6.8 Navigating

To move on to the next message, use the command n (mh-next-undeleted-msg); use p (mh-previous-undeleted-msg) to read the previous message. To move to the next unread message, use M-n (mh-next-unread-msg); use M-p (mh-previous-unread-msg) to move to the previous unread message. These commands can be given a prefix argument to specify how many messages to skip (for example, 5 n). You can also move to a specific message with g (mh-goto-msg). You can enter the message number either before or after typing g. In the latter case, Emacs prompts you. Finally, you can go to the first or last message with M-< (mh-first-msg) and M-> (mh-last-msg) respectively.

You can also use the Emacs commands C-p (previous-line) and C-n (next-line) to move up and down the scan lines in the MH-Folder window. These commands can be used in conjunction with RET to look at deleted or refiled messages.

To mark a message for deletion, use the command d (mh-delete-msg). A ‘D’ is placed by the message in the scan window, and the next undeleted message is displayed. If the previous command had been p, then the next message displayed is the first undeleted message previous to the message just deleted. Use n to force subsequent d commands to move forward to the next undeleted message after deleting the message under the cursor. You may also specify a range (for example, C-u d 1 3 5-7 last:5 frombob RET, see Ranges).

The command C-d (mh-delete-msg-no-motion) marks the message (or messages in range) for deletion but leaves the cursor at the current message in case you wish to perform other operations on the message.

And to delete more messages faster, you can use k (mh-delete-subject-or-thread) to delete all the messages with the same subject as the current message. This command puts these messages in a sequence named ‘subject’. You can undo this action by using u (mh-undo) with a prefix argument and then specifying the ‘subject’ sequence. However, if the buffer is displaying a threaded view of the folder then k behaves like T d (mh-thread-delete). See Threading.

However you mark a message for deletion, the command x (mh-execute-commands) actually carries out the deletion (see Folders).

The hook mh-delete-msg-hook is called after you mark a message for deletion. For example, a past maintainer of MH-E used this once when he kept statistics on his mail usage.