ARCHIVED: What are MH and NMH, and where can I get more information about them?

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Note: Mail service is not available on any of the UITS central Unix systems at Indiana University.

Mail Handler (MH) and New Mail Handler (NMH) are highly extensible and customizable Unix mail packages. Most mailers do not allow you to perform mail operations outside of the mail environment. The advantage of MH and NMH is that each command is a separate program, called independently from the command line. For example, to list the contents of the current mail folder, enter:

  scan

After the command executes, the Unix shell prompt is immediately available. Thus, pipes, redirection, history, and aliases work with MH and NMH commands, as they do with any other Unix command. For example, if there are many messages in the current mail folder, it is possible to pipe the output of scan into a pager such as less:

  scan | less

Other basic MH and NMH commands include:

Command	Description
`inc`	Incorporate new mail into your inbox (some versions of MH do `inc` automatically)
`comp`	Compose a message
`show` [message number]	Read a message or range of messages
`repl` [message number]	Reply to a message
`forw` [message number]	Forward a message
`folder +` [folder name]	Select a folder to work with
`rmm` [message number]	Delete a message or range of messages

Each MH or NMH folder is a Unix directory, and each message is a separate file within that directory. This provides a familiar interface with the Unix file system. Almost all features of MH and NMH are thoroughly customizable, including extensive mail filtering, presentation of headers, and command output. To specify your preferred settings, such as the format in which messages are displayed, your preferred editor, and many other options, create a file in your home directory named .mh_profile.

NMH is based on the MH code, and is very similar to MH, with improved documentation, performance, and portability. Those who are familiar with MH should have little difficulty switching to NMH. MH is no longer supported or updated.

For more, see the NMH web page. For a forum to discuss both MH and NMH, see the newsgroup comp.mail.mh.

To view the MH online manual page, at the Unix prompt, enter:

  man mh

For NMH, enter:

  man nmh

Each MH and NMH command also has its own man page.

At Indiana University, for personal or departmental Linux or Unix systems support, see Get help for Linux or Unix at IU.