FAQ - Email: Using Pine

• Attachments
• Newsgroups
• Miscellaneous

Question 1.1 Saving/Viewing Attachments
How do I save and view attachments in Pine?

Here's how to do it with pine, but it's really too much trouble; Use WebMail.

Saving the attachment:

• Log into your UNIX (Icarus or Tigger) account
• Start Pine
• Retrieve the message with the attachment
• Press v to view the attachments
• Highlight the desired attachment/s and press s to save into your home directory
• If the attachment is marked as "Text/PLAIN", then it is viewable from within Pine. Simply press v to view.
• You will be prompted for a file name. It is recommended that you keep the default. No spaces or special characters can be used for the name of the attached file.

• Transferring requires a program called FTP for Windows or Fetch for Macintosh. More information regarding these programs can be found at
• FTP: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/software/ftp/ftp.win.html
• FETCH: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/software/ftp/fetch.html
• Be sure to erase the attachments from your account after transferring to avoid disk space problems.

• At this point, the file should be on your local computer
• Locate the file and double-click on it. If your system recognizes the file extension, then it will open the file with the appropriate program. For example, doc1.wpd would be opened using WordPerfect.
• If your system does not open the file automatically, you will have to find the appropriate program yourself.

Question 1.2 Attaching a File
How do I attach a file to an email in Pine?

• To attach a file to an outgoing email in Pine, you must first upload it to your account. To do this:
  • Use an FTP program, WSFTP for Windows, or Fetch; login to your account using your icarus/tigger netid and password. Copy the file from your floppy disk or hard drive to your account.
  • In Pine, while you are composing a message, move the cursor to the Attachment line in the header of the message. Press Control-J to attach a file, then press Control-T to go to the files in your account. Move the cursor so that the file you want to attach is highlighted. Press Enter. Pine will prompt you to type in a comment. You can type in a comment or simply press Enter.
• Compose and send your message in the usual way. The attachment will be sent with the message.

Question 1.3 The attachments I receive from someone using a Macintosh do not work on my Windows PC.

• Make sure that the Macintosh user saves the file in a Windows-compatible format and adds a suffix, such as .doc for Microsoft Word files.

Question 2.1 How do I find a news server?

• The ACCC is no longer running a news server. If you want to use pine as a news reader, you will have to select a news server.
• See Google's Directory, Public News Servers. It lists lists of news servers.
• Or forget about pine and use Google Groups.

Question 2.2 Newsgroups
How do I subscribe or unsubscribe to a newsgroup in Pine?

• To subscribe to a newsgroup through Pine, at Pine's main menu, type L to go to the folder list. In the folder list, move the cursor to highlight the News-Collection Select Here to See Expanded List. Then type a to subscribe to a newsgroup. If you do not know the name of the newsgroup or would like to browse them, press Control-T to go to a listing of the newsgroups. Highlight the newsgroup you would like to join and press Enter. This will subscribe you to the newsgroup.
• To unsubscribe, in Pine, go to the folder list and highlight the newsgroup you would like to unsubscribe from. Type d to unsubscribe.

Question 2.3 How do I post to a newsgroup?

• While viewing the newsgroup, type c to post a message to the group. Compose and send the message as usual.
• To reply to a posted message, type r, just as you would when using email.

Question 3.1 I want to move my account to mailserv; can I still use pine? Or: I have another email account; can I use pine to read my email from it?

• Yes, you can set pine up to read email from other email accounts.
• The Email Quota Web Page How to fix mailserv quota problems with pine explains how to set pine up to read mailserv email; you can use the same steps for other email accounts. (Or use the Move to Mailserv utility and click Skip or Continue to skip the other steps until you get to the last step and have the utility make the conversion for you.)
• The only catch is that pine, which comes from the University of Washington, the home of IMAP, has always only done IMAP well. So it's best that you connect to your other account with IMAP. I've heard that pine now does POP acceptably also, but I will believe that when I see it. (If you try using POP and it works well, send me email at document@uic.edu and I'll know not to be so skeptical any more.)

Question 3.2 I received an email saying I've got too much email on my account. What does this mean and how do I fix it?

• This question is answered in the General Email FAQ, see I received a message warning me about email quotas; what do I do?

Question 3.3 How do I check my mail from an off-campus computer?

• To check your mail using pine from an off campus computer that is connected to the Internet, you need a program called telnet or ssh.
  • Open the ssh application, and for Host Name, use:
    icarus.cc.uic.edu
    tigger.cc.uic.edu
    depending on where your account is.
• Or just use WebMail.

Question 3.4 What is a signature file and how do I make/use one?

• A signature file is a file that will appear at the end of every mail message you compose. To create a signature file, go to the main menu of Pine and choose Setup. Then press s to get to the signature file setup. The signature file setup is an editor screen; type what you want, and then exit and save by pressing Control-x. Now every time you compose a new message, that file you created will automatically appear in the body of the message

Question 3.5 I get "lock process, read only session" when I open Pine.

• This means you have another Pine session running somewhere else on another terminal. When you have more than one active Pine session, you have access to view but not delete email.
• To remove the lock you could either close the other Pine session or, if that doesn't work, type this command before entering Pine: kill -9 -1. This will exit all your sessions, including your current one. Just log in again and type pine at the prompt; you should no longer have the read-only problem.

Question 3.6 What are the messages with the subject DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE--FOLDER INTERNAL DATA about?

• As the text of these messages say, they aren't really email messages. You get them whenever you read your email with a program that uses the IMAP email protocol to handle your inbox and other email folders. IMAP creates these messages, which it uses for internal record keeping. While pine doesn't use IMAP per se, it does know about IMAP, and generates and uses these same sort of pseudo-messages.
• Normally, pine won't show these messages to you, but if you use pine along with a personal computer email program that is set up to use the POP email protocol, you probably will see them when you read your email with your personal computer email program.
• The easiest way to get rid on these messages once and for all is to make sure that you always read your email using the IMAP protocol. Pine is already compatible with IMAP, and WebMail only uses IMAP, so that leaves only the personal computer email programs that you use to convert to using IMAP. (If you don't know whether you use IMAP, then the chances are you don't -- IMAP is newer than POP, the email handling protocol formerly used by virtually all personal computer email programs.)
• The ACCC document Configuring Eudora for IMAP, while specifically written for Eudora, has all the information that you'll need to set up any personal computer email program to use IMAP. (Including Eudora for Macs, Outlook, and Netscape.)
• While we recommend you switch your personal computer email program(s) to use IMAP, if you already use POP and you only use one personal computer and occasionally pine to read your email, then you can tell pine not to generate these messages; visit the following url for more information: http://www.washington.edu/pine/faq/errors.html#4.4.
• But this will only work if you never use IMAP, which means that you never use WebMail to read your email. That's a pretty steep price to pay; being completely Web-based, Webmail is the best way to read your email when you're away from your normal environment.

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