PMDF MAIL is an extended version of VMS MAIL which is better equipped for dealing with the message formats used by PMDF. In PMDF MAIL you can work with your messages as real RFC 822/RFC 1521 (MIME) messages; e.g., not have to specify IN%" " when supplying addresses, pick and choose which header lines you want to see displayed, display or generate multipart messages with file attachments, images, audio components, etc.

PMDF MAIL reads mail from your VMS MAIL mailbox, accessing it through the callable MAIL interface. PMDF will continue to deliver your mail to this mailbox and you can use any VMS MAIL compatible user agent, including PMDF MAIL, to read your messages from your mailbox. Profile settings which you make in PMDF MAIL are made to the system-wide VMS MAIL profile database and thus will be seen by VMS MAIL.

Notable differences between PMDF MAIL and VMS MAIL are discussed in Section 8.13.