If you have mail, mailx notifies you each time you log in with the message
You have mail
or
You have new mail
To read your letters, type mailx at a command prompt and press Return. If there's no mail waiting for you, you will see the message:
No mail for username
Otherwise, you will see a list similar to the following:
The mailx program displays information about itself (version number and date) and instructions for getting help (Type ? for help).
On the next line, mailx specifies the location of your mailbox, the number of letters received, and their status.
Next, mailx shows a numbered list of the letters in your mailbox. From left to right, the columns in each line specify:
Status: indicates whether a letter is new (N), unread (U), or read (no symbol). A ">" at the beginning of a line indicates the current letter. Deleted letters are marked with an asterisk (*).
Number: indicates order in which letter was received.
Sender: indicates name of user (and usually machine) letter came from.
Time: indicates date and time letter was sent.
Size: indicates number of lines/number of characters in letter.
Subject: indicates sender-designated subject of letter.
When you have a large number of letters in your mailbox, the displayed list may not show all of your mail. If this is the case, type:
To view the current letter in the mailbox list (marked with >), press Return. Pressing Return again will display the next letter. To read any letter in the list, type its number and press Return.