Forwarding incoming messages
Suppose you're the boss of a big project, and everyone sends you all the important related e-mail messages. You can tell UNIX to automagically forward these incoming messages to the people who will actually do something about them. Hey, you're the boss, right? As Figure 11.14 shows, all you have to do is create a .forward file.
Figure 11.14. All you have to do is tell UNIX where you want your messages forwarded to.
To forward incoming e-mail messages:
1. | vi ~/.forward To begin, type vi at the shell prompt (or the appropriate command for whichever editor you are using), indicate your home directory (with ~/), then put .forward as the file name. |
2. | Add, as the first line of the file, the address to which you want your e-mail forwarded (Figure 11.14). In addition to forwarding to a single address, you can also use a .forward file with multiple addresses on multiple lines to send incoming e-mail to several addresses at once. |
3. |
Save and close the file. Check out Chapter 4 for details about saving and closing files using pico or vi. |
Tip
If you want, you can keep a copy of all incoming messages (in your incoming e-mail box, just where it'd usually be) and forward them to unsuspecting recipients. Just type yourid, [email protected] (filling in your id on the current system for your id, and the address to which to forward the mail for the other one).
Tip
Forwarding messages is also handy when you change ISPs. You can forward all messages sent to your old address to your new one, which helps tremendously in ensuring that you receive all your important messages while your friends and coworkers update their files.