/usr/share/doc/mailutils-doc/mailutils.html/Reading-Mail.html is in mailutils-doc 1:2.99.99-1ubuntu2.
This file is owned by root:root, with mode 0o644.
The actual contents of the file can be viewed below.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 | <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<!-- Published by the Free Software Foundation,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Copyright (C) 1999-2004, 2008-2012, 2014-2015 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover, and no Back-Cover texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free
Documentation License". -->
<!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.1, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ -->
<head>
<title>GNU Mailutils Manual: Reading Mail</title>
<meta name="description" content="GNU Mailutils Manual: Reading Mail">
<meta name="keywords" content="GNU Mailutils Manual: Reading Mail">
<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
<meta name="distribution" content="global">
<meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top">
<link href="Function-Index.html#Function-Index" rel="index" title="Function Index">
<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
<link href="mail.html#mail" rel="up" title="mail">
<link href="Quitting-the-Program.html#Quitting-the-Program" rel="next" title="Quitting the Program">
<link href="Executing-Shell-Commands.html#Executing-Shell-Commands" rel="prev" title="Executing Shell Commands">
<style type="text/css">
<!--
a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none}
blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em}
blockquote.smallindentedblock {margin-right: 0em; font-size: smaller}
blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller}
div.display {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.example {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
kbd {font-style: oblique}
pre.display {font-family: inherit}
pre.format {font-family: inherit}
pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif}
pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif}
pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller}
pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller}
span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap}
span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal}
span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal}
ul.no-bullet {list-style: none}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang="en">
<a name="Reading-Mail"></a>
<div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="Scripting.html#Scripting" accesskey="n" rel="next">Scripting</a>, Previous: <a href="Composing-Mail.html#Composing-Mail" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Composing Mail</a>, Up: <a href="mail.html#mail" accesskey="u" rel="up">mail</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Function-Index.html#Function-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
</div>
<hr>
<a name="Reading-Mail-1"></a>
<h4 class="subsection">2.5.4 Reading Mail</h4>
<p>To read messages from a given mailbox, use one of the following ways of
invoking <code>mail</code>:
</p>
<dl compact="compact">
<dt><code>mail</code></dt>
<dd><p>To read messages from your system mailbox.
</p></dd>
<dt><code>mail -f</code></dt>
<dt><code>mail --file</code></dt>
<dd><p>To read messages from your mailbox (<samp>$HOME/mbox</samp>). If the
<samp>--user</samp> option (see below) is also given, read messages
from that user’s <samp>mbox</samp>.
</p></dd>
<dt><code>mail -f <var>path_to_mailbox</var></code></dt>
<dt><code>mail --file <var>path_to_mailbox</var></code></dt>
<dd><p>To read messages from the specified mailbox.
</p></dd>
<dt><code>mail -u <var>user</var></code></dt>
<dt><code>mail --user=<var>user</var></code></dt>
<dd><p>To read messages from the system mailbox belonging to <var>user</var>.
</p></dd>
</dl>
<p><em>Please note</em>, that usual mailbox permissions won’t allow you
to use the last variant of invocation, unless you are a super-user.
Similarly, the last but one variant is also greatly affected by the
permissions the target mailbox has.
</p>
<p>Notice that <var>path_to_mailbox</var> is not an argument to
<samp>--file</samp> (<samp>-f</samp>) option, but rather the first
non-optional argument on the command line. Therefore, the
following three invocations are equivalent:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">$ mail -fin mymbox
$ mail -f mymbox -in
$ mail --file -in mymbox
$ mail --file -i mymbox -n
</pre></div>
<p>Additionally, for conformance to the GNU standards, the
following form is also accepted:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">$ mail --file=mymbox -i -n
</pre></div>
<p>Unless you have started mail with <samp>--norc</samp> command line option,
it will read the contents of the system-wide configuration file.
Then it reads the contents of user configuration file, if any.
For detailed description of these files, see <a href="Mail-Configuration-Files.html#Mail-Configuration-Files">Mail Configuration Files</a>.
After this initial setup, <code>mail</code> displays the first page of header
lines and enters interactive mode. In interactive mode, <code>mail</code>
displays its prompt (‘<samp>?</samp>’, if not set otherwise) and executes the
commands the user enters.
</p>
<table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Quitting-the-Program.html#Quitting-the-Program" accesskey="1">Quitting the Program</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Obtaining-Online-Help.html#Obtaining-Online-Help" accesskey="2">Obtaining Online Help</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Moving-Within-a-Mailbox.html#Moving-Within-a-Mailbox" accesskey="3">Moving Within a Mailbox</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Changing-mailbox_002fdirectory.html#Changing-mailbox_002fdirectory" accesskey="4">Changing mailbox/directory</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Controlling-Header-Display.html#Controlling-Header-Display" accesskey="5">Controlling Header Display</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Displaying-Information.html#Displaying-Information" accesskey="6">Displaying Information</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Displaying-Messages.html#Displaying-Messages" accesskey="7">Displaying Messages</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Marking-Messages.html#Marking-Messages" accesskey="8">Marking Messages</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Disposing-of-Messages.html#Disposing-of-Messages" accesskey="9">Disposing of Messages</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Saving-Messages.html#Saving-Messages">Saving Messages</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Editing-Messages.html#Editing-Messages">Editing Messages</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Aliasing.html#Aliasing">Aliasing</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Replying.html#Replying">Replying</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Controlling-Sender-Fields.html#Controlling-Sender-Fields">Controlling Sender Fields</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Incorporating-New-Mail.html#Incorporating-New-Mail">Incorporating New Mail</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Shell-Escapes.html#Shell-Escapes">Shell Escapes</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
</table>
<hr>
<div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="Scripting.html#Scripting" accesskey="n" rel="next">Scripting</a>, Previous: <a href="Composing-Mail.html#Composing-Mail" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Composing Mail</a>, Up: <a href="mail.html#mail" accesskey="u" rel="up">mail</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Function-Index.html#Function-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
|