1. A colon-separated list of pathnames to be checked for mail. The message to be printed may be specified by separating the pathname from the message with a `?'. $_ stands for the name of the current mailfile. Example: MAILPATH='/usr/spool/mail/bfox?"You have mail":~/shell-mail?"$_ has mail!"' Bash supplies a default value for this variable, but the location of the user mail files that it uses is system dependent (e.g., /usr/spool/mail/$USER). From Rute-Users-Guide