# Mail (Unix)

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{{Short description|Command-line email client for Unix}}
{{Lowercase title}}
{{Infobox software
| name                   = mail
| logo                   = 
| screenshot             = 
| screenshot size        = 
| caption                = 
| author                 = 
| developer              = [AT&T Bell Laboratories](/source/AT%26T_Bell_Laboratories)
| released               = {{Start date and age|1971|11|3}}
| latest release version = 
| latest release date    = 
| operating system       = [Unix](/source/Unix), [Unix-like](/source/Unix-like), [V](/source/V_(operating_system))
| genre                  = [Command](/source/Command_(computing))
| license                = 
| website                = 
}}
'''mail''' is a [command-line](/source/command-line_interface) [email client](/source/email_client) for [Unix](/source/Unix) and [Unix-like](/source/Unix-like) [operating system](/source/operating_system)s.

==History==
"Electronic mail was there from the start", [Douglas McIlroy](/source/Douglas_McIlroy) writes in his article "A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts from the Programmer’s Manual, 1971-1986",<ref name="reader">{{cite tech report |first1=M. D. |last1=McIlroy |authorlink1=Doug McIlroy |year=1987 |url=http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf |title=A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 |series=CSTR |number=139 |institution=Bell Labs}}</ref> and so a {{mono|mail}} command was included in the first released version of research Unix, [First Edition Unix](/source/Version_1_Unix).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/man12.pdf|title=UNIX Programmer's Manual|author1=K. Thompson|author2=D. M. Ritchie|date=November 3, 1971|at=MAIL (I)}}</ref>
This version of mail was capable of sending (append) messages to the mailboxes of other users on Unix systems, and it helped manage (read) the mailbox of the current user.

In 1978 Kurt Shoens wrote a completely new version of mail for [BSD](/source/BSD) 2, referred to as Berkeley Mail. Although initially installed at {{mono|/usr/ucb/Mail}}, (with the earlier Unix mail still available at {{mono|/bin/mail}}), on most modern Unix and [Linux](/source/Linux) systems the commands {{mono|Mail}}, {{mono|mail}} and/or {{mono|mailx}} all invoke a descendant of this Berkeley Mail, which much later was the base for the standardization of a mail program by the [OpenGroup](/source/OpenGroup), the [POSIX](/source/POSIX) standardized variant [mailx](/source/mailx).<ref>[http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/mailx.html POSIX standard entry]</ref><ref>[https://heirloom.sourceforge.net/mailx_history.html "mail, Mail, mailx, nail—history notes"], Heirloom Project</ref>

==See also==
*[Cleancode email](/source/Cleancode_email)
*[mailx](/source/mailx)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://mailutils.org/manual/html_section/mail.html {{mono|mail}} at GNU Mailutils manual]
*[https://sdaoden.users.sourceforge.net/code-nail.html S-nail {{mono|mailx(1)}}manual]
{{Unix commands}}

Category:Unix Internet software

{{Unix-stub}}

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Mail (Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(Unix)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(Unix)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.