Starting and quitting mail

To start mail(C), type mail on the UNIX command line and press <Enter>. The opening screen shows the headers of the messages waiting in your system mailbox:

As new messages arrive, they are added to the message list. The greater-than sign (>) is a status flag that shows the current message. To change the order in which headers are displayed, see ``Changing the order of the header list''.

Here is a complete list of message status flags:

Symbol	Description
>	current message
U	unread message
N	new message
M	message saved to user mailbox using mbox command
	message saved to a file using save or write commands
P	message preserved (using hold command) in your system mailbox instead of being saved automatically to your user mailbox

If there are no messages in your system mailbox, mail exits immediately with a message. When your mailbox is empty, you can only run mail to create a new message or to read a different mail folder.

Getting help

To get help when you are reading your mail, type ? at the mail prompt. To get help while you are inputing a message, go to a new line and enter ~?.

Quitting mail

To quit mail and update your mailbox, type q at the mail prompt.

If you want to leave mail quickly without altering either your system or user mailbox, use the exit (x) command. This leaves mail without changing anything.