If you think of a message as a sheet of paper, this operation is not unlike filing the sheet of paper (or copies) in file cabinet folders. When a message is filed, it is linked into the destination folder(s) if possible, and is copied otherwise. As long as the destination folders are all on the same file system, multiple filing causes little storage overhead. This facility provides a good way to cross-file or multiply-index messages. For example, if a message is received from Jones about the ARPA Map Project, the command

refile cur +jones +Map

would allow the message to be found in either of the two folders `jones' or `Map'.

You may specify the source folder using -src +folder. If this is not given, the current folder is used by default. If no message is specified, then `cur' is used by default.

The option -file file directs refile to use the specified file as the source message to be filed, rather than a message from a folder. Note that the file should be a validly formatted message, just like any other nmh message. It should NOT be in mail drop format (to convert a file in mail drop format to a folder of nmh messages, see inc(1)).

If a destination folder doesn't exist, refile will ask if you want to create it. A negative response will abort the file operation. If the standard input for refile is not a tty, then refile will not ask any questions and will proceed as if the user answered ``yes'' to all questions.

The option -link preserves the source folder copy of the message (i.e., it does a ln(1) rather than a mv(1)), whereas, -nolink (the default) deletes the filed messages from the source folder.

Normally when a message is refiled, for each destination folder it is assigned the number which is one above the current highest message number in that folder. Use of the -preserv switch will override this message renaming, and try to preserve the number of the message. If a conflict for a particular folder occurs when using the -preserve switch, then refile will use the next available message number which is above the message number you wish to preserve.

If -link is not specified (or -nolink is specified), the filed messages will be removed from the source folder. The default is to remove these messages by renaming them with a site-dependent prefix (usually a comma). Such files will then need to be removed in some manner after a certain amount of time. Many sites arrange for cron to remove these files once a day, so check with your system administrator.

Alternately, if you wish for refile to really remove the files representing these messages from the source folder, you can use the -unlink switch (not to be confused with the -link switch). But messages removed by this method cannot be later recovered.

If you prefer a more sophisticated method of `removing' the messages from the source folder, you can define the rmmproc profile component. For example, you can add a profile component such as

rmmproc:       /home/coleman/bin/rmm_msgs

then refile will instead call the named program or script to handle the message files.

The user may specify -rmmproc program on the command line to override this profile specification. The -normmproc option forces the message files to be deleted by renaming or unlinking them as described above.

The -draft switch tells refile to file the <mh-dir>/draft.