“I have new mail…?”

If you’re an OS X user and one day get this when opening Terminal…

Welcome to Darwin!
You have new mail.

…you might be a little puzzled. It’s nothing to do with the email accounts you’re using via Mail etc.; the messages are in your local account mailbox, and were probably generated by a software glitch, perhaps one you created if you’re a developer.

To view and remove the messages, use mail to launch a command-line mail program (last updated in 1993; who says software is never finished?), then type in a message’s number to view it. To delete the message, use d followed by the message number, then use q to leave.

If you’re thrilled by the retro-computing experience, you can also send messages the way we used to in Ye Olden Days; use mail someone@somewhere , write the subject line, hit Return, type a message, then use Ctrl D on a new line to send. However, a modern plague may result in the message getting lost — many spam filters will drop messages for having odd return addresses or for being sent directly from a machine on a residential connection.

Thu 7th Jun 2007, 7:44pm GMT

Filed under: Email, Hints and Tips, Software

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