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sortmail(1)		    General Commands Manual		   sortmail(1)

NAME
       sortmail	- sort email messages by date/time

SYNOPSIS
       sortmail	[ -chHmMyYrRvx ] mbox...

DESCRIPTION
       sortmail	 is  a	front  end  for	decomposemail(1) and recomposemail(1).
       Each mailbox argument is	disassembled into its component	messages, then
       these messages are reassembled into new mailboxes based on command line
       selection criteria.  Some additional functionality is provided, such as
       backup copies, recursion, etc.

OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       -c	 Move current month mailbox back to original mailbox,  implies
		 -r (for use with -m, -M, -y, or -Y).

       -h	 Help, just print an informational message, and	exit.

       -H	 Here,	do  work  in  the  current  directory  instead	of  in
		 ./SM_WORK.

       -m	 Sort to monthly mailboxes of type mbox.YYMM.

       -M	 Sort to monthly mailboxes of type YYMM/mbox.

       -y	 Sort to yearly	mailboxes of type mbox.YYYY.

       -Y	 Sort to yearly	mailboxes of type YYYY/mbox.  With -m, sort to
		 mailboxes of type YYYY/mbox.MM.  With -M, sort	 to  mailboxes
		 of type YYYY/MM/mbox.

       -r	 Remove	(replace) the original mailbox after sorting.

       -R	 Recurse,  redo	 any  appended mailboxes (for use with -m, -M,
		 -y, or	-Y).

       -v	 Verbose, even more messages.

       -x	 Don't make any	backup copies in ./SM_BACKUP.

OPERANDS
       The following operands are supported:

       mbox	 The name (with	optional path) of a  standard  Internet	 style
		 mailbox file.

USAGE
       sortmail	 can  help  to organize	saved email for	archival and retrieval
       purposes.  Messages are sorted by date/time, then reassembled into  new
       mailboxes.   A  notable feature is the ability to separate the messages
       into monthly or yearly mailboxes.

       The default behavior is to take each mbox (mailbox)  argument,  make  a
       backup  copy, make a working copy, decompose it into individual message
       files, and then recompose the messages ordered by  date	in  increasing
       order.

       With  the -m flag, the messages are reassembled into separate files per
       month, mbox.YYMM; for example, "mlist.9801".  With  the	-M  flag,  the
       messages	 are  reassembled into separate	files per month	in subdirecto-
       ries, YYMM/mbox;	for example, "9801/mlist".  With the -y	flag, the mes-
       sages are reassembled into separate files per year, mbox.YYYY; for  ex-
       ample,  "mlist.1998".   With  the -Y flag, the messages are reassembled
       into separate files per year in subdirectories, YYYY/mbox; for example,
       "1998/mlist".  If -Y is combined	with -m, the messages are  reassembled
       into  separate  files per month in yearly subdirectories, YYYY/mbox.MM;
       for example, "1998/mlist.01".  If -Y is combined	with -M, the  messages
       are  reassembled	 into  separate	 files per month in yearly and monthly
       subdirectories, YYYY/MM/mbox; for example, "1998/01/mlist".  In any  of
       these  cases, any such pre-existing mailboxes will be appended.	If any
       such pre-existing mailboxes are compressed (.Z or .gz), they will first
       be uncompressed,	and then recompressed after being modified.

       With the	-c flag	(along with -m,	-M, -y,	or -Y),	the mbox file for  the
       current month (if any) will be renamed as the original mbox.

       With  the  -R flag (along with -m, -M, -y, or -Y), when a month file is
       combined	with one that already exists, the resulting file will  be  re-
       sorted.

       With  the -H flag, all work is done in the current directory instead of
       in ./SM_WORK.  This reduces the usefulness of some  of  the  other  op-
       tions, and is a bit riskier.  (Also known as "the gonzo option".)

       By default, all work is done in a subdirectory ./SM_WORK, and all files
       to be modified are backed up in a subdirectory ./SM_BACKUP.  These sub-
       directories  are	 created  if  they don't already exist.	 These are not
       cleaned up after	sorting, though	none of	the temporary message files or
       sort files should remain.

       Much of this can	be accomplished	using decomposemail(1) and  recompose-
       mail(1) directly, but many more manual steps are	required.

EXAMPLES
       Sort  the messages in the mailbox "mail/CERT", not making a backup copy
       in ./SM_BACKUP, and rename the new sorted mailbox to the	original mail-
       box.  Without -r, the new mailbox would remain in "./SM_WORK":

	    sortmail -xr mail/CERT

       Sort the	messages in the	 mailbox  "FreeBSD",  separating  messages  by
       month  into  mailboxes  like  "FreeBSD.9801", "FreeBSD.9802", etc.  The
       original	mailbox	will be	overwitten with	any messages for  the  current
       month:

	    sortmail -mc FreeBSD

       Sort  the  messages  in the mailboxes "maya" and	"jim", separating mes-
       sages by	month  into  mailboxes	in  subdirectories  like  "9801/maya",
       "9801/jim",  "9802/maya", "9802/jim", etc.  Any such pre-existing mail-
       boxes that are appended will also be resorted:

	    sortmail -MR maya jim

       Sort the	messages in the	mailbox	"yada",	separating messages  by	 month
       into  mailboxes	in subdirectories like "1998/01/yada", "1998/02/yada",
       etc.  Any such pre-existing mailboxes that are appended	will  also  be
       resorted, and the original mailbox will be overwitten with any messages
       for the current month:

	    sortmail -YMcR yada

FILES
       ./SM_BACKUP   Directory	where  sortmail	 makes	a  backup copy of each
		     mailbox before sorting it.

       ./SM_WORK     Directory where sortmail does its work: makes a temporary
		     copy of each mbox,	and a serialized file  for  each  mes-
		     sage.

       mbox.YYYYMMDD.hhmmss.nnnnn
		     Temporary serialized files	for each individual message in
		     a	mailbox,  where	 "mbox"	 is  the  name of the mailbox,
		     "YYYYMMDD"	is the year, month, and	day, "hhmmss"  is  the
		     hour,  minute, and	second,	and "nnnnn" is a serialization
		     number.  These will be created in	the  ./SM_WORK	direc-
		     tory, unless the -H flag is specified.

DIAGNOSTICS
       Returns 0 if no problems	encountered.
       Returns non-zero	for any	errors encountered.

BUGS
       sortmail	is a shell script that uses the	filesystem for sorting.	 It is
       slow.

       Due  to	copies made during the sorting process,	you should have	enough
       additional space	in your	current	partition and/or quota to  hold	 three
       full copies of each original mbox.

       sortmail	 is quite verbose, even	without	the -v option.	A quiet	option
       should be added.

       Data at the beginning of	a mailbox that does not	appear to be  part  of
       an email	message	will be	silently discarded.

       sortmail	 creates  working  directories and backup copies of mailboxes,
       and does	not clean up after itself (except as noted above).

       sortmail	relies on the scripts decomposemail(1)	and  recomposemail(1).
       This is either a	bug or a feature.

SEE ALSO
       compress(1), decomposemail(1), gzip(1), recomposemail(1), sh(1);
       mailsort	(Perl script, available	from CPAN sites);
       "Toolman:  Sorting and Archiving	Email",	;login:	magazine (USENIX Asso-
       ciation), August	1998;
       <http://www.cs.duke.edu/~des/sortmail.html>.

AUTHOR
       sortmail	 was  written  by Daniel E. Singer (a.k.a. Toolman) at the De-
       partment	of Computer Science, Duke University.

Toolman			       12 September 1998		   sortmail(1)

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