Columbia MM
MM Manual

REVIEWING MAIL ON FILE WITH THE HEADERS DISPLAY

The headers command and an appropriate message sequence is the basic step in reviewing what mail you have. Checking a list of messages is typically a preliminary step to reading, deleting or other actions.


HEADERS AND MESSAGE SEQUENCES

The headers command shows you what messages you have on file, with a one-line display for each showing the sequence number, date, sender, subject, status and length of a message.

Type a message sequence after the headers command to specify what messages you want to see. To remember what message sequences there are, type headers, a space, and a question mark.



[ H=headers R=read REV=review S=send Q=quit BYE ?=Hints HELP ]
MM>headers ?message number
  or range of message numbers, n:m
  or range of message numbers, n-m
  or range of message numbers, n+m (m messages beginning with n)
  or "." to specify the current message
  or "*" to specify the last message
  or message sequence, one of the following:
 after               all                 answered            before
 current             deleted             flagged             from
 inverse             keyword             last                longer
 new                 on                  previous-sequence   recent
 seen                shorter             since               subject
 text                to                  unanswered          undeleted
 unflagged           unkeyword           unseen
 or "," and another message sequence


The commonly used command headers all uses the message sequence all to show all the messages from first (oldest) to last. Note that you can abbreviate headers all to just h a:



MM>h a
       1) 17-Jun Fuat C. Baran       New stuff in MM (317 chars)
       2) 17-Jun Melissa Metz        charges (1620 chars)
       3) 18-Jun Joe Brennan         corrupted mbox (2285 chars)
  A    4) 19-Jun Sue Zayac           another one (251 chars)
       5) 19-Jun Howie Kaye          quota (5258 chars)
       6) 19-Jun Don Lanini          Emacs question (1036 chars)
       7) 19-Jun Mel Wylbur          using line mode (3387 chars)


Use headers with other message sequences to find mail based on a variety of characteristics: date, subject line, sender, and so on.



MM>headers since friday
  A    4) 19-Jun Sue Zayac           another one (251 chars)
       5) 19-Jun Howie Kaye          quota (5258 chars)
       6) 19-Jun Don Lanini          Emacs question (1036 chars)
       7) 19-Jun Mel Wylbur          using line mode (3387 chars)




MM>headers subject charges
       2) 17-Jun Melissa Metz        charges (1620 chars)




MM>headers from mel
       2) 17-Jun Melissa Metz        charges (1620 chars)
       7) 19-Jun Mel Wylbur          using line mode (3387 chars)




MM>headers from mel before friday
       2) 17-Jun Melissa Metz        charges (1620 chars)


In some mail programs, you would need to keep mail in separate files, or use keywords, to find old messages easily. MM's message sequences make that less essential (although you can certainly keep multiple mail files and assign keywords if you find it helps you organize).


USING THE RESULTS OF THE HEADERS COMMAND

When the headers result matches what you want, use the message sequence previous-sequence, abbreviated p in the next command. For example, that is, if headers from mel shows the messages you want to read, don't type read from mel or read 2,7; type r p, which is much shorter.



MM>headers from mel
       2) 17-Jun Melissa Metz        charges (1620 chars)
       7) 19-Jun Mel Wylbur          using line mode (3387 chars)
MM>r p


If you are cleaning out old messages, you can use headers to check what delete will do, like trying headers subject meeting first, and then a d p (delete previous-sequence) if that describes the right set of messages.

You may sometimes want to use control-p to repeat a command if you are narrowing a search. For example, if headers from mel turned up 20 messages, instead of typing out headers from mel text jukebox, press control-p to repeat headers from mel and just type the additional part text jukebox after it, on the same line. (Try this to see how it looks. You can use control-p to repeat any command, and press control-p repeatedly to go back several commands.)


COUNTING MESSAGES

The command count will show how many messages there are in a message sequence, and their message numbers. By itself count means count all.



MM>count from fuat
 1, 8, 10, 30, 33:34, 39, 41, 45, 64, 72, 94, 113 = 13 messages



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