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.TH MAILCHECK 1 "2 July 2005"
.SH NAME
mailcheck \- Check multiple mailboxes and/or Maildirs for new mail
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBmailcheck\fP [-lbcsh] [-f rcfile]
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBmailcheck\fP is a simple, configurable tool that allows multiple
mailboxes to be checked for the existence of mail. For local mail, it
supports both the traditional mbox format and the newer Maildir format. Mail
can also be checked for on remote servers using either the POP3 or IMAP
protocol.
.PP
Typically, one would invoke \fBmailcheck\fP in /etc/profile or a
user-specific login script. E-mail junkies may also find it useful to
invoke \fBmailcheck\fP occasionally to check for new mail in alternate
mailboxes.
.PP
The author uses \fBmailcheck\fP to keep track of messages arriving in
mailboxes corresponding to several mailing lists he subscribes to.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-l\fP
Runs \fBmailcheck\fP in login mode. If a \fI~/.hushlogin\fP file exists,
mailcheck will exit silently. This option is intended to be used on
systems that invoke mailcheck from a global login script such as
\fI/etc/profile\fP.
.TP
\fB\-b\fP
Brief mode. Produces less verbose output. If mailbox or Maildir is inside
user's home directory, only relative path is printed to output.
.TP
\fB\-c\fP
Use more advanced counting method. While counting mails, \fBmailcheck\fP
looks inside mboxes and Maildirs and count new and unread messages
separately. If mbox/maildir does not contain any new or unread mail, it's
excluded from report. Produced output contains more valuable information, but
this method is more time-consuming.
.TP
\fB\-s\fP
Print "no mail" summary. If no new mail message is found, print at least "no
mail message" at the end. Only makes sense in combination with \fB\-c\fP.
.TP
\fB\-f\fP
Specify alternative rc file location. If provided, default locations (see
\fBFILES\fP) are not checked.
.TP
\fB\-h\fP
Print short usage information.
.SH CONFIGURATION
Configuring \fBmailcheck\fP is simple. Upon startup, \fBmailcheck\fP looks
for a file called \fB.mailcheckrc\fP in the user's home directory. If that
file does not exist, the default configuration file \fB/etc/mailcheckrc\fP
is used instead.
.PP
Lines beginning with a hash sign (\fB#\fP) are treated as comments and will
not be processed. Lines beginning with \fBpop3:\fP or \fBimap:\fP are
parsed like URLs and used to connect to network mail servers. All other
lines are treated as pathnames to mailbox files or Maildir directories.
.PP
Environment variables in the format \fB$(NAME)\fP will be expanded inline.
For example:
.TP
\fB/var/spool/mail/$(USER)\fP
Will check the user's mailbox in \fB/var/spool/mail\fP.
.TP
\fB$(HOME)/Mailbox\fP
Will check the default mailbox used by qmail installations.
.PP
When connecting to POP3 or IMAP servers, the account password is not stored
in the mailcheckrc file. Instead, the \fB.netrc\fP file in the user's home
directory is used. This file, originally intended for use with
\fIftp\fP(1) and later used by \fIfetchmail\fP(1), should be readable only
by the user owning it. It stores server/user/password combinations in the
form:
machine \fIservername\fP login \fIusername\fP password \fIpassword\fP
.SH FILES
.TP
.B /etc/mailcheckrc
This is the site-default mailcheck configuration file. It should be
edited by the system administrator to meet the needs of most users on
the system.
.TP
.B ~/.mailcheckrc
This is the user-specific mailcheck configuration file. If it exists
for a particular user, the site-default configuration file will not
be used.
.TP
.B ~/.netrc
This tells \fBmailcheck\fP what password to use for a given server/user
combination when checking POP3 or IMAP mail.
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, Jefferson E. Noxon.
.PP
Portions Copyright (C) 1996, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
.PP
Portions Copyright (C) 1996, Gordon Matzigkeit.
.PP
Portions Copyright (C) 1998, Trent Piepho.
.PP
Other copyrights may apply.
.PP
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
.PP
On Debian GNU/Linux see /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL
.SH AUTHOR
Mailcheck was written for Debian GNU/Linux by Jefferson E. Noxon
<jeff@planetfall.com>.
.SH ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
POP3 and IMAP support was added by Rob Funk <rfunk@funknet.net>.
.PP
Several enhancements by Tomas Hoger <thoger@pobox.sk>.
.SH BUGS
It is probably not a good idea to store passwords in a .netrc file.
.PP
No SSL/TLS support for POP3 and IMAP.
.SH SEE ALSO
netrc(5), mbox(5), maildir(5), login(1), fetchmail(1)
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