Ugh, I'm very sorry to have wasted your time! I mostly work on Linux, but I tried it out on OS X and got the same results as you. It looks to me like OS X will

Ugh, I'm very sorry to have wasted your time! I mostly work on Linux, but I tried it out on OS X and got the same results as you. It looks to me like OS X will only search for sections named 1-9 (and maybe "n" too). The MANSECT variable doesn't override this behavior. (I guess it just changes the priority then?) But you can have a custom suffix after a number. So if you have ~/man/man7/postgres.7pj (note just a 7 for the folder, but 7pj for the file extension), you can open that file by saying `man 7pj postgres`. This is how other programs with a lot of man pages work, e.g. `man 3perl open`. It's not as nice to type a 7 too, but it's the best I can find that works. So I guess on OS X you'd still set MANPATH but can leave MANSECT alone. (You could also probably usurp section 9 or something, and omit your initials entirely.) Or maybe you could compile a better `man` and put it in ~/bin. :-/ . . . In fact, I find that if I have ~/man/man7/postgres.7pj, I can even type `man xpj postgres` to get my page. Maybe OS X man is just buggy?