BIFF(1) | General Commands Manual | BIFF(1)

# NAME

`biff` — be notified if mail arrives and who it is from

# SYNOPSIS

`biff` | [`n` | `y`]

# DESCRIPTION

`biff` informs the system whether you want to be notified when mail arrives during the current terminal session.

The options are as follows:

`n`
  Disables notification.
`y`
  Enables notification.

When mail notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of the message will be printed on your screen whenever mail arrives. A “`biff y`” command is often included in the file .login or .profile to be executed at each login.

`biff` operates asynchronously. For synchronous notification use the `MAIL` variable of sh(1) or the `mail` variable of csh(1).

# EXIT STATUS

The `biff` utility exits with one of the following values:

0
  Notification was enabled at the time of invocation.
1
  Notification was disabled at the time of invocation.
>1
  An error occurred.

# SEE ALSO

csh(1), mail(1), sh(1), comsat(8)

# HISTORY

The `biff` command appeared in 4.0BSD. "Biff" was Heidi Stettner's dog. He died in August 1993, at 15.

August 12, 2013 | Debian