

       outfolder
	      Causes the filename given in the record variable and the sender-
	      based filenames for the Copy and Save commands to be interpreted
	      relative	to  the	 directory given in the folder variable rather
	      than to the current directory unless it is an absolute pathname.

       page   If set, each message the pipe command prints out is followed  by
	      a formfeed character.

       piperaw
	      Send  messages  to  the pipe command without performing MIME and
	      character set conversions.

       pop3-use-apop
	      If this variable is set, the APOP authentication method is  used
	      when  a connection to a POP3 server is initiated.	 The advantage
	      of this method over the usual USER/PASS authentication  is  that
	      the  password  is	 not sent over the network in clear text.  The
	      connection fails if the server does not support  the  APOP  com‐
	      mand.

       pop3-use-apop-user@host
	      Enables pop3-use-apop for a specific account.

       pop3-use-starttls
	      Causes mailx to issue a STLS command to make an unencrypted POP3
	      session SSL/TLS encrypted.  This functionality is not  supported
	      by  all  servers,	 and  is  not  used  if the session is already
	      encrypted by the POP3S method.

       pop3-use-starttls-user@host
	      Activates pop3-use-starttls for a specific account.

       print-all-chars
	      This option causes all characters to  be	considered  printable.
	      It  is  only  effective  if  given in a startup file.  With this
	      option set, some character sequences in  messages	 may  put  the
	      user's  terminal	in  an undefined state when printed; it should
	      only be used as a last resort if no working system locale can be
	      found.

       print-alternatives
	      When  a  MIME message part of type multipart/alternative is dis‐
	      played and it contains a subpart of type text/plain, other parts
	      are  normally  discarded.	 Setting this variable causes all sub‐
	      parts to be displayed, just as if the surrounding	 part  was  of
	      type multipart/mixed.

       quiet  Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.

       record-resent
	      If  both	this  variable	and  the  record variable are set, the
	      resend and Resend commands save messages to the record folder as
	      it is normally only done for newly composed messages.

       reply-in-same-charset
	      If this variable is set, mailx first tries to use the same char‐
	      acter set of the original message for replies.  If  this	fails,
	      the sendcharsets variable is evaluated as usual.

       Replyall
	      Reverses the sense of reply and Reply commands.

       save   When  the user aborts a message with two RUBOUT (interrupt char‐
	      acters) mailx copies the partial letter to the  file  `dead.let‐
	      ter' in the home directory.  This option is set by default.

       searchheaders
	      If this option is set, then a message-list specifier in the form
	      `/x:y' will expand to all messages containing the substring  `y'
	      in the header field `x'.	The string search is case insensitive.

       sendwait
	      When sending a message, wait until the mail transfer agent exits
	      before accepting further commands.  If the mail  transfer	 agent
	      returns  a  non-zero  exit status, the exit status of mailx will
	      also be non-zero.

       showlast
	      Setting this option causes mailx to start at  the	 last  message
	      instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.

       showname
	      Causes  mailx to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
	      address in the header field summary and  in  message  specifica‐
	      tions.

       showto Causes  the  recipient  of the message to be shown in the header
	      summary if the message was sent by the user.

       skipemptybody
	      If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
	      only  message  part, do not send it but discard it silently (see
	      also the -E option).

       smime-force-encryption
	      Causes mailx to refuse sending unencrypted messages.

       smime-sign
	      If this variable is set, outgoing	 messages  are	S/MIME	signed
	      with the user's private key.  Signing a message enables a recip‐
	      ient to verify that the sender used a  valid  certificate,  that
	      the  email  addresses in the certificate match those in the mes‐
	      sage header, and that the message content has not been  altered.
	      It  does not change the message text, and people will be able to
	      read the message as usual.

       smime-no-default-ca
	      Do not load the  default	CA  locations  when  verifying	S/MIME
	      signed  messages.	  Only	applicable  if S/MIME support is built
	      using OpenSSL.

       smtp-use-starttls
	      Causes mailx to issue a STARTTLS command to make an SMTP session
	      SSL/TLS  encrypted.   Not	 all  servers  support	this  command;
	      because of common implementation defects, it cannot be automati‐
	      cally determined whether a server supports it or not.

       ssl-no-default-ca
	      Do  not  load  the default CA locations to verify SSL/TLS server
	      certificates.  Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is built using
	      OpenSSL.

       ssl-v2-allow
	      Accept  SSLv2  connections.   These  are	normally  not  allowed
	      because this protocol version is insecure.

       stealthmua
	      Inhibits the generation of the `Message-Id:'  and	 `User-Agent:'
	      header  fields  that include obvious references to mailx.	 There
	      are two pitfalls associated with this: First, the message id  of
	      outgoing	messages  is not known anymore.	 Second, an expert may
	      still use the remaining information in the header to track  down
	      the originating mail user agent.

       verbose
	      Setting  the  option verbose is the same as using the -v flag on
	      the command line.	 When mailx runs in verbose mode,  details  of
	      the actual message delivery and protocol conversations for IMAP,
	      POP3, and SMTP, as well as of other internal processes, are dis‐
	      played on the user's terminal, This is sometimes useful to debug
	      problems.	 Mailx prints all data that is sent to remote  servers
	      in  clear	 texts,	 including  passwords, so care should be taken
	      that no unauthorized option can view the screen if  this	option
	      is enabled.

       writebackedited
	      If  this	variable  is  set, messages modified using the edit or
	      visual commands are written back to the current folder  when  it
	      is  quit.	  This	is  only possible for writable folders in mbox
	      format.  Setting this variable also disables MIME	 decoding  and
	      decryption for the editing commands.

   String Options
       The string options include the following:

       attrlist
	      A sequence of characters to print in the `attribute' column of a
	      header summary, each for one type of messages in	the  following
	      order:  new,  unread but old, new but read, read and old, saved,
	      preserved, mboxed, flagged, answered, draft, killed, start of  a
	      collapsed thread, collapsed, classified as junk.	The default is
	      `NUROSPMFATK+-J', or `NU	*HMFATK+-J' if bsdflags or  the	 SYSV3
	      environment variable are set.

       autobcc
	      Specifies	 a  list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of
	      each outgoing message will be sent automatically.

       autocc Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon	copy  of  each
	      outgoing message will be sent automatically.

       autosort
	      Causes sorted mode (see the sort command) to be entered automat‐
	      ically with the value of this option as sorting  method  when  a
	      folder is opened.

       cmd    The default value for the pipe command.

       crt    The  valued  option  crt is used as a threshold to determine how
	      long a message must be before PAGER is used to read it.  If  crt
	      is  set  without a value, then the height of the terminal screen
	      stored in the system is  used  to	 compute  the  threshold  (see
	      stty(1)).

       DEAD   The  name	 of the file to use for saving aborted messages.  This
	      defaults to `dead.letter' in the user's home directory.

       EDITOR Pathname of the text editor to use in the edit  command  and  ~e
	      escape.  If not defined, then a default editor is used.

       encoding
	      The  default  MIME encoding to use in outgoing text messages and
	      message parts.  Valid values are 8bit or quoted-printable.   The
	      default  is 8bit.	 In case the mail transfer system is not ESMTP
	      compliant, quoted-printable should be used instead.  If there is
	      no need to encode a message, 7bit transfer mode is used, without
	      regard to the value of this variable.   Binary  data  is	always
	      encoded in base64 mode.

       escape If defined, the first character of this option gives the charac‐
	      ter to use in the place of ~ to denote escapes.

       folder The name of the directory to use for  storing  folders  of  mes‐
	      sages.   All  folder  names  that	 begin with `+' refer to files
	      below that directory.  If the directory name begins with a  `/',
	      mailx  considers	it  to be an absolute pathname; otherwise, the
	      folder directory is found relative to the user's home directory.

	      The directory name may also refer to an IMAP account; any	 names
	      that  begin  with	 `+'  then  refer  to  IMAP  mailboxes on that
	      account.	An IMAP folder is normally given in the form

		  imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example

	      In this case, the `+' and `@' prefixes for folder names have the
	      same effect (see the folder command).

	      Some IMAP servers do not accept the creation of mailboxes in the
	      hierarchy base; they require that they are created as subfolders
	      of `INBOX'.  With such servers, a folder name of the form

		  imaps://mylogin@imap.myisp.example/INBOX.

	      should  be  used	(the  last character is the server's hierarchy
	      delimiter).  Folder names prefixed by `+'	 will  then  refer  to
	      folders  below `INBOX', while folder names prefixed by `@' refer
	      to folders below the hierarchy base.   See  the  imap  namespace
	      command for a method to detect the appropriate prefix and delim‐
	      iter.

       folder-hook
	      When a folder is opened and this variable is set, the macro cor‐
	      responding to the value of this variable is executed.  The macro
	      is also invoked when new mail arrives,  but  message  lists  for
	      commands executed from the macro only include newly arrived mes‐
	      sages then.

       folder-hook-fullname
	      When a folder named fullname is opened, the macro	 corresponding
	      to  the value of this variable is executed.  Unlike other folder
	      specifications, the fully expanded name  of  a  folder,  without
	      metacharacters,  is used to avoid ambiguities.  The macro speci‐
	      fied with folder-hook is not executed if this variable is effec‐
	      tive  for	 a  folder (unless it is explicitly invoked within the
	      called macro).

       from   The address (or a list of addresses) to  put  into  the  `From:'
	      field  of	 the  message header.  If replying to a message, these
	      addresses are handled as if they were in	the  alternates	 list.
	      If  the  machine's  hostname  is	not valid at the Internet (for
	      example at a dialup machine), either this variable  or  hostname
	      have to be set to get correct Message-ID header fields.  If from
	      contains more than one address, the sender variable must also be
	      set.

       fwdheading
	      The  string  to print before the text of a message with the for‐
	      ward command (unless the forward-as-attachment variable is set).
	      Defaults to ``-------- Original Message --------'' if unset.  If
	      it is set to the empty string, no heading is printed.

       headline
	      A format string to use for the header summary, similar to printf
	      formats.	A `%' character introduces a format specifier.	It may
	      be followed by a number indicating  the  field  width.   If  the
	      field  is	 a  number, the width may be negative, which indicates
	      that it is to be left-aligned.  Valid format specifiers are:

		  %a	Message attributes.
		  %c	The score of the message.
		  %d	The date when the message was received.
		  %e	The indenting level in threaded mode.
		  %f	The address of the message sender.
		  %i	The message thread structure.
		  %l	The number of lines of the message.
		  %m	Message number.
		  %o	The number of octets (bytes) in the message.
		  %s	Message subject (if any).
		  %S	Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
		  %t	The position in threaded/sorted order.
		  %>	A `>' for the current message, otherwise ` '.
		  %<	A `<' for the current message, otherwise ` '.
		  %%	A `%' character.

	      The    default	is    `%>%a%m %18f %16d %4l/%-5o %i%s',	    or
	      `%>%a%m %20f  %16d %3l/%-5o %i%S' if bsdcompat is set.

       hostname
	      Use  this	 string	 as  hostname  when  expanding local addresses
	      instead of the value obtained from uname(2) and getaddrinfo(3).

       imap-auth
	      Sets the IMAP authentication method.  Valid values  are  `login'
	      for  the	usual  password-based  authentication  (the  default),
	      `cram-md5', which is a password-based authentication  that  does
	      not  send the password over the network in clear text, and `gss‐
	      api' for GSSAPI-based authentication.

       imap-auth-user@host
	      Sets the IMAP authentication method for a specific account.

       imap-cache
	      Enables caching of IMAP mailboxes.  The value of	this  variable
	      must point to a directory that is either existent or can be cre‐
	      ated by mailx.  All contents of the  cache  can  be  deleted  by
	      mailx  at	 any  time;  it	 is not safe to make assumptions about
	      them.

       imap-keepalive
	      IMAP servers may close the connection after a period of inactiv‐
	      ity;  the	 standard requires this to be at least 30 minutes, but
	      practical experience may	vary.	Setting	 this  variable	 to  a
	      numeric  value  greater  than 0 causes a NOOP command to be sent
	      each value seconds if no other operation is performed.

       imap-list-depth
	      When retrieving the list of folders on an IMAP server, the fold‐
	      ers  command stops after it has reached a certain depth to avoid
	      possible infinite loops.	The value of this  variable  sets  the
	      maximum depth allowed.  The default is 2.	 If the folder separa‐
	      tor on the current IMAP server is a slash `/', this variable has
	      no  effect, and the folders command does not descend to subfold‐
	      ers.

       indentprefix
	      String used by the `~m' and `~M' tilde escapes and by the	 quote
	      option  for indenting messages, in place of the normal tab char‐
	      acter (^I).  Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or
	      tabs.

       junkdb The  location  of the junk mail database.	 The string is treated
	      like a folder name, as described for the folder command.

	      The files in the junk mail database are normally stored in  com‐
	      press(1) format for saving space.	 If processing time is consid‐
	      ered more important, uncompress(1) can be used to store them  in
	      plain form.  Mailx will then work using the uncompressed files.

       LISTER Pathname	of  the directory lister to use in the folders command
	      when operating on local mailboxes.  Default is /bin/ls.

       MAIL   Is used as the user's mailbox, if	 set.	Otherwise,  a  system-
	      dependent default is used.  Can be a protocol:// string (see the
	      folder command for more information).

       MAILX_HEAD
	      A string to put at the  beginning	 of  each  new	message.   The
	      escape  sequences `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (newline) are under‐
	      stood.

       MAILX_TAIL
	      A string to put at the end of  each  new	message.   The	escape
	      sequences `\t' (tabulator) and `\n' (newline) are understood.

       maximum-unencoded-line-length
	      Messages	that contain lines longer than the value of this vari‐
	      able are encoded in quoted-printable even if they	 contain  only
	      ASCII  characters.   The maximum effective value is 950.	If set
	      to 0, all ASCII text messages are encoded	 in  quoted-printable.
	      S/MIME  signed  messages	are always encoded in quoted-printable
	      regardless of the value of this variable.

       MBOX   The name of the mbox file.  It can be the name of a folder.  The
	      default is `mbox' in the user's home directory.

       NAIL_EXTRA_RC
	      The name of an optional startup file to be read after ~/.mailrc.
	      This variable is ignored if it is imported from the environment;
	      it  has an effect only if it is set in /etc/nail.rc or ~/.mailrc
	      to   allow   bypassing   the   configuration    with    e.    g.
	      `MAILRC=/dev/null'.   Use	 this  file  for commands that are not
	      understood by other mailx implementations.

       newfolders
	      If this variable has the	value  maildir,	 newly	created	 local
	      folders will be in maildir format.

       nss-config-dir
	      A	 directory  that  contains the files certN.db to retrieve cer‐
	      tificates, keyN.db to  retrieve  private	keys,  and  secmod.db,
	      where  N	is  a  digit.	These  are  usually taken from Mozilla
	      installations,   so    an	   appropriate	  value	   might    be
	      `~/.mozilla/firefox/default.clm'.	 Mailx opens these files read-
	      only and does not modify them.  However, if the files are	 modi‐
	      fied  by	Mozilla	 while	mailx is running, it will print a `Bad
	      database' message.  It may be  necessary	to  create  copies  of
	      these  files  that  are  exclusively  used  by mailx then.  Only
	      applicable if S/MIME and SSL/TLS support is built using  Network
	      Security Services (NSS).

       ORGANIZATION
	      The  value  to put into the `Organization:' field of the message
	      header.

       PAGER  Pathname of the program to use in the more command or  when  crt
	      variable is set.	The default paginator pg(1) or, in BSD compat‐
	      ibility mode, more(1) is used if this option is not defined.

       password-user@host
	      Set the password for user when connecting to host.  If  no  such
	      variable	is  defined  for  a host, the user will be asked for a
	      password on standard input.  Specifying passwords in  a  startup
	      file  is	generally a security risk, the file should be readable
	      by the invoking user only.

       pipe-content/subcontent
	      When a MIME message part of content/subcontent type is displayed
	      or  it  is replied to, its text is filtered through the value of
	      this variable interpreted as a shell command.  Special care must
	      be  taken	 when  using such commands as mail viruses may be dis‐
	      tributed by this method; if messages  of	type  application/x-sh
	      were  filtered  through the shell, for example, a message sender
	      could easily execute arbitrary code on the system mailx is  run‐
	      ning on.

       pop3-keepalive
	      POP3 servers may close the connection after a period of inactiv‐
	      ity; the standard requires this to be at least 10	 minutes,  but
	      practical	 experience  may  vary.	  Setting  this	 variable to a
	      numeric value greater than 0 causes a NOOP command  to  be  sent
	      each value seconds if no other operation is performed.

       prompt The  string  printed  when  a  command is accepted.  Defaults to
	      `? ', or to `& ' if the bsdcompat variable is set.

       quote  If set, mailx starts a replying message with the	original  mes‐
	      sage  prefixed  by the value of the variable indentprefix.  Nor‐
	      mally, a	heading	 consisting  of	 `Fromheaderfield  wrote:'  is
	      printed  before  the  quotation.	 If  the  string  noheading is
	      assigned to the quote variable, this heading is omitted.	If the
	      string   headers	is  assigned,  the  headers  selected  by  the
	      ignore/retain commands are printed above the message body,  thus
	      quote  acts  like	 an  automatic ~m command then.	 If the string
	      allheaders is assigned, all headers are printed above  the  mes‐
	      sage body, and all MIME parts are included, thus quote acts like
	      an automatic ~M command then.

       record If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record  all
	      outgoing	mail.	If  not	 defined, then outgoing mail is not so
	      saved.  When saving to this folder fails,	 the  message  is  not
	      sent but saved to the `dead.letter' file instead.

       replyto
	      A	 list  of  addresses  to put into the `Reply-To:' field of the
	      message header.  If replying to a message,  such	addresses  are
	      handled as if they were in the alternates list.

       screen When  mailx  initially prints the message headers, it determines
	      the number to print by looking at the  speed  of	the  terminal.
	      The  faster the terminal, the more it prints.  This option over‐
	      rides this calculation and specifies how	many  message  headers
	      are  printed.  This number is also used for scrolling with the z
	      command.

       sendcharsets
	      A comma-separated list of character set names that can  be  used
	      in  Internet  mail.  When a message that contains characters not
	      representable in US-ASCII is prepared for sending,  mailx	 tries
	      to convert its text to each of the given character sets in order
	      and uses the first appropriate one.  The default is `utf-8'.

	      Character sets assigned to this variable should  be  ordered  in
	      ascending	 complexity.  That is, the list should start with e.g.
	      `iso-8859-1' for compatibility with older	 mail  clients,	 might
	      contain  some other language-specific character sets, and should
	      end with `utf-8' to handle messages that combine texts in multi‐
	      ple languages.

       sender An address that is put into the `Sender:' field of outgoing mes‐
	      sages.  This field needs not normally be present.	 It  is,  how‐
	      ever,  required  if  the	`From:'	 field	contains more than one
	      address.	It can also be used to indicate	 that  a  message  was
	      sent  on	behalf of somebody other; in this case, `From:' should
	      contain the address of the person that took  responsibility  for
	      the  message,  and  `Sender:'  should contain the address of the
	      person that actually sent the message.  The  sender  address  is
	      handled as if it were in the alternates list.

       sendmail
	      To use an alternate mail delivery system, set this option to the
	      full pathname of the program to use.  This should be  used  with
	      care.

       SHELL  Pathname of the shell to use in the ! command and the ~! escape.
	      A default shell is used if this option is not defined.

       Sign
	      A string for use with the ~A command.

       sign   A string for use with the ~a command.

       signature
	      Must correspond to the name of a readable	 file  if  set.
	      The  file's  content  is then appended to each singlepart
	      message and to the first part of each multipart  message.
	      Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signa‐
	      ture for an individual message.

       smime-ca-dir
	      Specifies a directory with CA certificates for  verifica‐
	      tion  of	S/MIME signed messages.	 The format is the same
	      as described in  SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(3).   Only
	      applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.

       smime-ca-file
	      Specifies a file with CA certificates for verification of
	      S/MIME signed  messages.	 The  format  is  the  same  as
	      described	  in   SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(3).   Only
	      applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.

       smime-cipher-user@host
	      Specifies	 a  cipher  to	use  when   generating	 S/MIME
	      encrypted	 messages  for	user@host.   Valid  ciphers are
	      rc2-40 (RC2 with 40 bits), rc2-64 (RC2 with 64 bits), des
	      (DES,  56	 bits)	and des-ede3 (3DES, 112/168 bits).  The
	      default is 3DES.	It is not recommended to use the  other
	      ciphers unless a recipient's client is actually unable to
	      handle 3DES since they are comparatively weak;  but  even
	      so,  the recipient should upgrade his software in prefer‐
	      ence.

       smime-crl-file
	      Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use
	      when  verifying  S/MIME  messages.   Only	 applicable  if
	      S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.

       smime-crl-dir
	      Specifies a directory that contains files	 with  CRLs  in
	      PEM  format  to use when verifying S/MIME messages.  Only
	      applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.

       smime-encrypt-user@host
	      If this  variable	 is  set,  messages  to	 user@host  are
	      encrypted	 before	 sending.   If	S/MIME support is built
	      using OpenSSL, the value of the variable must be	set  to
	      the  name	 of  a	file that contains a certificate in PEM
	      format.  If S/MIME support is built using NSS, the  value
	      of this variable is ignored, but if multiple certificates
	      for user@host are available, the smime-nickname-user@host
	      variable	should be set.	Otherwise a certificate for the
	      recipient is automatically retrieved from the certificate
	      database, if possible.

	      If a message is sent to multiple recipients, each of them
	      for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive  an
	      individually  encrypted  message;	 other	recipients will
	      continue to receive the message in plain text unless  the
	      smime-force-encryption  variable	is  set.   It is recom‐
	      mended to sign encrypted messages, i.e. to also  set  the
	      smime-sign variable.

       smime-nickname-user@host
	      Specifies	 the  nickname of a certificate to be used when
	      encrypting messages for user@host .  Only	 applicable  if
	      S/MIME support is built using NSS.

       smime-sign-cert
	      Points  to  a file in PEM format that contains the user's
	      private key as well as his certificate.	Both  are  used
	      with  S/MIME  for	 signing and decrypting messages.  Only
	      applicable if S/MIME support is built using OpenSSL.

       smime-sign-cert-user@host
	      Overrides smime-sign-cert	 for  the  specific  addresses.
	      When  signing messages and the value of the from variable
	      is set to user@host, the specific	 file  is  used.   When
	      decrypting messages, their recipient fields (To: and Cc:)
	      are searched for addresses for which such a  variable  is
	      set.   Mailx  always uses the first address that matches,
	      so if the same message is sent to more than  one	of  the
	      user's addresses using different encryption keys, decryp‐
	      tion might fail.	Only applicable if  S/MIME  support  is
	      built using OpenSSL.

       smime-sign-nickname
	      Specifies	 that the named certificate be used for signing
	      mail.  If this variable is not set, but a single certifi‐
	      cate  matching  the  current from address is found in the
	      database, that one is used automatically.	 Only  applica‐
	      ble if S/MIME support is built using NSS.

       smime-sign-nickname-user@host
	      Overrides	 smime-sign-nickname  for  a  specific address.
	      Only applicable if S/MIME support is built using NSS.

       smtp   Normally, mailx invokes sendmail(8) directly to  transfer
	      messages.	 If the smtp variable is set, a SMTP connection
	      to the server specified by the value of this variable  is
	      used  instead.  If the SMTP server does not use the stan‐
	      dard port, a value of server:port can be given, with port
	      as a name or as a number.

	      There  are  two possible methods to get SSL/TLS encrypted
	      SMTP sessions: First, the STARTTLS command can be used to
	      encrypt a session after it has been initiated, but before
	      any   user-related    data    has	   been	   sent;    see
	      smtp-use-starttls	 above.	  Second,  some	 servers accept
	      sessions that are encrypted from their beginning on. This
	      mode  is configured by assigning smtps://server[:port] to
	      the smtp variable.

	      The SMTP transfer is executed in a child process;	 unless
	      either  the sendwait or the verbose variable is set, this
	      process runs asynchronously.  If it receives a TERM  sig‐
	      nal, it will abort and save the message to the `dead.let‐
	      ter' file.

       smtp-auth
	      Sets the SMTP authentication method.  If set to  `login',
	      or  if  unset  and  smtp-auth-user  is set, AUTH LOGIN is
	      used.  If set to `cram-md5', AUTH CRAM-MD5  is  used;  if
	      set  to  `plain', AUTH PLAIN is used.  Otherwise, no SMTP
	      authentication is performed.

       smtp-auth-user@host
	      Overrides	 smtp-auth  for	 specific  values   of	 sender
	      addresses, depending on the from variable.

       smtp-auth-password
	      Sets  the	 global	 password for SMTP AUTH.  Both user and
	      password have to be given for AUTH LOGIN and  AUTH  CRAM-
	      MD5.

       smtp-auth-password-user@host
	      Overrides	  smtp-auth-password  for  specific  values  of
	      sender addresses, depending on the from variable.

       smtp-auth-user
	      Sets the global user name for SMTP AUTH.	Both  user  and
	      password	have  to be given for AUTH LOGIN and AUTH CRAM-
	      MD5.

	      If this variable is set but neither smtp-auth-password or
	      a	 matching  smtp-auth-password-user@host	 can  be found,
	      mailx will as for a password on the user's terminal.

       smtp-auth-user-user@host
	      Overrides smtp-auth-user for specific  values  of	 sender
	      addresses, depending on the from variable.

       ssl-ca-dir
	      Specifies	 a directory with CA certificates for verifica‐
	      tion    of    SSL/TLS    server	 certificates.	    See
	      SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(3)	for  more  information.
	      Only  applicable	if  SSL/TLS  support  is  built	  using
	      OpenSSL.

       ssl-ca-file
	      Specifies a file with CA certificates for verification of
	      SSL/TLS  server  certificates.	See   SSL_CTX_load_ver‐
	      ify_locations(3)	for  more information.	Only applicable
	      if SSL/TLS support is built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-cert
	      Sets the file  name  for	a  SSL/TLS  client  certificate
	      required	by  some  servers.   Only applicable if SSL/TLS
	      support is built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-cert-user@host
	      Sets an account-specific file name for a	SSL/TLS	 client
	      certificate required by some servers.  Overrides ssl-cert
	      for the specified account.  Only	applicable  if	SSL/TLS
	      support is built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-cipher-list
	      Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.  See
	      ciphers(1) for  more  information.   Only	 applicable  if
	      SSL/TLS support is built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-crl-file
	      Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use
	      when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.  Only	 appli‐
	      cable if SSL/TLS support is built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-crl-dir
	      Specifies	 a  directory  that contains files with CRLs in
	      PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server  certifi‐
	      cates.  Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is built using
	      OpenSSL.

       ssl-key
	      Sets the file name for  the  private  key	 of  a	SSL/TLS
	      client  certificate.   If unset, the name of the certifi‐
	      cate file is used.  The file is expected	to  be	in  PEM
	      format.	Only  applicable  if  SSL/TLS  support is built
	      using OpenSSL.

       ssl-key-user@host
	      Sets an account-specific file name for the private key of
	      a	 SSL/TLS client certificate.  Overrides ssl-key for the
	      specified account.  Only applicable if SSL/TLS support is
	      built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-method
	      Selects  a  SSL/TLS  protocol  version;  valid values are
	      `ssl2', `ssl3', and `tls1'.   If	unset,	the  method  is
	      selected automatically, if possible.

       ssl-method-user@host
	      Overrides ssl-method for a specific account.

       ssl-rand-egd
	      Gives  the  pathname  to	an  entropy  daemon socket, see
	      RAND_egd(3).

       ssl-rand-file
	      Gives the pathname to  a	file  with  entropy  data,  see
	      RAND_load_file(3).    If	the  file  is  a  regular  file
	      writable by the invoking user, new data is written to  it
	      after  it	 has  been  loaded.  Only applicable if SSL/TLS
	      support is built using OpenSSL.

       ssl-verify
	      Sets the action to be performed if an error occurs during
	      SSL/TLS  server certificate validation.  Valid values are
	      `strict' (fail and close connection  immediately),  `ask'
	      (ask  whether  to	 continue  on  standard	 input), `warn'
	      (print a warning and continue), `ignore' (do not	perform
	      validation).  The default is `ask'.

       ssl-verify-user@host
	      Overrides ssl-verify for a specific account.

       toplines
	      If  defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be
	      printed out with the top	command;  normally,  the  first
	      five lines are printed.

       ttycharset
	      The  character  set  of  the  terminal mailx operates on.
	      There is normally no need	 to  set  this	variable  since
	      mailx  can determine this automatically by looking at the
	      LC_CTYPE locale setting; if this succeeds, the  value  is
	      assigned at startup and will be displayed by the set com‐
	      mand.  Note that this is not necessarily a character  set
	      name that can be used in Internet messages.

       VISUAL Pathname	of the text editor to use in the visual command
	      and ~v escape.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       Besides the variables described above, mailx uses the  following
       environment strings:

       HOME   The user's home directory.

       LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES
	      See locale(7).

       MAILRC Is  used	as  startup  file  instead of ~/.mailrc if set.
	      When mailx scripts are invoked on behalf of other	 users,
	      this variable should be set to `/dev/null' to avoid side-
	      effects from reading their configuration files.

       NAILRC If this variable is set and MAILRC is not set, it is read
	      as startup file.

       SYSV3  Changes  the  letters  printed  in  the first column of a
	      header summary.

       TMPDIR Used as directory for temporary files instead of /tmp, if
	      set.

FILES
       ~/.mailrc
	      File giving initial commands.

       /etc/nail.rc
	      System wide initialization file.

       ~/.mime.types
	      Personal MIME types.

       /etc/mime.types
	      System wide MIME types.

EXAMPLES
   Getting started
       The  mailx command has two distinct usages, according to whether
       one wants to send or receive mail.  Sending mail is  simple:  to
       send   a	 message  to  a	 user  whose  email  address  is,  say,
       <bill@host.example>, use the shell command:

	   $ mailx bill@host.example

       then type your message.	Mailx will prompt  you	for  a	message
       subject	first;	after that, lines typed by you form the body of
       the message.  When you reach the end of the message, type an EOT
       (control-d)  at	the beginning of a line, which will cause mailx
       to echo `EOT' and return you to the shell.

       If, while you are composing the message you decide that	you  do
       not  wish  to send it after all, you can abort the letter with a
       RUBOUT.	Typing a single RUBOUT causes mailx to	print  `(Inter‐
       rupt  --	 one  more  to	kill  letter)'.	 Typing a second RUBOUT
       causes mailx to save your partial letter on the file  `dead.let‐
       ter' in your home directory and abort the letter.  Once you have
       sent mail to someone, there is no way to undo  the  act,	 so  be
       careful.

       If  you	want  to send the same message to several other people,
       you can list their email addresses on the command line.	Thus,

	   $ mailx sam@workstation.example bob@server.example
	   Subject: Fees
	   Tuition fees are due next Friday.  Don't forget!
	   <Control-d>
	   EOT
	   $

       will  send  the	reminder  to  <sam@workstation.example>.    and
       <bob@server.example>.

       To read your mail, simply type

	   $ mailx

       Mailx  will  respond  by	 typing its version number and date and
       then listing the messages you have waiting.  Then it will type a
       prompt  and  await your command.	 The messages are assigned num‐
       bers starting with 1—you refer to the messages with  these  num‐
       bers.   Mailx  keeps  track of which messages are new (have been
       sent since you last read your mail) and read (have been read  by
       you).  New messages have an N next to them in the header listing
       and old, but unread messages have a U next to them.  Mailx keeps
       track  of  new/old  and read/unread messages by putting a header
       field called Status into your messages.

       To look at a specific message, use the type command,  which  may
       be  abbreviated	to simply t .  For example, if you had the fol‐
       lowing messages:

	   O 1 drfoo@myhost.example Wed Sep  1 19:52  18/631 "Fees"
	   O 2 sam@friends.example  Thu Sep  2 00:08  30/895

       you could examine the first message by giving the command:

	   type 1

       which might cause to respond with, for example:

	   Message  1:
	   From drfoo@myhost.example Wed Sep  1 19:52:25 2004
	   Subject: Fees
	   Status: R

	   Tuition fees are due next Wednesday.	 Don't forget!

       Many mailx commands that operate on messages take a message num‐
       ber  as	an argument like the type command.  For these commands,
       there is a notion of a current  message.	  When	you  enter  the
       mailx  program,	the  current message is initially the first (or
       the first recent) one.  Thus, you can  often  omit  the	message
       number and use, for example,

	   t

       to  type	 the  current message.	As a further shorthand, you can
       type a message by simply giving its message number.  Hence,

	   1

       would type the first message.

       Frequently, it is useful to read the messages in your mailbox in
       order,  one  after  another.   You  can read the next message in
       mailx by simply typing a newline.  As a special	case,  you  can
       type  a newline as your first command to mailx to type the first
       message.

       If, after typing a message,  you	 wish  to  immediately	send  a
       reply, you can do so with the reply command.  This command, like
       type, takes a message number as an argument.  mailx then	 begins
       a  message  addressed to the user who sent you the message.  You
       may then type in your letter in reply, followed by a <control-d>
       at the beginning of a line, as before.

       Note that mailx copies the subject header from the original mes‐
       sage.  This is useful in that correspondence about a  particular
       matter  will  tend to retain the same subject heading, making it
       easy to recognize.  If there are other header fields in the mes‐
       sage, like `Cc:', the information found will also be used.

       Sometimes  you will receive a message that has been sent to sev‐
       eral people and wish to reply only to the person	 who  sent  it.
       Reply with a capital R replies to a message, but sends a copy to
       the sender only.

       If you wish, while reading your mail, to send a message to some‐
       one,  but  not  as a reply to one of your messages, you can send
       the message directly with the mail command, which takes as argu‐
       ments  the  names  of  the  recipients you wish to send to.  For
       example, to send a message to <frank@machine.example>, you would
       do:

	   mail frank@machine.example

       To delete a message from the mail folder, you can use the delete
       command.	 In addition to not saving deleted messages, mailx will
       not  let	 you type them, either.	 The effect is to make the mes‐
       sage disappear altogether, along with its number.

       Many features of mailx can be tailored to your liking  with  the
       set  command.   The  set	 command  has  two  forms, depending on
       whether you are setting a binary	 option	 or  a	valued	option.
       Binary  options	are  either  on or off.	 For example, the askcc
       option informs mailx that each time you send a message, you want
       it  to prompt you for a `Cc:' header, to be included in the mes‐
       sage.  To set the askcc option, you would type

	   set askcc

       Valued options are values which mailx  uses  to	adapt  to  your
       tastes.	 For  example,	the  record option tells mailx where to
       save messages sent by you, and is specified by

	   set record=Sent

       for example.  Note that no spaces are allowed in set record=Sent
       .

       Mailx  includes a simple facility for maintaining groups of mes‐
       sages together in folders.  To use the folder facility, you must
       tell  mailx where you wish to keep your folders.	 Each folder of
       messages will be a single file.	For convenience,  all  of  your
       folders	are  kept  in  a single directory of your choosing.  To
       tell mailx where your folder directory is, put  a  line	of  the
       form

	   set folder=letters

       in  your .mailrc file.  If, as in the example above, your folder
       directory does not begin with a `/', mailx will assume that your
       folder  directory  is to be found starting from your home direc‐
       tory.

       Anywhere a file name is expected, you can  use  a  folder  name,
       preceded	 with `+'.  For example, to put a message into a folder
       with the save command, you can use:

	   save +classwork

       to save the current message in the  classwork  folder.	If  the
       classwork  folder  does not yet exist, it will be created.  Note
       that messages which are saved with the save command are automat‐
       ically removed from your system mailbox.

       In order to make a copy of a message in a folder without causing
       that message to be removed from your  system  mailbox,  use  the
       copy  command,  which  is identical in all other respects to the
       save command.

       The folder command can be used to direct mailx to  the  contents
       of a different folder.  For example,

	   folder +classwork

       directs mailx to read the contents of the classwork folder.  All
       of the commands that you can use on your system mailbox are also
       applicable  to  folders,	 including type, delete, and reply.  To
       inquire which folder you are currently editing, use simply:

	   folder

       To list your current set of folders, use the folders command.

       Finally, the help command is available to print out a brief sum‐
       mary of the most important mailx commands.

       While typing in a message to be sent to others, it is often use‐
       ful to be able to invoke the text editor on the partial message,
       print  the  message,  execute  a shell command, or do some other
       auxiliary function.  Mailx provides these  capabilities	through
       tilde escapes , which consist of a tilde (~) at the beginning of
       a line, followed by a single character which indicates the func‐
       tion  to	 be  performed.	  For example, to print the text of the
       message so far, use:

	   ~p

       which will print a line of dashes, the recipients of  your  mes‐
       sage,  and  the	text of the message so far.  A list of the most
       important tilde escapes is available with `~?'.

   IMAP or POP3 client setup
       First you need the following data from your ISP: the  host  name
       of  the	IMAP  or  POP3	server, user name and password for this
       server, and a notice whether the server uses SSL/TLS encryption.
       Assuming	 the  host name is `server.myisp.example' and your user
       name for that server is `mylogin', you can refer to this account
       using the folder command or -f command line option with

	   imaps://mylogin@server.myisp.example

       (This  string  is not necessarily the same as your Internet mail
       address.)  You can replace  `imaps://'  with  `imap://'	if  the
       server  does  not support SSL/TLS.  (If SSL/TLS support is built
       using NSS, the nss-config-dir variable must be set before a con‐
       nection	can  be	 initiated,  see  above).   Use	 `pop3s://'  or
       `pop3://' if the server does not offer  IMAP.   You  should  use
       IMAP if you can, though; first because it requires fewer network
       operations than POP3 to get the contents of the mailbox	and  is
       thus  faster;  and  second  because message attributes are main‐
       tained by the IMAP server, so you can easily distinguish new and
       old messages each time you connect.  Even if the server does not
       accept IMAPS or POP3S connections, it is possible that  it  sup‐
       ports  the  STARTTLS  method to make a session SSL/TLS encrypted
       after the initial connection  has  been	performed,  but	 before
       authentication  begins.	The only reliable method to see if this
       works is to try it; enter one of

	   set imap-use-starttls
	   set pop3-use-starttls

       before you initiate the connection.

       As you probably want messages to be deleted  from  this	account
       after  saving  them,  prefix it with `%:'.  The shortcut command
       can be used to avoid typing that many characters every time  you
       want to connect:

	   shortcut myisp %:imaps://mylogin@server.myisp.example

       You  might  want to put this string into a startup file.	 As the
       shortcut command is specific to this implementation of mailx and
       will  confuse  other  implementations,  it should not be used in
       ~/.mailrc, instead, put

	   set NAIL_EXTRA_RC=~/.nailrc

       in ~/.mailrc and create a file ~/.nailrc containing the shortcut
       command	above.	 You  can  then	 access	 your remote mailbox by
       invoking `mailx -f myisp' on the command line, or  by  executing
       `fi myisp' within mailx.

       If you want to use more than one IMAP mailbox on a server, or if
       you want to use the  IMAP  server  for  mail  storage  too,  the
       account command (which is also mailx-specific) is more appropri‐
       ate than the shortcut command.  You can	put  the  following  in
       ~/.nailrc:

	   account myisp {
	       set folder=imaps://mylogin@server.myisp.example
	       set record=+Sent MBOX=+mbox outfolder
	   }

       and  can	 then access incoming mail for this account by invoking
       `mailx -A myisp' on the command line, or by executing `ac myisp'
       within  mailx.  After that, a command like `copy 1 +otherfolder'
       will refer to otherfolder on the IMAP  server.	In  particular,
       `fi  &' will change to the mbox folder, and `fi +Sent' will show
       your recorded sent mail, with both folders located on  the  IMAP
       server.

       Mailx  will  ask you for a password string each time you connect
       to a remote account.  If you can reasonably trust  the  security
       of  your	 workstation, you can give this password in the startup
       file as

	   set password-mylogin@server.myisp.example="SECRET"

       You should change the permissions of  this  file	 to  0600,  see
       chmod(1).

       Mailx  supports	different  authentication methods for both IMAP
       and POP3.  If Kerberos is used at your location, you can try  to
       activate GSSAPI-based authentication by

	   set imap-auth=gssapi

       The advantage of this method is that mailx does not need to know
       your password at all, nor needs to send sensitive data over  the
       network.	 Otherwise, the options

	   set imap-auth=cram-md5
	   set pop3-use-apop

       for  IMAP  and  POP3, respectively, offer authentication methods
       that avoid to send the password in clear text over the  network,
       which is especially important if SSL/TLS cannot be used.	 If the
       server does not offer any of these authentication methods,  con‐
       ventional  user/password	 based authentication must be used.  It
       is sometimes helpful to set the verbose option when  authentica‐
       tion  problems  occur.	Mailx will display all data sent to the
       server in clear text on the screen with this  option,  including
       passwords.   You should thus take care that no unauthorized per‐
       son can look at your terminal when this option is set.

       If you  regularly  use  the  same  workstation  to  access  IMAP
       accounts,  you can greatly enhance performance by enabling local
       caching of IMAP messages.  For any message that has  been  fully
       or  partially  fetched from the server, a local copy is made and
       is used when the message is accessed  again,  so	 most  data  is
       transferred  over  the  network	once  only.  To enable the IMAP
       cache, select a local directory name and put

	   set imap-cache=~/localdirectory

       in the startup file.  All files within  that  directory	can  be
       overwritten  or	deleted by mailx at any time, so you should not
       use the directory to store other information.

       Once the cache contains some messages, it is not strictly neces‐
       sary  anymore  to open a connection to the IMAP server to access
       them.  When mailx is invoked with the -D	 option,  or  when  the
       disconnected  variable  is set, only cached data is used for any
       folder you open.	 Messages that have  not  yet  been  completely
       cached  are  not	 available  then, but all other messages can be
       handled as usual.  Changes made to  IMAP	 mailboxes  in	discon‐
       nected  mode  are  committed  to the IMAP server next time it is
       used in online mode.  Synchronizing the local  status  with  the
       status  on the server is thus partially within your responsibil‐
       ity; if you forget to initiate a connection to the server  again
       before  you leave your location, changes made on one workstation
       are not available on others.  Also if you alter	IMAP  mailboxes
       from  a	workstation while uncommitted changes are still pending
       on another, the latter data may become invalid.	The same  might
       also  happen  because  of  internal  server status changes.  You
       should thus carefully evaluate this feature in your  environment
       before you rely on it.

       Many  servers  will close the connection after a short period of
       inactivity. Use one of

	   set pop3-keepalive=30
	   set imap-keepalive=240

       to send a keepalive message each 30 seconds for POP3, or each  4
       minutes for IMAP.

       If  you	encounter  problems connecting to a SSL/TLS server, try
       the ssl-rand-egd and ssl-rand-file variables  (see  the	OpenSSL
       FAQ  for	 more information) or specify the protocol version with
       ssl-method.  Contact your ISP if you need a  client  certificate
       or  if  verification  of	 the  server certificate fails.	 If the
       failed certificate is indeed valid, fetch its CA certificate  by
       executing the shell command

	   $ openssl s_client </dev/null -showcerts -connect \
		  server.myisp.example:imaps 2>&1 | tee log

       (see  s_client(1))  and put it into the file specified with ssl-
       ca-file.	 The data you need is located at the end  of  the  cer‐
       tificate	 chain	within	(and including) the `BEGIN CERTIFICATE'
       and `END CERTIFICATE' lines.  (Note that it is possible to fetch
       a  forged  certificate  by this method.	You can only completely
       rely on the authenticity of the CA certificate if you  fetch  it
       in  a  way that is trusted by other means, such as by personally
       receiving the certificate on storage media.)

   Creating a score file or message filter
       The scoring commands are best separated from other configuration
       for  clarity,  and are mostly mailx specific.  It is thus recom‐
       mended to put them in a separate file that is sourced from  your
       NAIL_EXTRA_RC as follows:

	   source ~/.scores

       The .scores file could then look as follows:

	   define list {
	       score (subject "important discussion") +10
	       score (subject "annoying discussion") -10
	       score (from "nicefellow@goodnet") +15
	       score (from "badguy@poornet") -5
	       move (header x-spam-flag "+++++") +junk
	   }
	   set folder-hook-imap://user@host/public.list=list

       In  this	 scheme,  you would see any mail from `nicefellow@good‐
       net', even if the surrounding discussion is  annoying;  but  you
       normally	 would	not  see  mail from `badguy@poornet', unless he
       participates in the important  discussion.   Messages  that  are
       marked  with five or more plus characters in their `X-Spam-Flag'
       field (inserted by  some	 server-side  filtering	 software)  are
       moved to the folder `junk' in the folder directory.

       Be  aware  that all criteria in () lead to substring matches, so
       you would also score messages from e.g. `notsobadguy@poornetmak‐
       ers'  negative here.  It is possible to select addresses exactly
       using "address" message specifications, but these cannot be exe‐
       cuted  remotely and will thus cause all headers to be downloaded
       from IMAP servers while looking for matches.

       When searching messages on an IMAP server, best	performance  is
       usually	achieved by sending as many criteria as possible in one
       large () specification, because each single  such  specification
       will result in a separate network operation.

   Activating the Bayesian filter
       The  Bayesian junk mail filter works by examining the words con‐
       tained in messages.  You decide yourself what a good and what  a
       bad message is.	Thus the resulting filter is your very personal
       one; once it is correctly set up, it will filter	 only  messages
       similar to those previously specified by you.

       To  use	the Bayesian filter, a location for the junk mail data‐
       base must be defined first:

	   set junkdb=~/.junkdb

       The junk mail database does not contain actual  words  extracted
       from  messages,	but  hashed representations of them.  A foreign
       person who can read the database could  only  examine  the  fre‐
       quency of previously known words in your mail.

       If  you have sufficient disk space (several 10 MB) available, it
       is recommended that you set the chained-junk-tokens option.  The
       filter  will  then  also consider two-word tokens, improving its
       accuracy.

       A set of good messages and junk messages must now be  available;
       it  is  also  possible to use the incoming new messages for this
       purpose, although it will of course take	 some  time  until  the
       filter  becomes useful then.  Do not underestimate the amount of
       statistical data needed; some  hundred  messages	 are  typically
       necessary  to  get  satisfactory results, and many thousand mes‐
       sages for best operation.  You have to pass the good messages to
       the good command, and the junk messages to the junk command.  If
       you ever accidentally mark a good message as junk or vice-versa,
       call the ungood or unjunk command to correct this.

       Once  a	reasonable amount of statistics has been collected, new
       messages can be classified automatically.  The classify	command
       marks  all messages that the filter considers to be junk, but it
       does not perform any action on them by default.	 It  is	 recom‐
       mended  that you move these messages into a separate folder just
       for the case that false positives occur, or to pass them to  the
       junk  command later again to further improve the junk mail data‐
       base.  To automatically move incoming junk messages  every  time
       the  inbox  is  opened,	put  lines like the following into your
       .scores file (or whatever name you gave to the file in the  last
       example):

	   define junkfilter {
	       classify (smaller 20000) :n
	       move :j +junk
	   }
	   set folder-hook-imap://user@host/INBOX=junkfilter

       If  you	set the verbose option before running the classify com‐
       mand, mailx prints the words it uses for	 calculating  the  junk
       status  along  with  their  statistical probabilities.  This can
       help you to find out why some messages are not classified as you
       would  like them to be.	To see the statistical probability of a
       given word, use the probability command.

       If a junk message was not recognized as such, use the junk  com‐
       mand to correct this.  Also if you encounter a false positive (a
       good message that was wrongly classified as junk),  pass	 it  to
       the good command.

       Since  the  classify command must examine the entire text of all
       new messages in the respective folder, this will also cause  all
       of  them to be downloaded from the IMAP server.	You should thus
       restrict the size  of  messages	for  automatic	filtering.   If
       server-based  filtering is also available, you might try if that
       works for you first.

   Reading HTML mail
       You need either the w3m or lynx utility or another  command-line
       web browser that can write plain text to standard output.

	   set pipe-text/html="w3m -dump -T text/html"

       or

	   set pipe-text/html="lynx -dump -force_html /dev/stdin"

       will  then  cause HTML message parts to be converted into a more
       friendly form.

   Viewing PDF attachments
       Most PDF viewers do not accept input directly from a  pipe.   It
       is  thus	 necessary to store the attachment in a temporary file,
       as with

	   set pipe-application/pdf="cat >/tmp/mailx$$.pdf; \
		  acroread /tmp/mailx$$.pdf; rm /tmp/mailx$$.pdf"

       Note that security defects are discovered in  PDF  viewers  from
       time  to time.  Automatical command execution like this can com‐
       promise your system security, in	 particular  if	 you  stay  not
       always informed about such issues.

   Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME
       S/MIME provides two central mechanisms: message signing and mes‐
       sage encryption.	 A signed message contains some data  in  addi‐
       tion  to	 the regular text.  The data can be used to verify that
       the message  was	 sent  using  a	 valid	certificate,  that  the
       sender's	 address in the message header matches that in the cer‐
       tificate, and that the message text has not been altered.  Sign‐
       ing  a  message does not change its regular text; it can be read
       regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to handle
       S/MIME.	 It  is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing mes‐
       sages if so desired.—Encryption, in contrast, makes the	message
       text  invisible	for  all people except those who have access to
       the secret decryption key.  To encrypt a message,  the  specific
       recipient's public encryption key must be known.	 It is thus not
       possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their  key  has
       been  retrieved from either previous communication or public key
       directories.  A message should always be	 signed	 before	 it  is
       encrypted.   Otherwise,	it is still possible that the encrypted
       message text is altered.

       A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification author‐
       ity  (CA).   A  CA is a trusted institution that issues certifi‐
       cates.  For each of these certificates, it can be verified  that
       it  really  originates  from  the CA, provided that the CA's own
       certificate is previously known.	 A set of  CA  certificates  is
       usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed on your system.  If
       you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation, this
       offers  reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.	In gen‐
       eral, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
       certificate  has been retrieved with, though.  Thus if you down‐
       load a CA certificate from the Internet, you can only trust  the
       messages	 you verify using that certificate as much as you trust
       the download process.

       The first thing you need for  participating  in	S/MIME	message
       exchange	 is your personal certificate, including a private key.
       The certificate contains public information, in particular  your
       name  and your email address, and the public key that is used by
       others to encrypt messages for you, and to  verify  signed  mes‐
       sages  they  supposedly	received  from you.  The certificate is
       included in each signed message you send.  The private key  must
       be kept secret.	It is used to decrypt messages that were previ‐
       ously encrypted with your public key, and to sign messages.

       For personal use, it is recommended that you get a  S/MIME  cer‐
       tificate	 from  one  of the major CAs on the Internet using your
       WWW browser.  (Many CAs offer such certificates for free.)   You
       will  usually  receive a combined certificate and private key in
       PKCS#12 format which mailx does not directly  accept  if	 S/MIME
       support	is  built  using OpenSSL.  To convert it to PEM format,
       use the following shell command:

	   $ openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out cert.pem -clcerts \
	       -nodes

       If you omit the -nodes parameter, you can specifiy an additional
       PEM pass phrase for protecting the private key.	Mailx will then
       ask you for that pass phrase each time it signs	or  decrypts  a
       message.	 You can then use

	   set smime-sign-cert-myname@myisp.example=cert.pem

       to make this private key and certificate known to mailx.

       If  S/MIME  support is built using NSS, the PKCS#12 file must be
       installed using Mozilla (provided  that	nss-config-dir	is  set
       appropriately,  see  above),  and no further action is necessary
       unless multiple user certificates for the same email address are
       installed.   In	this case, the smime-sign-nickname variable has
       to be set appropriately.

       You can now sign outgoing messages.  Just use

	   set smime-sign

       to do so.

       From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch  your
       certificate  and	 use  it  to  send  encrypted mail back to you.
       Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you	can  do
       the same.  First use the verify command to check the validity of
       the certificate.	 After that, retrieve the certificate and  tell
       mailx that it should use it for encryption:

	   certsave filename
	   set smime-encrypt-user@host=filename

       If S/MIME support is built using NSS, the saved certificate must
       be installed using Mozilla.  The	 value	of  the	 smime-encrypt-
       user@host  is ignored then, but if multiple certificates for the
       recipient are available, the  smime-nickname-user@host  variable
       must be set.

       You  should  carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted
       messages in decrypted form.  If you do, anybody who  has	 access
       to your mail folders can read them, but if you do not, you might
       be unable to read them yourself later if you happen to lose your
       private	key.   The  decrypt command saves messages in decrypted
       form, while  the	 save,	copy,  and  move  commands  leave  them
       encrypted.

       Note  that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to mes‐
       sage subjects or other header fields.  Thus they may not contain
       sensitive  information  for  encrypted  messages,  and cannot be
       trusted even if the message content  has	 been  verified.   When
       sending	signed messages, it is recommended to repeat any impor‐
       tant header information in the message text.

   Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS
       Certification authorities  (CAs)	 issue	certificate  revocation
       lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.	 These lists contain the serial
       numbers of certificates that have been  declared	 invalid  after
       they have been issued.  Such usually happens because the private
       key for the certificate has been compromised, because the  owner
       of  the	certificate has left the organization that is mentioned
       in the certificate, etc.	 To seriously  use  S/MIME  or	SSL/TLS
       verification, an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
       There is otherwise no method to distinguish  between  valid  and
       invalidated  certificates.   Mailx currently offers no mechanism
       to fetch CRLs, or to access them on the Internet, so you have to
       retrieve them by some external mechanism.

       If  S/MIME  and	SSL/TLS	 support are built using OpenSSL, mailx
       accepts CRLs in PEM format only; CRLs in DER format must be con‐
       verted, e.g. with the shell command

	   $ openssl crl -inform DER -in crl.der -out crl.pem

       To  tell mailx about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL
       files (and no other files) must be created.   The  smime-crl-dir
       or  ssl-crl-dir	variables,  respectively,  must	 then be set to
       point to that directory.	 After that, mailx requires a CRL to be
       present for each CA that is used to verify a certificate.

       If  S/MIME  and SSL/TLS support are built using NSS, CRLs can be
       imported in Mozilla applications (provided  that	 nss-config-dir
       is set appropriately).

   Sending mail from scripts
       If  you	want  to send mail from scripts, you must be aware that
       mailx reads the	user's	configuration  files  by  default.   So
       unless  your  script  is only intended for your own personal use
       (as e.g. a cron job), you need to circumvent  this  by  invoking
       mailx like

	   MAILRC=/dev/null mailx -n

       You  then  need	to  create  a  configuration for mailx for your
       script.	This can be done by either pointing the MAILRC variable
       to  a custom configuration file, or by passing the configuration
       in environment  variables.   Since  many	 of  the  configuration
       options are not valid shell variables, the env command is useful
       in this situation.  An invocation could thus look like

	   env MAILRC=/dev/null from=scriptreply@domain smtp=host \
		 smtp-auth-user=login smtp-auth-password=secret \
		 smtp-auth=login mailx -n -s "subject" \
		 -a attachment_file recipient@domain <content_file

SEE ALSO
       fmt(1), newaliases(1), openssl(1), pg(1), more(1),  vacation(1),
       ssl(3), aliases(5), locale(7), mailaddr(7), sendmail(8)

NOTES
       Variables in the environment passed to mailx cannot be unset.

       The  character  set  conversion relies on the iconv(3) function.
       Its functionality differs  widely  between  the	various	 system
       environments mailx runs on.  If the message `Cannot convert from
       a to b' appears,	 either	 some  characters  within  the	message
       header  or  text	 are not appropriate for the currently selected
       terminal character set, or the needed  conversion  is  not  sup‐
       ported by the system.  In the first case, it is necessary to set
       an appropriate LC_CTYPE locale (e.g. en_US)  or	the  ttycharset
       variable.   In  the second case, the sendcharsets and ttycharset
       variables must be set to the same value to inhibit character set
       conversion.   If	 iconv()  is  not  available  at all, the value
       assigned to sendcharsets must match the character  set  that  is
       used on the terminal.

       Mailx  expects input text to be in Unix format, with lines sepa‐
       rated by newline (^J, \n) characters only.  Non-Unix text  files
       that use carriage return (^M, \r) characters in addition will be
       treated as binary data; to send such files as text, strip  these
       characters e. g. by

	      tr -d '\015' <input | mailx . . .

       or fix the tools that generate them.

       Limitations  with IMAP mailboxes are: It is not possible to edit
       messages, but it is possible to append them.   Thus  to	edit  a
       message,	 create	 a  local  copy	 of it, edit it, append it, and
       delete the original.  The line count for the header  display  is
       only  appropriate if the entire message has been downloaded from
       the server.  The marking of messages as `new'  is  performed  by
       the  IMAP  server;  use of the exit command instead of quit will
       not cause it to be reset, and if the  autoinc/newmail  variables
       are unset, messages that arrived during a session will not be in
       state `new' anymore when the folder is opened  again.   Also  if
       commands	 queued	 in  disconnected  mode are committed, the IMAP
       server will delete the  `new'  flag  for	 all  messages	in  the
       changed	folder,	 and new messages will appear as unread when it
       is selected for viewing later.  The `flagged',  `answered',  and
       `draft'	attributes are usually permanent, but some IMAP servers
       are known to drop them without  notification.   Message	numbers
       may  change with IMAP every time before the prompt is printed if
       mailx is notified by the server that messages have been	deleted
       by some other client or process.	 In this case, `Expunged n mes‐
       sages' is printed, and message numbers may have changed.

       Limitations with POP3 mailboxes are: It is not possible to  edit
       messages,  they	can only be copied and deleted.	 The line count
       for the header display is only appropriate if the entire message
       has been downloaded from the server.  The status field of a mes‐
       sage is maintained  by  the  server  between  connections;  some
       servers	do  not	 update it at all, and with a server that does,
       the `exit' command will not  cause  the	message	 status	 to  be
       reset.  The `newmail' command and the `newmail' variable have no
       effect.	It is not possible to rename or to  remove  POP3  mail‐
       boxes.

       If a RUBOUT (interrupt) is typed while an IMAP or POP3 operation
       is in progress, mailx will  wait	 until	the  operation	can  be
       safely  aborted,	 and  will  then return to the command loop and
       print the prompt again.	When a second  RUBOUT  is  typed  while
       mailx  is  waiting  for the operation to complete, the operation
       itself will be canceled.	 In this case, data that has  not  been
       fetched	yet will have to be fetched before the next command can
       be performed.  If the canceled operation was  using  an	SSL/TLS
       encrypted  channel,  an	error  in  the	SSL transport will very
       likely result, and the connection is no longer usable.

       As mailx is a mail user agent, it provides only basic SMTP  ser‐
       vices.  If it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will
       not make further attempts to transfer the  message  at  a  later
       time,  and it does not leave other information about this condi‐
       tion than an error message on the terminal and  a  `dead.letter'
       file.   This  is	 usually  not  a  problem if the SMTP server is
       located in the same local network as the computer on which mailx
       is  run.	  However,  care  should  be  taken when using a remote
       server of an ISP; it might be better to	set  up	 a  local  SMTP
       server then which just acts as a proxy.

       Mailx	immediately    contacts	   the	  SMTP	  server    (or
       /usr/lib/sendmail) even when operating in disconnected mode.  It
       would not make much sense for mailx to defer outgoing mail since
       SMTP servers usually provide much more elaborated delay handling
       than mailx could perform as a client.  Thus the recommended set‐
       up for sending mail in disconnected mode is to configure a local
       SMTP  server  such  that	 it  sends  outgoing mail as soon as an
       external network connection is available again, i.e.  to	 advise
       it to do that from a network startup script.

       The junk mail filter follows the concepts developed by Paul Gra‐
       ham  in	his  articles,	``A  Plan  for	Spam'',	 August	  2002,
       <http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html>,	and  ``Better  Bayesian
       Filtering'',		       January			  2003,
       <http://www.paulgraham.com/better.html>.	 Chained tokens are due
       to a paper by Jonathan A. Zdziarski, ``Advanced Language Classi‐
       fication	    using     Chained	 Tokens'',    February	  2004,
       <http://www.nuclearelephant.com/papers/chained.html>.

       A mail command appeared in Version 1 AT&T Unix.	 Berkeley  Mail
       was  written  in	 1978 by Kurt Shoens.  This man page is derived
       from from The Mail Reference Manual originally written  by  Kurt
       Shoens.	 Heirloom  Mailx  enhancements are maintained and docu‐
       mented by Gunnar Ritter.

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form  from  IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Informa‐
       tion Technology — Operating System Interface (POSIX),  The  Open
       Group  Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright © 2001-2003 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc  and  The
       Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version
       and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the  original
       IEEE  and  The  Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
       original	   Standard    can    be     obtained	  online     at
       http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .   Redistribution  of
       this material is	 permitted  so	long  as  this	notice	remains
       intact.

Heirloom mailx 12.4		    10/1/07			      MAILX(1)
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