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Mail is an enhanced version of standard /bin/mail program. As well as its predecessor, it can be used either in sending mode or in reading mode. Mail enters sending mode when one or more email addresses were specified in this command line. In this mode the program waits until user finishes composing the message, then attempts to send it to the specified addresses and exits. See Composing Mail, for a detailed description of this behavior.
If the command line contained no email addresses, mail switches to reading mode. In this mode it allows to read and manipulate the contents of the user system mailbox. The --file (-f) command line option allows to specify another mailbox name. For more detail, see Reading Mail.
In contrast to other GNU Mailutils programs, mail does not use the Mailutils configuration file. Instead, it uses the traditional ‘mailrc’-style configuration. See Mail Configuration Files, for a detailed description of its format.