MTHREAD(1)

📦 version 1.4, in alpine 3.24, debian bookworm, debian trixie, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💬 mthread — arrange messages into discussions 💬

okay bestie, imagine your inbox is a whole MESS of replies and nobody knows who said what to whom. that's where mthread comes in. she's the manual page for the tool that takes your chaotic pile of messages and organizes them into actual conversations, like the group chat it was always meant to be. 🌸

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

mthread [-vpr] [-S msg] [msgs ...]

short, sweet, iconic. periodt. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe: mthread groups messages together into parent/child relationships, based on which messages are replies to which other messages. it's literally building a family tree but for emails. (if you're confused about the message argument syntax, go check mmsg(7) — she explains it all. 💖)

if you don't specify any messages, mthread will read filenames from the standard input. OR, if you're using it interactively, it'll just use the default sequence. no cap.

then it prints the threaded messages, separated by newlines, and indented according to their depth in the message tree. so the deeper the reply, the more it's scooted over. aesthetic and functional, honestly.

and if there are Unresolved Message-IDs? those get printed as-is. no pretending, no guessing, just raw. 💀

the options are as follows:

  • -v — do NOT prune unresolved Message-IDs at the top-level. she's staying. she's part of the thread now. 🙈
  • -p — with -S, only add parents, not unrelated subthreads. keep it focused, bestie.
  • -r — sort the top-level threads in reverse order (newest threads first). main character energy: the freshest drama goes on top. 🔥
  • -S msg — treat msg as optional message(s) that will be added to threads only if they are referenced. threads where ALL messages are optional get suppressed (bye, they weren't invited 💅). you can use -S to add an outbox folder, for example — completing threads where your replies were missing. iconic use case fr fr.
pro tip from the manpage itself: -S is perfect for when you know you replied to something but the reply isn't in your current folder. the thread gets completed. chef's kiss. ✨

🎀 EXIT STATUS 🎀

the mthread utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. so like, zero means we slayed, anything above zero means something went wrong. 🌈

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org> — queen behavior, honestly. 💜

🌸 LICENSE 🌸

mthread is in the public domain.

To the extent possible under law, the creator of this work has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

like... she's literally free. take her, use her, no strings. generous icon. 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie — this one's from the Debian manual, dated May 4, 2020, filed under MTHREAD(1). go thread some messages, you got this. 💖✨🧚

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