33.9 Rmail Attributes

Some labels such as ‘ deleted’ and ‘ filed’ have built-in meanings, and Rmail assigns them to messages automatically at appropriate times; these labels are called attributes. Here is a list of Rmail attributes:

‘ unseen’

Means the message has never been current. Assigned to messages when they come from an inbox file, and removed when a message is made current. When you start Rmail, it initially shows the first message that has this attribute.

‘ deleted’

Means the message is deleted. Assigned by deletion commands and removed by undeletion commands (see Deleting Messages).

‘ filed’

Means the message has been copied to some other file. Assigned by the o and C-o file output commands (see Copying Messages Out to Files).

‘ answered’

Means you have mailed an answer to the message. Assigned by the r command ( rmail-reply). See Sending Replies.

‘ forwarded’

Means you have forwarded the message. Assigned by the f command ( rmail-forward). See Sending Replies.

‘ edited’

Means you have edited the text of the message within Rmail. See Editing Within a Message.

‘ resent’

Means you have resent the message. Assigned by the command M-x rmail-resend. See Sending Replies.

‘ retried’

Means you have retried a failed outgoing message. Assigned by the command M-x rmail-retry-failure. See Sending Replies.

All other labels are assigned or removed only by users, and have no standard meaning.