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NMH(7mh)                                                                                    NMH(7mh)



NAME
       nmh - new MH message system

DESCRIPTION
       nmh is the name of a powerful message handling system.  Rather than being a single comprehen‐
       sive program, nmh consists of a collection of fairly simple single-purpose programs to  send,
       retrieve, save, and manipulate messages.

       Unlike  most  mail  clients in Unix, nmh is not a closed system which must be explicitly run,
       then exited when you wish to return to the shell.  You may freely  intersperse  nmh  commands
       with  other shell commands, allowing you to read and answer your mail while you have (for ex‐
       ample) a compilation running, or search for a file or run programs as needed to find the  an‐
       swer to someone's question before answering their mail.

       The  rest  of  this  manual entry is a quick tutorial which will teach you the basics of nmh.
       You should read the manual entries for the individual  programs  for  complete  documentation
       (see the section on COMMANDS below).

       To  get started using nmh, put the directory “/usr/bin/mh” in your $PATH.  Run the install-mh
       command.  If you've never used nmh before, it will create the necessary default files and di‐
       rectories after asking you if you wish it to do so.

       inc  moves mail from your system mail drop into your nmh “+inbox” folder, breaking it up into
       separate files and converting it to nmh format.  It prints one line for each message it  pro‐
       cesses,  containing  the  from  field, the subject field and as much of the first line of the
       message as will fit.  It leaves the first message  it  processes  as  your  current  message.
       You'll need to run inc each time you wish to incorporate new mail into your nmh file.

       scan prints a list of the messages in your current folder.

       The commands show, next, and prev are used to read specific messages from the current folder.
       show displays the current message, or a specific message specified by  its  number  which  is
       passed as an argument.  next and prev display, respectively, the message numerically after or
       before the current message.  In all cases, the message displayed becomes the current message.
       If  there  is no current message, show may be called with an argument, or next may be used to
       advance to the first message.

       rmm (remove message) deletes the current message.  It may be  called,  with  message  numbers
       passed as arguments, to delete specific messages.

       repl  is  used  to  respond to the current message (by default).  It places you in the editor
       with a prototype response form.  While you're in the editor, you may peruse the  item  you're
       responding  to  by reading the file @.  After completing your response, type “l” to list (re‐
       view) it, or “s” to send it.

       comp allows you to compose a message by putting you in the  editor  on  a  prototype  message
       form,  and  then lets you send it via the whatnow command.  whatnow also supports easy-to-use
       management of MIME attachments via its attach and related responses, as described in its  man
       page.

       nmh  command arguments are usually called switches.  Some switches have a corresponding “-no”
       switch, which negates all previous occurrences of that switch on the command line.  This  al‐
       lows  a  user  to  conveniently  override,  on  the  command line, a switch in their profile.
       Switches may be abbreviated as long as there is no ambiguity with another switch of the  same
       command.   To avoid ambiguity with any switches that may be added in the future, it is recom‐
       mended that full switch names be used in durable code such as shell scripts,  functions,  and
       aliases.

       Each nmh command may be run with the single switch -help, which causes it to print its avail‐
       able switches, along with any profile components that apply, and then exit.

       All the nmh commands may be run with the single switch -version, which causes them  to  print
       the version number of the nmh distribution, and then exit.

       Commands which take a message number as an argument (scan, show, repl, ...)  also take one of
       the words “first”, “prev”, “cur”, “next”, or “last” to  indicate  (respectively)  the  first,
       previous,  current,  next, or last message in the current folder (assuming they are defined).
       As a shorthand, “.” is equivalent to “cur”.

       Commands which take a range of message numbers (rmm, scan, show, ...)  also take any  of  the
       abbreviations:

       <num1>-<num2>   Indicates  all  messages in the range <num1> to <num2>, inclusive.  The range
                       must be nonempty.

       all             Indicates all messages, i.e., first-last.

       <num>:+N
       <num>:-N        Up to N, where N must be a positive number, messages beginning with (or  end‐
                       ing  with)  message  num.   Num  may be any of the pre-defined symbols first,
                       prev, cur, next or last.  The + can be omitted.

       first:N
       prev:N
       next:N
       last:N          As many of the first, previous, next, or last  N  messages  that  exist.   As
                       above,  N can be preceded with - to end the listing at the specified message,
                       or with an optional +.

       Commands that take a folder name (inc, refile, scan, ...) accept the folder name in two  for‐
       mats:   “+folder”  or  “@folder”.   In both cases, “folder” can be a “/”-separated path, e.g.
       “foo/bar”.  “+folder” specifies a directory path to a folder.  If “folder”  starts  with  “/”
       then  it's  an  absolute  path from the root directory.  If it is “.” or “..”, or starts with
       “./” or “../”, then it's relative to the current working directory.  Otherwise it's  relative
       to  mh-profile(5)'s “Path”, i.e. as given by `mhpath +`.  “@folder” is a shorthand for “+cur‐
       folder/folder”; it's a relative path from the current folder.  “curfolder” is given  by  `mh‐‐
       path`.  For example, assuming a Path profile component of Mail,

       scan +inbox     scans $HOME/Mail/inbox
       scan +work/todo scans $HOME/Mail/work/todo
       scan @todo      scans $HOME/Mail/work/todo, if current folder is +work
       refile @../done refiles to $HOME/Mail/work/done, if the current folder is +work/todo
       scan +/tmp      scans /tmp
       scan +.         scans the current directory
       refile @.       refiles current message to end of current folder.

       There  are  many  other possibilities such as creating multiple folders for different topics,
       and automatically refiling messages according to subject, source,  destination,  or  content.
       These are beyond the scope of this manual entry.

COMMANDS
       Following is a list of all the nmh commands, grouped loosely according to their role.

   Sending
       comp(1)         compose a message
       forw(1)         forward messages
       repl(1)         reply to a message
       whatnow(1)      prompting front-end for send

       Note  that although whatnow provides much of the primary nmh user interface for sending mail,
       it is almost never invoked manually, but rather is invoked indirectly by  one  of  the  above
       commands,  after  you've composed a message in your editor, and before you've decided to send
       it.  Here you can add attachments, check the recipient list,  decide  to  quit  and  send  it
       later, etc.

       Related utilities:

       ali(1)          list mail aliases
       anno(1)         annotate messages
       whom(1)         report to whom a message would go
       dist(1)         redistribute a message to additional addresses

       Advanced commands, only sometimes invoked directly:

       mhbuild(1)      translate MIME composition draft
       send(1)         send a message
       sendfiles(1)    send multiple files in a MIME message

   Incorporating
       inc(1)          incorporate new mail

       Related utilities:

       burst(1)        explode digests into messages
       msgchk(1)       check for messages
       rcvdist(1)      asynchronously redistribute new mail
       rcvpack(1)      append message to file
       rcvstore(1)     asynchronously incorporate new mail
       slocal(1)       asynchronously filter and deliver new mail

   Viewing
       next(1)         show the next message
       prev(1)         show the previous message
       show(1)         show (display) messages
       scan(1)         produce a one line per message scan listing
       fnext(1)        select the next folder with new messages
       fprev(1)        select the previous folder with new messages

       Related utilities, only sometimes invoked directly:

       mhl(1)          produce formatted listings of nmh messages
       mhlist(1)       list information about content of MIME messages
       mhn(1)          display/list/store/cache MIME messages
       mhshow(1)       display MIME messages
       mhstore(1)      store contents of MIME messages into files

   Searching
       Within a folder:

       pick(1)         select messages by content

       Across folders:

       new(1)          list folders with new messages
       unseen(1)       list new messages in a given set of folders
       flist(1)        list folders with messages in given sequence(s)
       flists(1)       list all folders with messages in given sequence(s)
       folder(1)       set/list current folder/message
       folders(1)      list all folders

   Organizing
       mark(1)         mark messages
       refile(1)       file messages in other folders
       rmf(1)          remove folder
       rmm(1)          remove messages
       sortm(1)        sort messages

   Convenience Wrappers
       mhmail(1)       send or read mail

   Utilities
       mhfixmsg(1)     rewrite MIME messages with various transformations
       mhparam(1)      print nmh profile components
       mhpath(1)       print full pathnames of nmh messages and folders
       packf(1)        compress a folder into a single file
       prompter(1)     prompting editor front end
       rcvtty(1)       report new mail

   Indirectly Invoked Commands
       ap(8)           parse addresses RFC 822-style
       dp(8)           parse dates RFC 822-style
       fmtdump(8)      decode mh-format(5) files
       install-mh(8)   initialize the nmh environment
       post(8)         deliver a message

   Files Used by nmh Commands
       mh-alias(5)     alias file for nmh message system
       mh-format(5)    format file for nmh message system
       mh-profile(5)   user customization for nmh message system
       mh-tailor(5)    mail transport customization for nmh message system

   Formats
       mh-draft(5)     draft folder facility
       mh-folders(5)   nmh message storage format specification
       mh-mail(5)      message format for nmh message system
       mh-sequence(5)  sequence specification for nmh message system

FILES
       /usr/bin/mh
              contains nmh commands

       /etc/nmh
              contains nmh format files

       /usr/lib/mh
              contains nmh library commands

       $HOME/.mh_profile
              The user's nmh profile

SEE ALSO
       install-mh(1), mh-profile(5), mh-chart(7), mh-mime(7)

BUGS
       Send  bug reports, questions, suggestions, and patches to nmh-workers AT nongnu.org.  That mail‐
       ing list is relatively quiet, so user questions are encouraged.  Users are also encouraged to
       subscribe, and view the archives, at https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers .

       If  problems  are encountered with an nmh program, they should be reported to the local main‐
       tainers of nmh, if any, or to the mailing list noted above.  When doing this, the name of the
       program should be reported, along with the version information for the program.

       To find out what version of an nmh program is being run, invoke the program with the -version
       switch.  This prints the version of nmh, the host it was compiled on, and the date  the  pro‐
       gram was linked.

       New   releases,   and   other   information   of   potential   interest,   are  announced  at
       http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/



nmh-1.7.1                                    2016-09-26                                     NMH(7mh)
NMH(7mh)
NAME DESCRIPTION COMMANDS
Sending Incorporating Viewing Searching Organizing Convenience Wrappers Utilities Indirectly Invoked Commands Files Used by nmh Commands Formats
FILES SEE ALSO BUGS

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