Thanks for your input. I updated my code based on your comments.

I originally used the "sprintf" followed by "print" because I didn't know the "printf" command would take formatting. Thanks for pointing this out!

I've read parts of RFC822 in the past, but I'm not sure how relavant it would be to this situation. PINE stores its messages with all the RFC headers, true.. but is the PINE message store totally 822 compliant? Maybe it is, but I assume that PINE probably changes the formatting of the messages and headers slightly when it stores them. Certainly, the messages in the store don't end in a single period on a line by itself (the signal for the end of an SMTP email). Still, I'm sure you're right in saying that there is a more efficient way to "slurp up whole messages".

Thanks for the reference to MailTools. I'll take a look.

Tally