MH Message Handling System

The MH Message Handling System is a free, open source e-mail client. It is different from almost all other mail reading systems in that, instead of a single program, it is made from several different programs which are designed to work from the command line provided by the shell on Unix-like operating systems.[1] Another difference is that rather than storing multiple messages in a single file, messages each have their own separate file in a special directory. Taken together, these design choices mean that it is very easy and natural to script actions on mail messages using the normal shell scripting tools.

Descendants of MH continue to be developed under the names of nmh and mmh. GNU Mailutils also contains an implementation of MH.[2]

  1. ^ "How UNIX Email Works: MH & NMH: Email for Users & Programmers".
  2. ^ "GNU Mailutils Manual".