The mail messages stored in mail recipients may be removed automatically by a weekly expiration task. New core owners who wish to turn this feature on and cut down on the db space used by mail recipients (Remember, players are mail recipients too) should start this task:
$wiz_utils:expire_mail_weekly
When this task runs, it searches through all mail recipients and checks their .expire_period property. This property contains a time, in seconds, that messages should expire after. If this property is set to 0, then no expiration will take place from that recipient. The task, then, will compile a list of messages that are older than the expire period (e.g., if the property is set to 30 days, messages older than 30 days from the current date will expire). The default expiration period for mail recipients is 30 days.
Normally, when the mail messages are expired from the recipient they are deleted. However, the owner of the recipient may elect to have the messages mailed to an email address prior to their erasure. There are two methods for doing this, one for players and one for children of $mail_recipient.
Players:
Players may completely turn off mail expiration by setting the mail option `expire' off. If it is on, then $mail_agent.player_expire_time is the expire period used for mail on players.
If a player has a registered email address, he may simply turn the mail option `no_auto_forward' off in order to have the expired messages sent to his email address before they are deleted. (The reversed logic saves on db space). See "help mail-options" and `help @registerme'.
Mail Recipients:
The command to set the expiration period of a mail recipient is:
@set_expire <recipient> to <time>
The <time> specified can be in english format (30 days, 60 days, etc.). If left off (the owner types `@set_expire <recipient> to'), the command will print out the current expiration information for that recipient. A list owner may set the expiration period up to a maximum of 180 days.
Similar to players, the owner of a mail recipient may have the mail sent to either his registered email address or to any other address he specifies before it expires. To prevent unsolicited email from going to a random address, confirmation must be made before the owner may set the address to something other than his registered address.
The command is:
@register <recipient> to <address>
If the owner leaves off the <address>, the current registered address (if any) and expiration period will be returned. Again, if the address specified is the player's registered address, nothing more need be done. If it is not, then an email message will be sent to that address containing a password. Presumably, the owner can retrieve that password and then log back into the MOO and type:
@validate <recipient> with <password>
which will enable the mail forwarding before expiration.