June 6, 1993 BIFF 1

### NAME

biff - be notified if mail arrives and who it is from

### SYNOPSIS

biff [ny]

### DESCRIPTION

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

Options supported by :

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).

### SEE ALSO

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

### HISTORY

The biff command appeared in 4.0BSD.