36.4.2 Mail Header Editing

Mail mode provides special commands to move to particular header fields and to complete addresses in headers.

C-c C-f C-t

Move to the ‘To’ header field, creating one if there is none (mail-to).

C-c C-f C-s

Move to the ‘Subject’ header field, creating one if there is none (mail-subject).

C-c C-f C-c

Move to the ‘CC’ header field, creating one if there is none (mail-cc).

C-c C-f C-b

Move to the ‘BCC’ header field, creating one if there is none (mail-bcc).

C-c C-f C-f

Move to the ‘FCC’ header field, creating one if there is none (mail-fcc).

M-<TAB>

Complete a mailing address (mail-complete).

There are five commands to move point to particular header fields, all based on the prefix C-c C-f (‘C-f’ is for “field”). They are listed in the table above. If the field in question does not exist, these commands create one. We provide special motion commands for these particular fields because they are the fields users most often want to edit.

While editing a header field that contains mailing addresses, such as ‘To:’, ‘CC:’ and ‘BCC:’, you can complete a mailing address by typing M-<TAB> (mail-complete). It inserts the full name corresponding to the address, if it can determine the full name. The variable mail-complete-style controls whether to insert the full name, and what style to use, as in mail-from-style (see section Mail Header Fields). (If your window manager defines M-<TAB> to switch windows, you can type <ESC> <TAB> or C-M-i.)

For completion purposes, the valid mailing addresses are taken to be the local users' names plus your personal mail aliases. You can specify additional sources of valid addresses; see the customization group ‘mailalias’ to see the variables for customizing this feature (see section Customization Groups).

If you type M-<TAB> in the body of the message, mail-complete invokes ispell-complete-word, as in Text mode.