Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide

Acting on Your Mail Messages

After reading your email, you may want to reply to, search for, delete, and (possibly) undelete some messages.

To Reply to a Message

  1. Select the message to which you want to reply.

  2. Decide on the type of reply:

    • To reply to the sender, choose Reply from the Compose menu.

      A Compose window is displayed with the email address of the recipient and the message subject filled in.

    • To reply to the sender and all recipients, choose Reply to All from the Compose menu.

      A Compose window is displayed with the email addresses of the recipients and the subject of the message filled in.

    • To reply to the sender or all recipients and include a copy of the message, choose Reply, Include Message or Reply to All, Include Message from the Compose menu.

      A Compose window is displayed that includes the text of the message with the email addresses of the recipients and the subject filled in. Attachments are not included in the reply.

  3. Type your reply and click Send.

    For more information, see "To Address, Compose, and Send a Mail Message".

To Forward a Message

  1. Select the message you want to forward.

  2. Choose Forward from the Compose menu, or click the Forward button on the Toolbar.

    The text of the message to be forwarded is displayed within a new message, as well as its attachments, if any.

    If you do not want to forward the attachments, choose Forward, no Attachments.

  3. Type the addresses of the message recipients in the To or Cc fields, or use the To or Cc button menus to access any aliases that you have set up.

  4. Add any additional text and click Send.

    See "To Address, Compose, and Send a Mail Message" for more information.

To Edit an Incoming Message

  1. Select the message you want to change.

  2. Choose Forward from the Compose menu.

  3. Address the message to yourself.

  4. Edit the message in the Compose window and send it.


    Note -

    You may want to create a separate mailbox for these edited messages as they can add to the size of your Inbox.


To Save an Incoming or an Outgoing Message as Text

  1. Select a received message, then choose Save As Text from the Message menu or, for an outgoing message in a Compose window, choose Text from the Save As submenu of the File menu.

  2. Type a file name and location in the File Selection dialog box that appears, then click Save.

    If a file of the name specified already exists, you are asked whether you want to overwrite the file or cancel the operation.

To Append a Message to A Text File

  1. Select a received message, then choose Save As Text from the Message menu or, for an outgoing message in a Compose window, choose Text from the Save As submenu of the File menu.

    Mailer displays a file selection dialog box.

  2. Type the file name and location of an existing file, and click Append.

    Mailer appends the text of the mail message to the file.

To Delete a Mail Message

To remove a message from the Message Header List:

  1. Select the message for deletion.

    You can drag to select multiple messages. Shift+Click selects several messages in a row by moving the highlight up or down the Message Header List. Control+Click selects discontiguous messages from the list, one at a time.

  2. Choose Delete from the Message menu, or click the Delete button in the Toolbar.

    The messages are deleted from the list.


    Note -

    Even if a message has been deleted, you can get it back unless you made your deletions permanent by choosing Destroy Deleted Messages from the Mailbox menu. See the following section.


To Undelete a Mail Message

Do one of the following to undelete a mail message:


Note -

To make the deletions in the list permanent, choose Destroy Deleted Messages from the Mailbox menu.


To Destroy Deleted Messages When Closing the Mailbox

You can set your options so that when you close your mailbox, the messages you deleted will be permanently destroyed. Doing so means that once you close your mailbox, you cannot restore the messages that you deleted.

  1. Choose Basic from the Options menu.

    The Basic Options dialog box is displayed.

  2. Select "When I close the mailbox" under Destroy Deleted Messages.

    To remove the confirmation notice that appears each time you close the mailbox and asks if you want to destroy deleted messages, deselect "Show confirmation notice."

  3. Click OK or Apply to make your changes take effect.

Searching for Mail Messages Within a Mailbox

You can search for mail messages within a mailbox according to the search criteria that you define. Basic search criteria fields in the Basic window of the Search dialog box include: the addressees (To), the sender (From), the subject (Subject), the carbon copy recipients (Cc), and the message text, including the headers (Entire Message).

By creating a search script in the Advanced window of the Search dialog box with keywords and arguments, you can define more sophisticated search criteria for finding messages.

The tables that follow show the keywords you can use in search scripts, grouped under the following categories:


Note -

Those keywords you can type manually but are not available through the menus in the Advanced window of the Search dialog box are marked with an asterisk (*).


Table 8-1 Headers Search Keywords

Keyword 

Explanation 

TO

 

FROM

 

SUBJECT

 

CC

 

TEXT

A keyword that pertains to the entire message, including headers and attachments 

BCC

 

HEADER*

A keyword to use according to the syntax: header HeaderName HeaderValue, such as header x-sun-charset us-ascii

BODY*

A keyword that applies to the message text and the text attachments, but not the headers 

Table 8-2 lists and describes the Dates keywords.


Note -

The date format is dd-mmm-yyyy (for example, 02-Apr-1996).


Table 8-2 Dates Search Keywords

Keyword 

Explanation 

BEFORE

 

SINCE

 

ON

 

DURING

 

SENTSINCE*

 

SENTBEFORE*

 

SENTON*

 

TODAY

An argument for the keywords that are associated with dates, such as before

YESTERDAY

Same as above 

LASTWEEK

Same as above 

THISMONTH

Same as above 

LASTMONTH

Same as above 

JANUARY..DECEMBER

 

SUNDAY..SATURDAY

 

Table 8-3 lists and describes the States keywords.

Table 8-3 States Search Keywords

Keyword 

Explanation 

READ

 

UNREAD

 

NEW*

 

OLD*

 

DELETED*

A keyword for messages that you have deleted, but not permanently 

UNDELETED*

 

RECENT*

 

FLAGGED*

 

ANSWERED*

 

UNANSWERED*

 

KEYWORD*

 

UNKEYWORD*

 

DRAFT*

 

UNDRAFT*

 

ALL*

A keyword that denotes all the messages in the mailbox 

LARGER*

A keyword that requires two arguments, such as smaller 300, the numeric denoting bytes

SMALLER*

Same as above 

Table 8-4 lists and describes the search operators.

Table 8-4 Search Operators

Operator 

Explanation 

AND

 

OR

 

~ (not)

A symbol that represents the logical

not
operator. Place it in front of the search keyword, for example: ~ text "good morning"

(

A symbol that denotes the beginning of an expression 

)

A symbol that denotes the end of an expression 

Search scripts are not case sensitive.

Here are some examples:

To search for messages that were sent from john in April with either "urgent" or "important" in the subject line:

from john and (subject urgent or subject important) and during april

To search for messages that were sent from bill with no carbon copy to tigerteam and not yet read:

from bill and ~(cc tigerteam) and unread

To search for messages that were addressed to bill or sent with a carbon copy to bill, with "monthly report" in the message, including the headers and attachments:

(to bill or cc bill) and text "monthly report"

To Find a Mail Message Within a Mailbox

  1. Choose Search from the Message menu.

    The Search dialog box is displayed.

    Figure 8-3 Mailer Search dialog box

    Graphic

  2. Type the text you want to search for in the appropriate field.

    You can search for a match on one or more of the To, From, Subject, or Cc fields. If you type the criteria in multiple fields, Mailer searches for messages that match all of the criteria.

    Within each field, Mailer considers the input as one criterion even if there are multiple strings separated by spaces or commas. For example, if you type wood smith in the To field, Mailer looks for a message that is addressed to wood smith, not wood or smith.

    The fields are not case-sensitive.

  3. Click Search Down or Search Up to find the next or previous matching message in your mailbox. To find all the matches, click Select All.


    Note -

    To remove all the text in the fields in the Search dialog box, click Clear.


To Create Advanced Search Scripts

  1. Choose Advanced from the Search Type menu.

    The Advanced Search dialog box is displayed.

    Graphic
  2. Type your script in the text area.

    Choose keywords from the menus to help you create the script.

    The keywords are not case sensitive.

Using Views

Occasionally, you may want to display only the messages in your mailbox that match one or more search criteria, such as messages to or from a certain individual. You can do so by defining the criteria and saving them as a view.

To Create a View

  1. Choose Search from the Message menu.

    The Mailer Search dialog box is displayed.

  2. Specify your search criteria.

  3. Click Save As View.

    The Mailer Save As View dialog box is displayed.

  4. Type a name in the Enter View Name field.

    You cannot use All or New as a view name; they are listed under Default Views. You may want to use a name that reflects the search criteria.

  5. Click OK.

    Mailer creates a new view and places it in the Custom Views list in the Views dialog box. To see the list, click Show Views in the Search dialog box or choose Show Views from the Mailbox menu.

To Display, Delete, or Update Views

  1. Choose Show Views from the Mailbox menu.

    If the Search dialog box is open, you can also click Show Views in that dialog box.

    The Views dialog box is displayed.

    Graphic

    Listed are:

    • Default Views: Message statistics for the entire mailbox (All) and messages that you have not yet read (New)

    • Custom Views: Message statistics for the views that you have created. Mailer displays the name of the view being loaded in the title bar of the main window.

  2. To display a view, double-click the view in the list, or select it and click Load.

    The messages that match the search criteria for that view are displayed in the mailbox.

  3. (Optional) To update views, click Update.

    Mailer revises the message statistics for all of the views for the mailbox.

  4. (Optional) To delete a view, select it and click Delete.

  5. Click Close to close the dialog box.

To Edit a View

  1. Select a view in the Custom Views list.

  2. Click Edit.

    The Search dialog box is displayed with the fields filled in with the search criteria for that view.

  3. Edit the fields.

    If Mailer cannot display the search criteria in the Basic window, then it loads the search script in a text area in the Advanced window for you to edit.

  4. Click Save as View.

    Mailer displays the view name in the Enter View Name field.

  5. Click OK to save the view with the same name.

    Alternately, type a new name for the view and click OK to save it.

To Rearrange the Order of the List Under Custom Views

    Select a view under Custom Views. Click the up or down arrow button to move the view up or down the list.