mailutil(1)
NAME
mailutil - mail utility program
SYNTAX
mailutil command [switches] [arguments] All commands accept the -d, -v, and -u switches in addition to any command-specific switches. mailutil check [MAILBOX] mailutil create MAILBOX mailutil delete MAILBOX mailutil rename SOURCE DESTINATION mailutil copy [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION mailutil move [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION mailutil append [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION mailutil appenddelete [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION mailutil prune MAILBOX CRITERIA mailutil transfer [-m mode] [-rw] [-kw] [-ig] SOURCE DESTINATION
DESCRIPTION
mailutil replaces the old chkmail, imapcopy, imapmove, imapxfer,
mbxcopy, mbxcreat, and mbxcvt programs.
mailutil check determines whether new mail exists in the given mailbox
(the default is INBOX). The number of new messages is defined as the
number of messages that have "Recent" status set. If the mailbox
contains no new messages, mailutil check will indicate that no new mail
is present; otherwise, it will report the number of new messages. In
either case, it will also indicate the canonical form of the name of
the mailbox.
mailutil create creates a new mailbox with the given name. The mailbox
name must not already exist. A mailbox can be created in a particular
format by prefixing the name with #driver. followed by the format name
and a / character. For example, the command
mailutil create #driver.mbx/junkmail
will create a new mailbox named "junkmail" in mbx format.
mailutil delete deletes an existing mailbox with the given name.
mailutil rename renames an existing mailbox to a new name (which must
not already exist). This only works if the old and new names are in
the same mail store. A more general means to rename a mailbox is to do
a mailutil copy of the old name to the new name, followed by a mailutil
delete of the old name.
mailutil copy creates a new mailbox and copies messages from the old
mailbox to the new mailbox. As in mailutil create a mailbox format can
be specified with the new mailbox. For example, the command
mailutil copy INBOX #driver.mbx/INBOX
will copy messages from your existing INBOX to an mbx-format INBOX.
mailutil move is similar to mailutil copy but in addition will also
remove (delete and expunge) the messages from the old mailbox after
copying them to the new mailbox.
mailutil append and mailutil appenddelete are similar to mailutil copy
and mailutil move respectively except that they do not create the
destination mailbox.
mailutil prune prunes the mailbox of messages which match certain
criteria, which are in the form of IMAP2 (RFC 1176) SEARCH arguments.
For example, the command.
mailutil prune INBOX "before 1-jan-2004"
will delete and expunge all messages written before January 1, 2004.
Note that mailutil implements pruning by deleting the matching
messages, and then expunging the mailbox. Consequently, mailutil will
also expunge any messages which were deleted at the time of the
pruning.
mailutil transfer copies an entire hierarchy of mailboxes from the
named source to the named destination. Mailboxes are created on the
destination as needed. Any error in copying messages will cause the
transfer to stop.
Normally, any error in creation will cause the transfer to stop.
However, if -m MODE or -merge MODE is specified, a merging transfer is
performed. The MODE argument indicats the type of merge:
-m[erge] prompt indicates that the user should be asked for an
alternative name to create. If creating the new name fails, the user
will be asked again.
-m[erge] append indicates that it's alright to copy the messages into
an existing mailbox with that name. If the mailbox does not exist, the
user will be prompted for an alternative name.
-m[erge] suffix=XXXX where XXXX is any string, indicates that an
alternative name should be built by appending the given suffix to the
name. It that alternative name can't be created, then the user will be
prompted for an alternative name.
The source hierarchy consists of all mailboxes which start with the
given source name. With the exception of a remote system specification
(within "{}" braces), the source name is used as the name of the
destination. The destination hierarchy is a prefix applied to any new
names being created. For example,
mailutil transfer foo bar
will copy all mailboxes with names beginning with "foo" to names
beginning with "bar" (hence "foobar" will be copied to "barfoobar").
Similarly,
mailutil transfer "{imap.foo.com}" "{imap.bar.com}old/"
will copy all mailboxes from the imap.foo.com IMAP server to equivalent
names starting with "old/" on the imap.bar.com IMAP server.
FLAGS
The -d or -debug flag prints full debugging telemetry including protocol operations. The -v or -verbose flag prints verbose (non-error) telemetry. The -u USERID or -user USERID switch attempts to become the indicated user. This is for the benefit of system administrators who want to do mailutil operations on a userid that does not normally have shell access. The -rw or -rwcopy flag causes the source mailbox to be open in readwrite mode rather than readonly mode. Normally, mailutil tries to use readonly mode to avoid altering any flags in the source mailbox, but some mailbox types, e.g. POP3, can't be open in readonly mode. The -kw or -kwcopy flag causes the keywords of the source mailbox to be created in the destination mailbox. Normally, mailutil does not create keywords in the destination mailbox so only those keywords that are already defined in the destination mailbox will be preserved. Note that some IMAP servers may automatically create keywords, so this flag may not be necessary. The -ig or -ignore flag causes the keywords of the source mailbox to be ignored completely and no attempt is made to copy them to the destination mailbox. The -ig[nore] and -kw[copy] flags are mutually exclusive.
ARGUMENTS
The arguments are standard c-client mailbox names. A variety of
mailbox name formats and types of mailboxes are supported by c-client;
examples of the most common forms of names are:
Name Meaning
INBOX primary incoming mail folder on the local system
archive/tx-project
mail folder named "tx-project" in "archive" subdirectory
of local filesystem home directory
{imapserver.foo.com}INBOX
primary incoming mail folder on IMAP server system
"imapserver.foo.com"
{imapserver.foo.com}archive/tx-project
mail folder named "tx-project" in "archive" subdirectory
on IMAP server system "imapserver.foo.com"
#news.comp.mail.misc
newsgroup "comp.mail.misc" on local filesystem
{newserver.foo.com/nntp}comp.mail.misc
newsgroup "comp.mail.misc" on NNTP server system
"newserver.foo.com"
{popserver.foo.com/pop3}
mail folder on POP3 server system "popserver.foo.com"
See your system manager for more information about the types of
mailboxes which are available on your system.
RESTRICTIONS
You must surround a {host}mailbox argument with quotation marks if you
run mailutil from csh(1) or another shell for which braces have special
meaning.
You must surround a #driver.format/mailbox argument with quotation
marks if you run mailutil from a shell in which "#" is the comment
character.
AUTHOR
Mark Crispin, MRC@Washington.EDU
March 3, 2008 mailutil(1)
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