How can I send, receive and read mail when I get this message “You have new mail” in Linux/UNIX?

Question

I want to generate a file whenever I receive an email on my UNIX machine.

On windows I am able to do so by writing a VBA script in Outlook.

I want the same thing in UNIX. On doing some research I found out that also in UNIX there is a mailbox.

Can anyone please help me how to use it?

Answer 1

I am not sure why you would want to create a file when a new message arrives. If you are using Maildir format for your mailbox each new message will saved in a file.

Depending on your email software you can used a tool like procmail to handle incoming mail. If you are reading from a remote mail server, you can combine this with a tool like fetchmail to read the mail and copy it to your system. As you talk about using Outlook, this may be an appropriate method.

If you are looking for an equivalent to Outlook, many users use Thunderbird. There are also WebMail servers like roundcube and squirrelmail that can be used.