The elm Mail Handler



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The elm Mail Handler

The mail handler elm is interactive, menu-driven, and written by Dave Taylor of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. By following the on-screen directions and clicking on buttons, it lets you meet most of your needs. While it is not as powerful or integrated as the Emacs mail facility, it is friendlier and easier for a beginning user. In the simplest mode, you go through your mailbox (or other folder), by just saying elm and following directions:
 

% elm   	 Just say elm.   
Mailbox is '/usr/mail/rubin', 2 messages   	 Elm tells you  all this.   
1 Feb 28 Rubin Landau  subject   	 Letter 1.   
2 Feb 28 Mail Delivery Subs Returned mail   	 Letter 2.   
You can use any of the following commands:   	 Elm's directions.   
d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message,    	   
r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit, To read message, press <return>   	   
j = move down, k = move up, ?= help   	   

You now use the arrow or move keys to highlight the letter of interest. Then you give a subcommand to read, reply, save, or delete the letter. In a more advanced mode you give options directly on the command line. For example, to send mail to jan:

% elm -s "subject" jan@thomas.hal.com   	Send letter to jan on subject.   

Elm then puts you in an editor while you compose your letter and prompts you for needed flags. As with the mail command, you can also redirect a file as standard input

% elm -s "subject" anita < junk.file   	Send junk to anita.   


elm OPTIONS
-c
Check alias and return.
-f
Read specified folder, not mailbox.
-h (?)
Help - give list of options.
-m
Menu off; more room to see letter.
-s
Subject for letter.
-z
Zero - don't enter Elm if mailbox is empty.



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Next: The Emacs Mail Up: Mail Systems Previous: The mh and