---
name: "mflow"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "mblaze"
version: "1.1-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mflow"
---

# mflow(1)

reflow format=flowed plain text messages

## NAME

**mflow** – reflow format=flowed plain text messages

## SYNOPSIS

**mflow** \[**-f**\] \[**-q**\] \[**-w** *width*\] \< *file*

## DESCRIPTION

**mflow** reformats the standard input according to the rules of RFC 3676. PIPE\_CONTENTTYPE is inspected, making this a suitable filter for ‘text/plain’ messages for [mshow(1)](/mshow/1.md). Messages not specified as ‘format=flowed’ are output unchanged.

Text is reflowed (where allowed) to fit the width given in the environment variable COLUMNS, the terminal width, or 80 characters by default.

If defined, the environment variable MAXCOLUMNS specifies the maximum line length.

The options are as follows:

- **-f**

  Force wrapping of long lines.

- **-q**

  Prefix lines with ‘\>’. Can be used multiple times.

- **-w** *width*

  Set maximum line length to *width*.

## EXIT STATUS

The **mflow** utility exits 0 on success, and \>0 if an error occurs.

## SEE ALSO

[mshow(1)](/mshow/1.md) R. Gellens, *The Text/Plain Format and DelSp Parameters*, RFC 3676, February 2004.

## AUTHORS

Leah Neukirchen ⟨*leah@vuxu.org*⟩

## LICENSE

**mflow** is in the public domain.

To the extent possible under law, the creator of this work has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

**http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/**