Re: How do I set up rmail

[Bijan Soleymani]

Mikey <afs016@safslg4a.bangor.ac.uk> writes:

> I am trying to use emacs as a mail client.
> 
> How do I point it to my mail server?
> 
> Do I need to have a .mail file setup?
> 
> What should I put in the file?
> 
> M

This is described somewhat cryptically in the emacs manual (which kind
of assumes you are getting your mail from a unix mailspool).

What it seems to say is that there is a list called
rmail-primary-inbox-list which should contain the list of mailboxes
you want to use. This should be set in your .emacs file (this is the
file that keeps any changes changes to emacs that shouldn't be reset
when you quit emacs.)

Assuming your copy of emacs supports pop (very likely) you can simply
use po:USERNAME:SERVER as a mailbox in the list rmail-primary-inbox-list.

You can either specify your password in your .emacs file (not a good
idea from a security point of view). Or you can set
rmail-pop-password-required to a value that is not nil (usually it is
a good idea to use t for true), and you will be asked for it when you
run rmail.

If you are new to emacs and emacs lisp (the language that most of
emacs is written in, and which is used for customizations) then all
you have to add to your .emacs file (which you can open by doing C-x
C-f ~/.emacs):

(setq rmail-primary-inbox-list '("po:USERNAME:SERVER")) (setq
rmail-pop-password-required t)

If you have any problems with this feel free to ask.

P.S. Don't forget to replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with your username
and password :)

Hope that helps,
Bijan