How to fix mailserv quota problems with pine

This page explains how to use pine on icarus or tigger to fix email quota problems on mailserv. Yes, you can use pine to do email on other machines. If you already know how to use pine and you're feeling adventurous, you might want to use pine rather than WebMail to clean up a mailserv problem, because pine allows you to sort Message Indexes by size; WebMail does not. But note that you cannot use pine to download either attachments or individual email messages to your personal computer, which WebMail can do.

• If you have email with attachments that you want to keep or to use on your personal computer, your best bet is to download them to your personal computer using WebMail. WebMail is quite good at downloading attachments and it's simple to use. See How to fix mailserv quota problems using WebMail.

 
• If you'd like to download copies of your IMAP mailboxes to your personal computer, including your Inbox, use the ACCC's email mailbox download and delete Web tool to download and delete entire mailboxes from the server; see Downloading or Deleting Entire Mailboxes with the ACCC Email Tools Diagnostics Page.

For more information on using pine, see Pine Email for UNIX.

Note on mail folders and mailboxes: Some email programs and tools talk about "mail folders" and others talk about "email mailboxes" -- they are exactly the same thing. We use "mail folders" in this Web page because that's what pine calls them.

1. Login to tigger or icarus and enter: pine
   
   
2. Use Main Menu->Setup->Config to enable incoming mailboxes:
   1. In the MAIN MENU, type: s (Setup).
   2. In a highlighted line at the bottom, Pine displays: Choose a setup task from the menu below :
   3. Type: c (Config)
   4. Type Ctrl-w (WhereIs), type: incoming-folders and press Enter.
   5. If the enable-incoming-folders option is not already selected -- marked with an X -- press enter to select it:
   • [X] enable-incoming-folders
   6. If you'd like your folders to be automatically expanded as they are in figure 1, then select these also:
   • [X] combined-folder-display
   • [X] expanded-view-of-folders
     
   1. Type: e (Exit Setup) and type y (Yes).
   2. Config changes don't take effect until your next pine session, so type: q (Quit) and y (Yes) to close pine.
      
      
3. Enter: pine
   
   
4. Use Main Menu->Folder List-> and have Incoming-Folders expanded to add your mailserv Inbox to your pine Incoming folder list: (See figure 1.)
   1. In the MAIN MENU, type: L (FOLDER LIST).
   2. You need to have the Incoming Folders collection expanded and be in it to add your mailserv Inbox to it. How you do this depends on what Folder options you have selected; you may have to
      • Highlight Incoming-Folders and press Enter:
        

        Incoming Message Folders ----------------------------------------- INBOX

      • Or use an arrow key if necessary to highlight INBOX in Folder-Collection <Incoming-Folders>:
        

        ----------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Incoming-Folders> ----------------------------------------- INBOX ----------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Mail> ----------------------------------------- [Select Here to See Expanded List]

   3. With your (icarus or tigger) INBOX highlighted, type: a (Add).
   4. For Name of server to contain added folder : type the server's Internet domain name, followed by /user=yournetid
      For example: mailserv.uic.edu/user=adabyron
      (The same works for icarus or tigger or any other email account you might have, provided that it supports IMAP.)
      Press Enter.
   5. For Folder on "mailserv.uic.edu/adabyron" to add : type (and it must be in upper case): INBOX and press Enter.
   6. For Nickname for folder "INBOX" :, type a suitable nickname, such as: mailserv and then press Enter.
   7. Pine will display its busy symbol for a while, and then you will be asked to enter the password for your account.
      Type your mailserv password and press Enter.
   8. Go back to the folder list, if necessary, and type m (Main Menu)
      

   Figure 1: Pine folder list with mailserv Inbox (Your Folder List may not be expanded like this one; see Step 2 above for instructions if you want to select this folder list view.)

   PINE 4.58 FOLDER LIST       Folder: INBOX 12 Messages ----------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Incoming-Folders> -----------------------------------------------------------------                                                                   INBOX mailserv ----------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Mail> ----------------------------------------------------------------- sent-mail saved-messages caughtspam deleted move y2k ? Help       < Main Menu   P PrevFldr   - PrevPage A Add    R Rename O OTHER CMDS > [View Fldr] N NextFldr Spc NextPage D Delete W WhereIs

   
   
5. Use Main Menu->Setup->CollectionList to add your other mailserv folders as a Folder-Collection:
   1. Type m (Main Menu)
   2. In the MAIN MENU, type: s (Setup).
   3. In a highlighted line at the bottom, Pine displays: Choose a setup task from the menu below :
   4. Type: L (CollectionList); it should look something like this:
      

      PINE 4.58 SETUP COLLECTION LISTs Mail     Local folders in mail/                                                                        ? Help       E Exit Setup P PrevCltn   - PrevPage A Add Cltn $ Shuffle O OTHER CMDS C [Change]   N NextCltn Spc NextPage D Del Cltn W WhereIs

   5. Type: a (Add collection).
6. In Pine's FOLDER COLLECTION ADD screen:
   

   PINE 4.58 FOLDER COLLECTION ADD Nickname : Server : Path : View :    Fill in the fields above to create a new Folder Collection.    Use "^G" command to get help specific help for each item, and    use "^X" when finished. ^G Get Help ^X eXit/Save ^Y PrvPg/Top ^K Cut Line ^C Cancel   ^D Del Char  ^V NxtPg/End ^U UnDel Line

1. In the Nickname field, type a nickname for the server that your other email account is on
2. In the Server field, type the server's Internet domain name, followed by /user=yournetid
   For example: mailserv.uic.edu/user=adabyron
   (The same works for icarus or tigger or any other email account you might have, provided that it supports IMAP.)
   Press Enter. Pine will say Fetching Default Directory.
3. If you haven't already already logged in to your mailserv account (Step 4 above), pine will most likely ask you to login to the server at this point.
   Type your account's password and press Enter.
4. In the Path: field, type the path to your mail files on the server. For mailserv (and icarus and tigger), that is: mail/
   (Be sure to include the trailing slash.)
5. Type: Ctrl-x (eXit/Save)
6. Pine will ask: Exit and save changes?
   Type: y (Yes)

   PINE 4.10 FOLDER COLLECTION ADD  Folder: INBOX 12 Messages Nickname : mailserv Server : mailserv.uic.edu/user=adabyron Path : mail/ View : Fill in the fields above to create a new Folder Collection. Use "^G" command to get help specific help for each item, and use "^X" when finished. Exit and save changes? y Y [Yes] N No

7. This returns you to the SETUP COLLECTION LIST screen; the folder collection you added will be listed.
8. Type: e (Exit Setup)
   

   PINE 4.58 SETUP COLLECTION LIST    Folder: INBOX 12 Messagess    Mail       Local folders in mail/    mailserv       Folders on mailserv.uic.edu/user=adabyron in mail/                                                                                   [New collection added. Use "$" to adjust order.] ? Help       E Exit Setup P PrevCltn   - PrevPage A Add Cltn $ Shuffle O OTHER CMDS C [Change]   N NextCltn Spc NextPage D Del Cltn W WhereIs

   
   
7. Thereafter, your mailserv Inbox will be listed as a pine Incoming-folder and the folders in your mailserv account will be a pine Folder-Collection. When you start pine, it will ask you to enter the password for your mailserv account.

1. Open pine and open your mailserv Inbox: (See figure 1 .)
   
   1. Enter the command: pine
   2. Pine will ask you to enter the password for your mailserv account. (The request for your mailserv password will to come from hickory.cc.uic.edu, not mailserv.uic.edu.) Type it and press Enter.
   3. Press Enter to open your Folder List.
   4. Open your Incoming Folders list if necessary, highlight your mailserv INBOX, which will be listed as whatever nickname you gave it, and press Enter again.

   PINE 4.58 FOLDER LIST                  Folder: INBOX 12 Messages ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Incoming-Folders> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INBOX  mailserv ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Mail> sent-mail saved-messages caughtspam deleted move y2k                                                                        ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <mailserv> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sent-mail Trash caughtspam deleted move ? Help       < Main Menu   P PrevFldr   - PrevPage A Add    R Rename O OTHER CMDS > [View Fldr] N NextFldr Spc NextPage D Delete W WhereIs

   
   
2. Delete messages from your mailserv INBOX.
1. Sort the messages by size if you wish: type $ (the dollar sign; for SortIndex), type z (Size), type $ again, then type r (Reverse).
2. Go to the top of the Message Index: type j (Jump), type 1 (the first message), then press Enter.
3. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight a message that you want to save or delete. If you wish, you can press Enter to open the message.
4. To mark a message for deletion, type d (Delete); it will be marked for deletion in the Message Index with a "D" in the first column.
5. When you're finished deleting messages, press the Right arrow key to go back to the Inbox Message Index if necessary.
6. Then actually delete the messages you've marked for deletion: type x (Expunge), then type y (yes).
   
   
3. Type L to go back to the Folder List.
   
   
4. Tab to select the first folder in the collection the Folder-Collection for your mailserv account, and repeat the above steps to delete messages from that folder.
   

   PINE 4.58 FOLDER LIST                  Folder: INBOX 12 Messages ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Incoming-Folders> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INBOX  mailserv ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <Mail> sent-mail saved-messages caughtspam deleted move y2k                                                                        ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Folder-Collection <mailserv> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sent-mail Trash caughtspam deleted move ? Help       < Main Menu   P PrevFldr   - PrevPage A Add    R Rename O OTHER CMDS > [View Fldr] N NextFldr Spc NextPage D Delete W WhereIs

   
   
5. And repeat step 2 for the rest of the folders in your mailserv Folder-Collection.
   
   
6. Be sure to check your quota again after you expunge the deleted messages to make sure you're really back under your mailserv quota.