Note: Pine mail reader is no longer in active development. It has been replaced by another mail reader called Alpine.
The pine mail reader is a full-screen text-based mail reader for Linux/Unix systems. When compared to mutt, it offers many more features. Using pine, you can manage multiple mail folders. You can also manage newsgroup messages. As text-based applications go, pine is quite simple and straightforward to use.
Pine was developed in 1989 by a group at the University of Washington for use by students on campus. It has become widely used in Unix and Linux environments.
To start pine, just type pine (You may have to install it first!). The following menu is displayed, from which you can select items by typing the associated letter or using up and down arrows and press Enter:
| ? | HELP | - | Get help using Pine |
| C | COMPOSE MESSAGE | - | Compose and send a message |
| I | MESSAGE INDEX | - | View messages in current folder |
| L | FOLDER LIST | - | Select a folder to view |
| A | ADDRESS BOOK | - | Update address book |
| S | SETUP | - | Configure Pine Options |
| Q | QUIT | - | Leave the Pine program |
To read your mail, select either I or L. Commands are listed along the bottom of the screen and change to suit the content you are viewing. Left (<-) and right (->) arrow keys let you step backward and forward among the pine screens.
Authors bio is coming up shortly.