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2023-05-26
Mutt is a mail client that claims to suck less than many others. I believe that to be true, simply because it can be configured till the cows come home to work _precisely_ as you want it.
Of course, the downside is that personally, I found it pretty much unavoidable to configure it a lot until it becomes usable.
I cannot possibly include a full setup explanation here, but I'll try to cover the things I found necessary to make mutt superior to many other CLI mail clients for my own usecase.
As you might have guessed already, I want vim-keys for navigation. Also, I want the option to GPG-sign and -encrypt messages, work with different mail accounts and some of them being gmail, work with gmail labels efficiently.
Mutt allows for a very flexible config file structure within ~/.config/mutt/ and I'm using that to keep track of things. Here is a rough outline:
~/.config/mutt/ ↳ muttrc the main config file, this is what mutt actually loads ↳ account-abc.rc config file for account 'abc' ↳ account-abc.gpg gpg-encrypted mail account password for 'abc' ↳ account-def.rc config file for account 'def' ↳ account-def.gpg gpg-encrypted mail account password for 'def' ↳ appearance.rc global look and feel config ↳ colors-tokyonight my theme, contains color declarations ↳ common.rc global config options. to be fair this could be inside muttrc ↳ gpg.rc GPG commands. GPG _behaviour_ is in the account.rcs ↳ keybinds.rc keybind changes
mutt itself will load the `muttrc` file. Its basic structure looks like this:
# this is the main script # # it loads all common .rc files, # configures folder hooks and useful macros to switch accounts # and then sources the default account # general settings are included source ~/.config/mutt/common.rc source ~/.config/mutt/gpg.rc source ~/.config/mutt/appearance.rc source ~/.config/mutt/keybinds.rc # configure folder hooks and macros for all accounts folder-hook 'account-abc' 'source ~/.config/mutt/account-abc.rc' folder-hook 'account-def' 'source ~/.config/mutt/account-def.rc' # load default account source '~/.config/mutt/account-abc.rc' # account switching macros macro index <f2> '<sync-mailbox><enter-command>source ~/.config/mutt/account-abc.rc<enter><change-folder>!<enter>' macro index <f3> '<sync-mailbox><enter-command>source ~/.config/mutt/account-def.rc<enter><change-folder>!<enter>' # styling source ~/.config/mutt/colors-tokyonight
As you might have spotted, I can switch between accounts by pressing F2 / F3.
There really isn't anything special here: The `account-xyz.rc` files source the GPG-encrypted passwords, set all parameters and folders for the mail account and configure the GPG setup. The GPG setup isn't centralized because I want only my main account to automatically sign my messages. All others are GPG capable but completely passive.
There is a separate section on GPG further down.
What the main `account.rc` file also does is activate the sidebar and configure the relevant GMail mailboxes to show up in the sidebar. More on that in the sidebar section.
The main `gpg.rc` file only configures the mutt command to call the right GPG commands in turn.
set crypt_use_gpgme=yes set pgp_decode_command="gpg --status-fd=2 %?p?--passphrase-fd 0 --pinentry-mode=loopback? --no-verbose --quiet --batch --output - %f" set pgp_verify_command="gpg --status-fd=2 --no-verbose --quiet --batch --output - --verify %s %f" set pgp_decrypt_command="gpg --status-fd=2 %?p?--passphrase-fd 0 --pinentry-mode=loopback? --no-verbose --quiet --batch --output - %f" set pgp_sign_command="gpg --no-verbose --batch --quiet --output - %?p?--passphrase-fd 0 --pinentry-mode=loopback? --armor --detach-sign --textmode %?a?-u %a? %f" set pgp_clearsign_command="gpg --no-verbose --batch --quiet --output - %?p?--passphrase-fd 0 --pinentry-mode=loopback? --armor --textmode --clearsign %?a?-u %a? %f" set pgp_encrypt_only_command="/usr/lib/mutt/pgpewrap gpg --batch --quiet --no-verbose --output - --encrypt --textmode --armor --always-trust -- -r %r -- %f" set pgp_encrypt_sign_command="/usr/lib/mutt/pgpewrap gpg %?p?--passphrase-fd 0 --pinentry-mode=loopback? --batch --quiet --no-verbose --textmode --output - --encrypt --sign %?a?-u %a? --armor --always-trust -- -r %r -- %f" set pgp_import_command="gpg --no-verbose --import %f" set pgp_export_command="gpg --no-verbose --export --armor %r" set pgp_verify_key_command="gpg --verbose --batch --fingerprint --check-sigs %r" set pgp_list_pubring_command="gpg --no-verbose --batch --quiet --with-colons --with-fingerprint --list-keys %r" set pgp_list_secring_command="gpg --no-verbose --batch --quiet --with-colons --with-fingerprint --list-secret-keys %r" set pgp_good_sign="^\\[GNUPG:\\] Good signature from" set pgp_check_gpg_decrypt_status_fd
This is a mixup of several sources, including an old mutt-gnupg-howto:
codesorcery.net mutt-gnupg-howto
How a mail account handles GPG is configured in the respective `account.rc` file.
For example the config below activates pgp for my respective key and will automatically sign all outgoing mails, including replies.
It will also automatically encrypt mails from people I have a key for.
set pgp_use_gpg_agent = yes set crypt_autopgp = yes set pgp_default_key="..." # automatically sign all mails, even unsigned / unencrypted ones set crypt_autosign = yes # DO sign / encrypt replies to mails which are themselves signed / encrypted set crypt_replysign = yes set crypt_replyencrypt = yes set crypt_replysignencrypted = yes #-- automatically encrypts mails to recipients we have a key of set crypt_opportunistic_encrypt = yes
For accounts that don't use GPG at all, I need to `set crypt_autopgp = no` to deactivate.
For the longest time I didn't know that the sidebar exists in mutt. I now use it to show the different mail folders and quickly navigate between them.
To activate the sidebar and display a bunch of existing mail folders:
set sidebar_visible = yes mailboxes =INBOX =done =done/amazon =done/paypal =done/gemini =family
To have the mailboxes appear exactly in the order I configure them, my `common.rc` sets the sorting:
set sidebar_sort_method = "unsorted"
To quickly navigate between sidebar folders I've chosen to use Ctrl plus j/k for vim-key like up and down, also Ctrl-l to go to the active mailbox. My `keybinds.rc` therefore contains:
bind index,pager \Cj sidebar-next bind index,pager \Ck sidebar-prev bind index,pager \Cl sidebar-open
For a bit of neatness my `appearance.rc` tweaks the vertical divider between sidebar and mail index / pager:
set sidebar_divider_char = "║"
To quickly send mails to a specific mailbox I have setup macros in `keybinds.rc`. For example:
bind index,pager \Ce noop macro index,pager \Ce ":set confirmappend=no delete=yes\n<save-message>=done\n<sync-mailbox>:set confirmappend=yes delete=ask-yes\n"
This causes Ctrl-e to send the active mail (selected in the index or displayed in the pager) to be sent to my done folder.
Two gotchas here: Firstly: if the mailbox name contains a space I found mutt to behave randomly, mostly assigning other keyboard commands to the macro than what I configured. I couldn't find an escape sequence to mitigate this. Secondly: The built-in help sometimes didn't display that a keyboard shortcut was already used, so I find it wise to unbind the shortcut before assigning the macro.
I find that most default keybinds make a lot of sense. Nonetheless switching to vim-keys took some care, also the sidebar navigation above. There isn't much else to be honest.
# common keybinds # by default IMAP mail fetching isn't bound, G is used for POP3 bind index G imap-fetch-mail # scrolling in mail-view ## scroll with mouse-wheel bind pager <up> previous-line bind pager <down> next-line ## scroll with vim-keys bind pager j next-line bind pager k previous-line bind pager h previous-entry bind pager l next-entry bind pager \Cf next-page bind pager \Cb previous-page bind pager \Cd half-down bind pager \Cu half-up bind pager b exit bind index l display-message # clear up some keybinds bind pager i noop # seems bound to 'exit' bind pager q noop # seems bound to 'exit' bind pager x noop # seems bound to 'exit' # move within sidebar bind index,pager \Cj sidebar-next bind index,pager \Ck sidebar-prev bind index,pager \Cl sidebar-open
I did only minor visual tweaking. One is to slightly change the colums in the index as well as introducing vertical dividers between the columns. The sidebar divider was already mentioned above. My `appearance.rc` file looks like this:
set date_format = "!%d %b %R" set index_format = "%4C │ %Z │ (%?l?%4l&%4c?) │ %D │ %-30.30L │ %s" set sidebar_divider_char = "║"
The other change was my theme. I like tokyonight although it is overdone. Also I couldn't actually find a tokyonight theme for mutt so I made my own. It isn't complete but it works for me:
# colors-tokyonight # general ------------ foreground ---- background ----------------------------- color indicator black cyan color status brightblack magenta color error red black # unchanged below color markers color210 default color message default default color normal default default color prompt default default color search color84 default color tilde color231 default color tree color141 default # message index ------ foreground ---- background ----------------------------- color index brightgreen default ~N # new unread messages color index brightgreen default ~O # old unread messages color index default default ~R # read messages color index green default ~U # unread messages color index cyan default ~Q # messages which have been replied to color index red default ~D # deleted messages # unchanged below color index color84 default ~F # flagged messages color index color215 default ~T # tagged messages color index color141 default ~v # messages part of a collapsed thread # message headers ---- foreground ---- background ----------------------------- color header color231 default ^Subject:.* color header color231 default ^From:.* color header color231 default ^To:.* color header color231 default ^Date:.* color hdrdefault cyan default # message body ------- foreground ---- background ----------------------------- color quoted blue default color quoted1 brightblue default color quoted2 cyan default color quoted3 brightcyan default color quoted4 green default color body color231 default [\-\.+_a-zA-Z0-9]+@[\-\.a-zA-Z0-9]+ # email addresses color body color228 default (https?|ftp|gemini)://[\-\.,/%~_:?&=\#a-zA-Z0-9]+ # URLs color body brightyellow default " [:;][-o][)/(|D]" # emoticons with nose color body brightyellow default " [:;][/)(|D]" # emoticons without nose color body brightyellow default (o.O|O.o) # emoticon: confused look color body color231 default (^|[[:space:][:punct:]])\\*[^*]+\\*([[:space:][:punct:]]|$) # *bold* text color body color231 default (^|[[:space:][:punct:]])_[^_]+_([[:space:][:punct:]]|$) # _underlined_ text color body color231 default (^|[[:space:]])/[^/]+/([[:space:][:punct:]]|$) # /italic/ text # unchanged below color attachment color228 default color signature color212 default
I know this has been a long cheat sheet. It certainly took me quite a while to piece it all together. I am very certain that a lot of mutt goodness still evades me but with the setup above mutt has replaced my gmail webclient and Thunderbird. It is perfectly usable. Anything from here on out is optimization.
There are a lot of helpful links for mutt without I wouldn't have been able to get here. Also the man page is fantastic.
Some of the most important web resources:
an old mutt & gnupg howto. It is a very good source to understand GPG.
The mutt command reference. Anything that can be `set` in the .rc files.
Sadly, getting mail encryption going isn't trivial, even today. I recommend these two sources to get started:
generating secure and easy-to-remember passphrases with diceware
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