RCVTTY(1mh)

📦
version 1.8 · 3 versions
, in debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💌 RCVTTY(1mh) — bestie, your mail just slid into your terminal 💅

okay so this is the rcvtty page from the 1mh manual, and honestly? it's giving "quiet little workhorse that announces your mail for you." let's get into it. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

rcvtty — report new mail with nmh 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/usr/lib/mh/rcvtty [-help] [-version] [command] [-form formatfile]
     [-format string] [-width columns] [-bell | -nobell] [-newline |
     -nonewline] [-biff]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So like, rcvtty is the command you use to report new mail. its whole main character era is hanging out with mail filtering agents like slocal or procmail — it's basically the friend who texts you "girl your inbox…" 👑

here's the vibe: rcvtty runs the command you name, feeding the message in as its standard input, and then it writes whatever that command outputs onto your terminal. cute, right? 🫶

but wait — plot twist. if you don't specify a command at all (or the command you gave is, um, bogus 💀), then rcvtty just writes a one-line scan listing instead. and you can override the default output format of that scan listing with either the -form formatfile option or the -format string option — same energy as the equivalent options over in scan and inc. for the details, go read mh-format(5). ✨

A newline gets output before the message output, and the terminal bell gets rung after the output. if you're not about that life, the -nonewline and -nobell switches will inhibit those functions. periodt.

the -width columns switch lets you specify the width of the scan line. the default is to just use the width of your terminal. 🌈

okay and now — on top of all the standard format escapes described in mh-format(5), rcvtty also recognizes these extra component escapes:

  • body — string — the (compressed) first part of the body 🍓
  • dtimenow — date — the current date ⭐
  • folder — string — the name of the current folder 📁

by default, rcvtty sends its output to every terminal on the local machine that is owned by the current user and that has given write permission as granted by the mesg(1) command. but if you pass the -biff option, then rcvtty will obey the notification status set by the biff(1) command instead. lowkey a whole personality shift. 💫

🗂️ FILES 🗂️

  • /etc/nmh/mts.conf — nmh mts configuration file
  • $HOME/.maildelivery — The file controlling local delivery
  • /etc/nmh/maildelivery — Rather than the standard file

🧚 CONTEXT 🧚

None 💀 (yeah, nothing. empty. a void. she said "no context, only vibes")

👑 DEFAULTS 👑

  • -width defaults to the width of the terminal
  • -newline
  • -bell

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

mh-format(5), rcvdist(1), rcvpack(1), rcvstore(1), slocal(1)

💀 BUGS 💀

Only two return codes are meaningful, others should be. (not me reading that and feeling personally attacked 😭)

and that's the whole page bestie, no notes, ate and left no crumbs 💅

this absolute classic is from nmh-1.8, dated 1999-04-30 — yeah she's been iconic since the 90s, and she's still serving 🎀✨🫶

📦 where this page comes from