CHECKMAIL(1)

💌 checkmail — bestie, your mail is ringing

okay so this is the manual for checkmail, from the General Commands Manual section 1, and it's genuinely one of those tiny little programs that does one thing and eats. it checks if you got mail. and then it plays a lil sound. that's it. that's the whole girl. 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

checkmail — plays a sound file when the user receives mail 🎵💖

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

checkmail

no flags. no arguments. no drama. she just goes. ✨

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the checkmail program checks the status of your mail drop, right? like, she peeks. 👀 and then depending on what she sees, she does one of three things, and she tells you which one by way of her exit status:

• if new mail is waiting, checkmail runs playbucket to play a sound, and returns an exit status of 0 🎶🫶
• if mail has been cleared, she returns an exit status of 2
• if there has been no change, she returns an exit status of 1

fr fr, that's the entire personality. and honestly? iconic.

the way that checkmail is intended to be used is with the checkCommand resource of xbiff. so if you want xbiff to run this lil cutie for you, you go add this line to your .Xdefaults file:

xbiff*checkCommand: checkmail

and then xbiff is calling her up every time it needs a vibe check. periodt. 💅

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✨ FILES ✨

she touches exactly three files and you should know all of them:

• /usr/spool/mail/$USER — the user's mail drop 💌
• $HOME/.mailstat — holds the previous mail drop size 📏
• $HOME/.mailsound — audio file to play when there's new mail 🎧

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

go read these too, they're the friend group:

• playbucket(1)
• xbiff(1)
• nas(1)

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✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

Copyright 1994 Network Computing Devices, Inc.

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✨ AUTHOR ✨

Greg Renda, Network Computing Devices, Inc. 🫶

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okay that's the whole page bestie, no cap. this was checkmail 1.9.4 from the General Commands Manual section 1, and that's the version and the whole vibe, mwah. go check your mail. 💖🦋🎀