Reading Mail (The MH-E Manual)

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6 Reading Your Mail

The MH-E entry point for reading mail is M-x mh-rmail. This command incorporates your mail and creates a buffer called ‘+inbox’ in MH-Folder mode. The command M-x mh-rmail shows you only new mail, not mail you have already read¹².

There are some commands that need to read mail, such as mouse-2 over the ‘Mail’ button that display-time adds to the mode line. You can configure Emacs to have these commands use MH-E by setting the option read-mail-command to ‘mh-rmail’.

The ‘+inbox’ buffer contains scan lines, which are one-line summaries of each incorporated message. You can perform most MH commands on these messages via one- or two-letter commands in either the MH-Folder or MH-Show buffers or by using the ‘Message’ menu. See scan(1) for a description of the contents of the scan lines, and see the Figure in Receiving Mail, for an example.

?: Display cheat sheet for the MH-E commands (mh-help).
RET: Display message (mh-show).
, (comma): Display message with all header fields (mh-header-display).
: (colon): Display message with the default preferred alternative (mh-show-preferred-alternative).
; (semicolon): Toggle the value of mh-decode-mime-flag (mh-toggle-mh-decode-mime-flag).
SPC: Display next page in message (mh-page-msg).
BS: Display previous page in message (mh-previous-page).
>: Append message to end of file (mh-write-msg-to-file).
|: Pipe message through shell command (mh-pipe-msg).
C-d: Delete range, don’t move to next message (mh-delete-msg-no-motion).
d: Delete range (mh-delete-msg).
D ?: Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).
D SPC: Display next message in digest (mh-page-digest).
D BS: Display previous message in digest (mh-page-digest-backwards).
D b: Break up digest into separate messages (mh-burst-digest).
g: Go to a message (mh-goto-msg).
k: Delete messages with same subject or thread (mh-delete-subject-or-thread).
K ?: Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).
K TAB: Go to the next button (mh-next-button).
K S-TAB: Go to the previous button (mh-prev-button).
K a: Save attachments (mh-mime-save-parts).
K e: View attachment externally (mh-display-with-external-viewer).
K i: Show attachment verbatim (mh-folder-inline-mime-part).
K o: Save (output) attachment (mh-folder-save-mime-part).
K t: Toggle option mh-display-buttons-for-inline-parts-flag (mh-toggle-mime-buttons).
K v: View attachment (mh-folder-toggle-mime-part).
M: Edit message (mh-modify).
M-<: Display first message (mh-first-msg).
M->: Display last message (mh-last-msg).
M-n: Display next unread message (mh-next-unread-msg).
M-p: Display previous unread message (mh-previous-unread-msg).
n: Display next message (mh-next-undeleted-msg).
p: Display previous message (mh-previous-undeleted-msg).
P ?: Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).
P C: Toggle whether color is used in printing messages (mh-ps-print-toggle-color).
P F: Toggle whether printing is done with faces or not (mh-ps-print-toggle-faces).
P f: Print range to file (mh-ps-print-msg-file).
P l: Print range the old fashioned way (mh-print-msg).
P p: Print range (mh-ps-print-msg).
X ?: Display cheat sheet for the commands of the current prefix in minibuffer (mh-prefix-help).
X s
X u: Unpack message created with uudecode or shar (mh-store-msg).
mouse-2: Move point to mouse event and show message (mh-show-mouse).

Within the MH-Show buffer, the following command is defined.

RET
mouse-1
mouse-2: View contents of button (mh-press-button).

The following table lists options in the ‘mh-show’ customization group that are used while reading mail.

mh-bury-show-buffer-flag ¶: On means show buffer is buried (default: ‘on’).
mh-clean-message-header-flag ¶: On means remove extraneous header fields (default: ‘on’).
mh-decode-mime-flag ¶: On means attachments are handled (default: ‘on’ if the Gnus ‘mm-decode’ package is present).
mh-display-buttons-for-alternatives-flag ¶: On means display buttons for all alternative attachments (default: ‘off’).
mh-display-buttons-for-inline-parts-flag ¶: On means display buttons for all inline attachments (default: ‘off’).
mh-do-not-confirm-flag ¶: On means non-reversible commands do not prompt for confirmation (default: ‘off’).
mh-fetch-x-image-url ¶: Control fetching of ‘X-Image-URL:’ header field image (default: ‘Never Fetch’).
mh-graphical-smileys-flag ¶: On means graphical smileys are displayed (default: ‘on’).
mh-graphical-emphasis-flag ¶: On means graphical emphasis is displayed (default: ‘on’).
mh-highlight-citation-style ¶: Style for highlighting citations (default: ‘Multicolor’).
mh-invisible-header-fields-default ¶: List of hidden header fields (default: a checklist too long to list here).
mh-invisible-header-fields ¶: Additional header fields to hide (default: nil).
mh-lpr-command-format ¶: Command used to print (default: "lpr -J '%s'").
mh-max-inline-image-height ¶: Maximum inline image height if ‘Content-Disposition:’ is not present (default: 0).
mh-max-inline-image-width ¶: Maximum inline image width if ‘Content-Disposition:’ is not present(default: 0).
mh-mhl-format-file ¶: Specifies the format file to pass to the mhl program (default: ‘Use Default mhl Format (Printing Only)’).
mh-mime-save-parts-default-directory ¶: Default directory to use for K a.
mh-print-background-flag ¶: On means messages should be printed in the background (default: ‘off’).
mh-show-buffer-mode-line-buffer-id ¶: Format string to produce mode-line-buffer-identification for show buffers (default: " {show-%s} %d").
mh-show-maximum-size ¶: Maximum size of message (in bytes) to display automatically (default: 0).
mh-show-use-xface-flag ¶: On means display face images in MH-Show buffers (default: ‘on’).
mh-store-default-directory ¶: Default directory for X s (default: ‘Current’).
mh-summary-height ¶: Number of lines in MH-Folder buffer (including the mode line) (default: depends on size of frame).

The following hooks are available.

mh-delete-msg-hook ¶: Hook run after marking each message for deletion (default: nil).
mh-show-hook ¶: Hook run after RET shows a message (default: nil).
mh-show-mode-hook ¶: Hook run upon entry to mh-show-mode (default: nil).

The following faces are available.

mh-show-cc ¶: Face used to highlight ‘cc:’ header fields.
mh-show-date ¶: Face used to highlight ‘Date:’ header fields.
mh-show-from ¶: Face used to highlight ‘From:’ header fields.
mh-show-header ¶: Face used to deemphasize less interesting header fields.
mh-show-pgg-bad ¶: Bad PGG signature face.
mh-show-pgg-good ¶: Good PGG signature face.
mh-show-pgg-unknown ¶: Unknown or untrusted PGG signature face.
mh-show-signature ¶: Signature face.
mh-show-subject ¶: Face used to highlight ‘Subject:’ header fields.
mh-show-to ¶: Face used to highlight ‘To:’ header fields.
mh-show-xface ¶: X-Face image face.

The functions and variables introduced here are explained in more detail in the following sections.

Footnotes

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If you want to see your old mail as well, use F r to pull all your messages into MH-E. Or, give a prefix argument to mh-rmail so it will prompt you for folder to visit like F v (for example, C-u M-x mh-rmail RET bob RET). See Organizing Your Mail with Folders.