Receiving mail from other users

The simplest way to read incoming messages is to enter the command mailx. This starts an interactive session that lets you read your mail and perform other actions, such as display new messages and delete old ones. If you do not have any mail, you will get a message telling you so.

When you have mail, the mail program shows you a list of messages similar to this one:

mailx xxxxxxx Type ? for Help.
"/usr/mail/SMITHA/...": 3 messages 3 new
>N  1 CLIFLWR           Thu Jul 15 14:28  6/93  testing
>N  2 HOMEBRW           Thu Jul 15 15:03  5/81  lunch plans
>N  3 ELVIS             Thu Jul 15 16:17  6/95  softball
?

The first line is the mailx program banner; xxxxxxx is information about the version of mailx. As indicated, you can type ? to see a help panel. The second line displays the name of the mailbox being used, /usr/mail/SMITHA/, followed by the number of messages in the mailbox, and their status. Then you see a list of three messages:

Number 1 was sent by CLIFLWR and has the subject "testing". It was sent on July 15 at 2:28 p.m., and contains 6 lines and 93 characters.
Number 2 was sent by HOMEBRW and has the subject "lunch plans". It was sent on July 15 at 3:03 p.m., and contains 5 lines and 81 characters.
Number 3 was sent by ELVIS and has the subject "softball". It was sent on July 15 at 4:17 p.m., and contains 6 lines and 95 characters.

The user names are all displayed in uppercase.

The question mark (?) is the mail program prompt; it indicates that you can enter mailx subcommands now. Try the subcommand n (next message) to read the messages in sequence:

? n
Message  1:
From CLIFLWR Thu Jul  15 14:28
To: SMITHA
Subject:  testing

I'm setting up a meeting to test the toolkit
on Monday the 19th at 10AM.
Let me know if you can make it.
?

The question mark (?) prompt appears after the displayed message. You can also enter the n subcommand with a number to specify a particular message; for example, n 3 displays the message about softball. Now you can choose what to do with the message: reply to it, save it, or delete it.