CHEWMAIL(1)

💌 CHEWMAIL(1) — the mail archiver, bestie edition

okay so. chewmail is a Perl manual page from User Contributed Perl Documentation, and if you've ever wanted to yeet old mail into an archive box instead of doom-scrolling your inbox, this is THE one. come sit with me, we're doing this together 💖

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✨ NAME ✨

chewmail — mail archiver 🗃️✨

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

chewmail [OPTIONS] <MAILBOX> ...

that's it. that's the whole vibe. give it options, give it a mailbox (or like, several), and it goes to work 🫶

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

chewmail is a program for archiving mail. it's inspired by the Python-based archivemail (yes, the O.G.) but honestly? it has more useful semantics. no shade, just facts 💅

all the mail gets archived into the mailbox you name with the --output-box switch, in mbox format. and it can read mailboxes in three formats:

• mbox
• Maildir
• MH

internally, chewmail uses Mail::Box, which means it supports all the file names and URLs that module supports. so whatever weird little URL your Mail::Box heart desires? it's giving supported. 🌈

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🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

every single one, no skips, because we don't gatekeep here 🫶

• -o mailbox-format, --output-box=mailbox-format — the mailbox you're archiving messages to. this string gets run through the Date::Format module, so it supports all of its conversion specifiers. the date and time are relative to the message's timestamp — or the current time if the timestamp is literally impossible to determine. sample of the specifiers coming up right below ⬇️

%%      PERCENT
%b      month abbr
%B      month
%d      numeric day of the month, with leading zeros (eg 01..31)
%e      numeric day of the month, without leading zeros (eg 1..31)
%D      MM/DD/YY
%G      GPS week number (weeks since January 6, 1980)
%h      month abbr
%H      hour, 24 hour clock, leading 0's)
%I      hour, 12 hour clock, leading 0's)
%j      day of the year
%k      hour
%l      hour, 12 hour clock
%L      month number, starting with 1
%m      month number, starting with 01
%n      NEWLINE
%o      ornate day of month -- "1st", "2nd", "25th", etc.
%t      TAB
%U      week number, Sunday as first day of week
%w      day of the week, numerically, Sunday == 0
%W      week number, Monday as first day of week
%x      date format: 11/19/94
%y      year (2 digits)
%Y      year (4 digits)

• -d days-old, --days=days-old — only archive messages older than this many days. yes, that's "older than than" in the original, I'm not fighting the source material, I'm just relaying it 😭
• -D date, --date=date — only archive messages older than this date. the date can be any date understood by Perl's Date::Parse module. go wild, it speaks fluent Perl-date 🗓️
• -R, --only-read — only archive messages that are marked seen or read. read receipts but make it archival 💅
• --delete-immediately — synchronize the mailboxes after every single message is moved. huge emphasis on substantially slower, but it may give you better recovery for some mailbox formats if everything crashes 💀 translate: slow but safe-ish.
• --preserve-timestamp — preserve the atime and mtime of the input mailbox. heads up: this only affects file-based mailboxes, like mbox. 🕰️
• -n, --dry-run — go through all the motions of archiving the mail, but don't actually change any mailboxes. rehearsal era, nothing gets touched, no cap 🎭
• -v, --verbose — output more informational messages. use it multiple times for more verbosity. stack it like a combo 🗣️
• -q, --quiet — don't output any messages other than error messages. silent mode, main character energy, no commentary 🤫
• -V, --version — print the version number then exit. immediate farewell 😌
• -h, --help — print usage information then exit. also an immediate farewell 🫡

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🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

archive two day old messages in inbox to inbox-old:

chewmail --days 2 -o inbox-old inbox

archive read messages to a mailbox named the year-month of the message:

chewmail --only-read -o %Y-%m inbox

ok the %Y-%m thing is genuinely so cute, it literally names your archive file after the year and month 🥹✨

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

archivemail(1), Date::Parse, Date::Format, Mail::Box

iykyk 📚

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Eric Dorland <eric@kuroneko.ca>

thank you for your service king 🫡

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and that's the whole page, bestie. this was perl v5.40.1, dated 2025-09-04 — icon behavior, periodt 👑💖