man > install-mh(8)

INSTALL-MH(8mh)                                                                      INSTALL-MH(8mh)

NAME
       install-mh - initialize the nmh environment

SYNOPSIS


       /usr/lib/mh/install-mh [-help] [-version] [-auto] [-check]

DESCRIPTION
       install-mh  creates  the initial setup for a first-time nmh user.  install-mh is installed in
       two locations for historical reasons.

       The -auto switch does things as automatically as possible and makes install-mh less chatty.

       The user is prompted for the name of the directory to be designated as the user's nmh  direc‐
       tory.   If  this  directory  does not exist, the user is asked if it should be created.  Nor‐
       mally, this directory should be under the user's home directory, and has the default name  of
       `Mail'.  install-mh writes an initial .mh_profile for the user.

       As  with  all  nmh commands, install-mh first checks for the existence of the $MH environment
       variable, since that, if set, gives the profile path.  If it isn't set, the $HOME environment
       variable is consulted to determine the user's home directory.  If $HOME is not set, then  the
       /etc/passwd file is consulted.

       When  creating  the  user's  .mh_profile, install-mh will check for the existence of a global
       profile at /etc/nmh/mh.profile.  If found, this will be used to initialize the  new  .mh_pro‐
       file.

       The  -check switch checks if nmh is installed.  (This can be used by other programs to deter‐
       mine if nmh has been installed.)

       install-mh sets up the user's profile to support the mh-draft(5) draft folder facility.

FILES
       $HOME/.mh_profile   The user's profile.
       /etc/nmh/mh.profile Used to initialize user's profile.

PROFILE COMPONENTS
       Path:               To set the user's nmh directory.

SEE ALSO
       mh-draft(5)

CONTEXT
       With -auto, the current folder is changed to “inbox”.


UNDOING THE INSTALLATION
       If you only ran install-mh to try out nmh briefly, you might like to remove the configuration
       files it creates. (This is not obligatory -- install-mh creates only a  few  small  files  so
       simply leaving them in place will not cause problems.)

       Most  nmh configuration information lives in the user's nmh directory; you can print its name
       by running

       mhpath +

       Basically all plain files in the nmh directory are configuration files and can be removed.

       Attention: The nmh directory holds not just configuration files! Its  subdirectories  contain
       all the emails you have written or received with nmh.  Don't delete the nmh directory without
       carefully checking that there are no mail files that you might want later!

       The  only  configuration  file that lives outside the nmh directory is your profile file. You
       can print its name by running

       echo ${MH:-$HOME/.mh-profile}

       If you aren't using nmh any more you can delete this file, too.


nmh-1.8                                      2022-12-22                              INSTALL-MH(8mh)