Procmail

Procmail is a mail delivery agent (MDA) or mail filter, a program to process incoming emails on a computer, widely used on Unix systems. It is typically invoked from a mail transfer agent (MTA) like Sendmail or Postfix; this makes the mail processing event-driven. The companion-tool formail allows procmail to be used in batch-processing on mail that already is in a user's mailbox.

Common operations carried out with procmail include filtering and sorting of emails into different folders according to keywords in from, to, subject, text of the mail, or sending autoreplies, but more sophisticated operations are also possible.

A common practice is to let procmail call an external spam filter program, such as SpamAssassin. This method can allow for spam to be filtered or even deleted.

Examples

DROPPRIVS=yes

DEFAULT=$HOME/Maildir/

MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir/

# Pass mail through spamc, the interface to SpamAssassin

:0fw

| /usr/bin/spamc

# Move mail marked as spam to a mailbox named '.Trash/'

:0

* ^X-Spam-Level: ***

.Trash/

:0

* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes

.Trash/

# Move mail from these senders into Lists-Misc

# Empty line is required (this uses a DeMorgan's law OR)

:0

* ! ^Sender: pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org

* ! ^Sender: pgsql-sql-owner@postgresql.org

{ }

:0 E:

Lists-Misc

Further reading

• Martin McCarthy, The Procmail Companion, Addison-Wesley, S. 256, November 2001, ISBN 0-201-73790-6

External links

• Official website
• pm-doc sf.net procmail docs
• procmail quick start guide
• procmail sandbox - various tips
• timo's procmail tips and recipes
• era eriksson's Procmail "mini-FAQ"
• Searchable procmail mailing list archives