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Leah Neukirchen 6 years ago
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MBLAZE(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual MBLAZE(7)
NAME
mblaze – introduction to mblaze
mblaze – introduction to the mblaze message system
DESCRIPTION
The mblaze message system is a set of Unix utilities to deal with mail
kept in Maildir folders.
The mblaze message system is a set of Unix utilities for processing and
interacting with mail messages which are stored in maildir folders.
Its design is roughly inspired by MH, the RAND Message Handling System,
but it is a complete implementation from scratch.
mblaze consists of these Unix tools that each do one job:
maddr(1) extract addresses from mail
magrep(1) find mails matching a pattern
mbnc(1) bounces mail
mcom(1) compose and send mail
mdeliver(1) deliver messages or import mailboxes
mdirs(1) find Maildir folders
mexport(1) export Maildir folders as mailboxes
mflag(1) change flags (marks) of mail
mflow(1) reflow format=flowed plain text mails
mfwd(1) forward mail
mgenmid(1) generate Message-IDs
mhdr(1) extract mail headers
minc(1) incorporate new mail
mless(1) conveniently read mail in less(1)
mlist(1) list and filter mail messages
mblaze consists of these Unix utilities that each do one job:
maddr(1) extract mail addresses from messages
magrep(1) search messages matching a pattern
mbnc(1) bounce messages
mcom(1) compose and send messages
mdeliver(1) deliver messages or import mbox file
mdirs(1) list maildir folders, recursively
mexport(1) export messages as mbox file
mflag(1) manipulate maildir flags
mflow(1) reflow format=flowed plain text messages
mfwd(1) forward messages
mgenmid(1) generate a Message-ID
mhdr(1) print message headers
minc(1) incorporate new messages
mless(1) conveniently read messages in less(1)
mlist(1) list and filter messages
mmime(1) create MIME messages
mmkdir(1) create new Maildir
mpick(1) advanced mail filter
mrep(1) reply to mail
mscan(1) generate one-line summaries of mail
msed(1) manipulate mail headers
mseq(1) manipulate mail sequences
mshow(1) render mail and extract attachments
msort(1) sort mail
mthread(1) arrange mail into discussions
PRINCIPLES
mmkdir(1) create new maildir folders
mpick(1) advanced message filter
mrep(1) reply to messages
mscan(1) generate one-line message summaries
msed(1) manipulate message headers
mseq(1) manipulate message sequences
mshow(1) render messages and extract MIME parts
msort(1) sort messages
mthread(1) arrange messages into discussions
mblaze is a classic command line MUA and has no features for receiving or
transferring mail; you are expected to fetch your mail using fdm(1),
getmail(1) offlineimap(1), procmail(1), or similar , and send it using
dma(8), msmtp(1), sendmail(8), as provided by OpenSMTPD, Postfix, or
similar. mblaze expects your mail to reside in Maildir folders.
mblaze operates directly on Maildir folders and doesn't use its own
caches or databases. There is no setup needed for many uses. All tools
have been written with performance in mind. Enumeration of all mails in
a Maildir is avoided unless necessary, and then optimized to limit
syscalls. Parsing mail metadata is optimized to limit I/O requests.
Initial operations on a large Maildir may feel slow, but as soon as they
are in the file system cache, everything is blazingly fast. The tools
are written to be memory efficient (i.e. not wasteful), but whole
messages are assumed to fit into RAM easily (one at a time).
mblaze has been written from scratch and tested on a large corpus of
personal mail, but is not actually 100% RFC-conforming (which is neither
worth it nor desirable). There may be issues with very old,
nonconforming, messages.
transferring messages; you can operate on messages in a local maildir
spool, or fetch your messages using fdm(1), getmail(1), offlineimap(1),
or similar utilities, and send it using dma(8), msmtp(1), sendmail(8), as
provided by OpenSMTPD, Postfix, or similar.
mblaze operates directly on maildir folders and doesn't use its own
caches or databases. There is no setup needed for many uses. All
utilities have been written with performance in mind. Enumeration of all
messages in a maildir is avoided unless necessary, and then optimized to
limit syscalls. Parsing message metadata is optimized to limit I/O
requests. Initial operations on a large maildir may feel slow, but as
soon as they are in the file system cache, everything is blazingly fast.
The utilities are written to be memory efficient (i.e. not wasteful), but
whole messages are assumed to fit into RAM easily (one at a time).
mblaze has been written from scratch and is now well tested, but it is
not 100% RFC-conforming (which is neither worth it, nor desirable).
There may be issues with very old, nonconforming, messages.
mblaze is written in portable C, using only POSIX functions (apart from a
tiny Linux-only optimization), and has no external dependencies. It
supports MIME and more than 7-bit messages (everything the host iconv(3)
can decode). It assumes you work in a UTF-8 environment. mblaze works
well together with other Unix mail tools such as mairix(1), mu(1), or
well with other Unix utilities such as mairix(1), mu(1), or
offlineimap(1).
EXAMPLES
mblaze tools are designed to be composed together in a pipe. They are
suitable for interactive use and for scripting, and integrate well into a
Unix workflow.
mblaze utilities are designed to be composed together in a pipe. They
are suitable for interactive use and for scripting, and integrate well
into a Unix workflow.
For example, you could decide you want to look at all unseen mail in your
INBOX, oldest first.
For example, you could decide you want to look at all unseen messages in
your INBOX, oldest first.
mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -d | mscan
To operate on a set of mails in multiple steps, you can save it as a
To operate on a set of messages in multiple steps, you can save it as a
sequence, e.g. add a call to ‘mseq -S’ to the above command:
mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -d | mseq -S | mscan
Now mscan will show message numbers and you could look at the first five
mails at once, for example:
messages at once, for example:
mshow 1:5
Likewise, you could decide to incorporate (by moving from new to cur) all
new mail in all folders, thread it and look at it interactively:
new messages in all folders, thread it and look at it interactively:
mdirs ~/Maildir | xargs minc | mthread | mless
Or you could list the attachments of the 20 largest mails in your INBOX:
Or you could list the attachments of the 20 largest messages in your
INBOX:
mlist ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -S | tail -20 | mshow -t
Or apply the patches from the current mail:
Or apply the patches from the current message:
mshow -O. '*.diff' | patch
As usual with pipes, the sky is the limit.
CONCEPTS
mblaze deals with messages (which are files), folders (which are Maildir
mblaze deals with messages (which are files), folders (which are maildir
folders), sequences (which are newline-separated lists of messages,
possibly saved on disk in ${MBLAZE:-$HOME/.mblaze}/seq), and the current
message (kept as a symlink in ${MBLAZE:-$HOME/.mblaze}/cur).
@ -117,9 +117,9 @@ AUTHORS
Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org>
There is a mailing list available at mblaze@googlegroups.com (to
subscribe, send a mail to mblaze+subscribe@googlegroups.com. Please
report security-related bugs directly to the author), as well as an IRC
channel #vuxu on irc.freenode.net.
subscribe, send a message to mblaze+subscribe@googlegroups.com) and an
IRC channel #vuxu on irc.freenode.net. Please report security-related
bugs directly to the author.
LICENSE
mblaze is in the public domain.

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