ARCHIVED: In Pine, how do I perform an action (like saving or printing) on a large number of messages at once?

To define a group of messages and perform an action on all of them in Pine, use the Select and Apply commands.

Note: You may have to configure Pine first. See ARCHIVED: In Pine, how do I enable aggregate commands?

Selecting messages

To select a group of messages, from Pine's Folder Index screen, press ; (the semicolon). Pine will present a SELECT criteria: prompt and nine different options:

• A select All: Press a to select all of the messages.
• C [select Cur]: Press c to select only the currently highlighted message.
• N Number: Press n and then enter the numbers of the messages you want selected. You can enter a comma-delimited list (e.g., 1,5,19,25), a range of numbers (e.g., 1-25), or a combination of the two. For example, if you entered 1,5,10-19,25, that would select messages 1, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 25.
• D Date: Press d to select messages by the date they arrived. Enter the date of the message in the format Day-Month-Year (e.g., 17-Sep-2004). To toggle between selecting messages arriving on, before, or after that date, press Ctrl-w. To advance the date by one day, press Ctrl-n. To move the date back by one day, press Ctrl-p. To select the date of the currently highlighted message, press Ctrl-x.
• K Keyword: If you have keywords set in Pine, press k and then enter the keyword you would like to match. If you press the exclamation point (!) it will select any message that doesn't match the keyword you enter. You may also press Ctrl-t to select from your list of keywords.
• R Rule: If you have rules set in Pine, press r and then enter the rule you would like to match. If you press the exclamation point (!) it will select any message that doesn't match the rule you enter. You may also press Ctrl-t to select from your list of rules.
• T Text: Press t to select messages based on text that appears in the message and/or its headers. When you make this selection, Pine will further prompt you to choose between matching text that appears in the "From:" header (press f), the "To:" header (press t), the "Cc:" header (press c), or the "Subject:" header (press s). You may also choose a to search the entire message (the text of the message as well as all headers). Choose p for Participants, which matches text in the "From:", "To:", and "Cc:" headers.
• S Status: Press s and choose whether you want to select messages that are New (press n), Answered (press a), marked for deletion (press d), or marked as important (press *, the asterisk). If you press ! (the exclamation point) before you make one of the previous selections, you can select messages that are not New, Answered, marked for deletion, or marked as important.
• Z siZe: Pressz and select messages by their size. Press Ctrl-w to toggle between selecting for messages larger and smaller than the number you enter. If you add a K (uppercase K) to the end of the number you enter, it will select for kilobytes instead of bytes. Add an M (uppercase M) and it will select for megabytes.

In all cases, if you press Ctrl-c, you will exit the Select menu. When you make your selection, all messages that meet the criteria will be marked with an "X". If you press z, Pine will show only those messages that you have selected. If you press z again, Pine will return to showing all of the messages in the folder.

Changing the selection

If you press ; (the semicolon) again after making a selection, Pine will give you the following options to alter your selection:

• A unselect All: Press a to deselect all of the messages you have selected.
• C [unselect Cur]: Press c to deselect the message currently highlighted.
• F Flip selected: Press f to deselect selected messages and select deselected messages.
• B Broaden selctn: Press b and you will be able to increase your selection by searching for matches in currently unselected messages.
• N Narrow selctn: Press n to shrink the list of selected messages by searching them for additional criteria.

Applying commands to the selection

Once you have your list of selected messages, press a to apply a command to all of them. In most cases, the commands work on the selection the same way they do on individual messages. You can apply these commands:

• B Bounce: Press b to redirect the selected messages to an email address.
• D Del: Press d to mark all the selected messages for deletion.
• U Undel: Press u to unmark messages tagged for deletion.
• R Reply: Press r to Reply to the senders of all the selected messages.
• F Forward: Press f to Forward the messages in the selection to an email address, either as an attachment (MIME Digest) or in the text of a message.
• Y PrYnt or % Print: Depending on your version of Pine, press either y or % to send all of the selected messages to a printer.
• T TakeAddr: Press t to put email addresses appearing in the selected messages into a Pine Address Book distribution list.
• S Save: Press s to Save all the selected messages into a single mail folder.
• E Export: Press e to save all the messages into a file on your account.
• * Flag: Press * (the asterisk) to mark all of the messages as new, deleted, answered, or important. After you have pressed * (the asterisk), you can press ! (the exclamation point) to flag messages as not new, deleted, answered, or important.
• | Pipe: Press | (the pipe key, which is directly below the Backspace key) to pipe the contents of the selected messages into a Unix command.

Press Ctrl-c to cancel any Apply command.

An example

User dvader wants to save to the folder darkside all mail messages in his Inbox that mention the word "sith", and messages that are from palpatine@empire.gov delivered on or after November 30, 2004. To do this, he would take these steps:

1. From Pine's Folder Index screen, dvader presses ; (the semicolon) to bring up the SELECT criteria: prompt.
2. He presses t for Text and then f for From. Then he enters the address palpatine@empire.gov. All messages from the user palpatine@empire.gov will be marked as selected.
3. As he doesn't want to see messages delivered before November 30, 2004, dvader presses ;(the semicolon) to refine his search. He presses n to narrow his search and then d to search by Date. He enters 30-Nov-2004 (the search date in the proper format). Then he presses Ctrl-w until the select prompt indicates it will select messages arriving since that date. When he presses Enter, only messages from palpatine@empire.gov arriving no earlier than November 30, 2004 will be selected.
4. To include messages with the word "sith" in them, he again presses ; (the semicolon), but this time presses b to broaden his selection. He presses t to indicate that he is searching the Text of the messages, and a to search all of the text and headers of the messages. He then enters sith. Now he has the selection he wants.
5. To save the messages to the folder darkside, he presses a to Apply a command to the selection and then s to Save the messages. He enters darkside as the name of the folder. The messages will be saved to that folder and will be marked as deleted in dvader's Inbox.