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You can execute a mail command from within compose mode using ‘~:’ or ‘~-’ escapes. For example, typing
~: from :t
will display the from lines of all tagged messages. Note, that executing
mail-sending commands from within the compose mode is not allowed.
An attempt to execute such a command will result in diagnostic message
“Command not allowed in an escape sequence” being displayed.
Also, when starting compose mode immediately from the shell
(e.g. running ‘mail address@domain’), most mail commands are
meaningless, since there is no mailbox to operate upon. In this case,
the only commands that can reasonably be used are: alias,
unalias, alternate, set, and unset.