{% extends "_post.html" %}
{% hyde
title: "The Homely Mutt"
snip: "Sparrow's dead? Why not try Mutt?"
created: 2012-07-23 10:00:00
flattr: true
%}
{% block article %}
Now that [Sparrow][] is [effectively dead][sparrow-dead] many of its users will
be looking for a new email client. If you're not afraid of the terminal you may
want to give [Mutt][] a try.
Mutt certainly isn't the prettiest email client around, and its
setup/configuration process is one of the ugliest out there. But once you get
it set up it's got a lot of advantages over many other email clients.
In this post I'll show you how to set up Mutt on OS X like I do.
[Sparrow]: http://sparrowmailapp.com/
[sparrow-dead]: http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparrow-mail
[Mutt]: http://www.mutt.org/
[TOC]
How I Use Email
---------------
This setup is going to be specific to the way I work with email. Notably:
* I have a Google Apps account that provides my steve@stevelosh.com email address.
* I have a lot of other email addresses, but they all simply forward to my main one.
* All mail I send comes from steve@stevelosh.com.
* I store my contacts in the OS X address book.
* All email comes into my inbox (or to a folder for a specific mailing list).
* Once I'm done with an email, I remove it from my inbox and it lives in the
"All Mail" archive. I don't sort email into folders.
* I sometimes read email offline and mark it for deletion, then sync that
deletion back to the server once I get online again.
* Sometimes I write email without an internet connection and send it once I get
connected again.
My email setup is tailored around those requirements, so that's what it does
best. Mutt is very configurable though, so if you work differently you can
probably bend it to make it work like you want.
In particular, extending this setup to work with multiple email accounts
wouldn't be too much trouble. I used to work with two separate accounts until
I said "screw it, I'll just use the one".
Other Guides and Resources
--------------------------
I've used a lot of other guides to figure out how to get this giant Rube
Goldberg machine of an email client working. Here are a few of them:
* <http://thomas.pelletier.im/2010/10/low-memory-mail-client/>
* <http://www.andrews-corner.org/mutt.html>
* <http://jstorimer.com/shells/2010/01/19/using-mutt-with-gmail-on-osx.html>
* <http://www.vijaykiran.com/2010/01/27/mutt-for-gmail-imap-on-mac-os-x/>
* <http://hynek.me/articles/my-mutt-gmail-setup/>
* <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mutt>
* <http://linsec.ca/Using_mutt_on_OS_X>
* <http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual.html>
* <http://pbrisbin.com/posts/two_accounts_in_mutt>
Overview
--------
I'm going to give it to you straight: getting this whole contraption set up is
going to take at least an hour from start to finish, not counting the time it'll
take to download all of your email and install stuff.
It's an investment, and you might not want to make it. If not, go use
Thunderbird, er, Sparrow, er, I don't know, the Gmail web interface or
something.
Mutt on its own doesn't do very much, so we're going to combine it with a few
other things to get the job done. Here's a bird's eye view of what it'll look
like when we're done:
If this diagram doesn't make you run screaming, you might just be masochistic
enough to make it through the initial setup of Mutt. If you do, you'll be
rewarded with email bliss that won't go away when Google or Facebook decide to
toss some money around.
Getting Email
-------------
First thing's first: we're going to pull down our email from Gmail to our local
machine. All of it. It'll take a while the first time you sync, but has a few
benefits.
### Why Local Email?
Having a local copy of all of your email means you've always got access to it,
no matter where you are. Looking for that one person's address they emailed you
six years ago when you're trying to find their house and you don't have an
internet connection? No problem, it's on your hard drive.
This also acts as a backup in case Google ever decides to kill your Gmail
account. It'll be stored in a common format that a lot of programs can read, so
you've got a safety net. And the email is stored as normal files, so if you use
something like Time Machine or [Backblaze][] that's yet another backup.
In this setup all of your email is stored as plain text. If you want it
encrypted just use OS X's full-disk encryption and you're set.
I use [offlineimap][] to pull email down from Gmail and get it on my hard drive.
Offlineimap will also sync any changes you make to this local copy back up to
Gmail.
[offlineimap]: http://offlineimap.org/
[Backblaze]: http://www.backblaze.com/partner/af3574
### The Alternative
You may not care as much about reading your email offline as I do. If you can
tolerate always needing an internet connection to read your mail, you can skip
this painful section and follow [this guide][roma] instead.
You'll probably still find the other sections of this guide interesting though.
[roma]: http://empt1e.blogspot.com/2009/10/using-mutt-with-gmail-imap-complete.html
### Installing offlineimap
I've gone through a number of laptops in the past few years, and each time
I spend a painful half hour or so screwing around with the lastest version of
offlineimap's backwards-incompatible changes.
If you're determined to run the latest version of offlineimap, you can install
it with pip or something. If you just want to download your fucking email and
get on with your life, you can follow the instructions I've laid out for you
here:
* `git clone git://github.com/spaetz/offlineimap.git`
* `cd offlineimap`
* `git checkout 679c491c56c981961e18aa43b31955900491d7a3`
* `python setup.py install`
That's the version I'm using. It works. You can use a newer one if you want,
but expect to spend some time figuring out how to fix the configuration in this
post to work with whatever breaking changes have been made since then. The last
time I tried this I got to rewrite all my nametrans stuff. That was fun.
### Configuring offlineimap
Once you've got offlineimap installed, you'll need to create
a `~/.offlineimaprc` file. You can keep it in your dotfiles repo and symlink it
into place if you want. Here's a sample to get you started:
[general]
ui = TTY.TTYUI
accounts = SteveLosh
pythonfile=~/.mutt/offlineimap.py
fsync = False
[Account SteveLosh]
localrepository = SteveLosh-Local
remoterepository = SteveLosh-Remote
status_backend = sqlite
postsynchook = notmuch new
[Repository SteveLosh-Local]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/.mail/steve-stevelosh.com
nametrans = lambda folder: {'drafts': '[Gmail]/Drafts',
'sent': '[Gmail]/Sent Mail',
'flagged': '[Gmail]/Starred',
'trash': '[Gmail]/Trash',
'archive': '[Gmail]/All Mail',
}.get(folder, folder)
[Repository SteveLosh-Remote]
maxconnections = 1
type = Gmail
remoteuser = steve@stevelosh.com
remotepasseval = get_keychain_pass(account="steve@stevelosh.com", server="imap.gmail.com")
realdelete = no
nametrans = lambda folder: {'[Gmail]/Drafts': 'drafts',
'[Gmail]/Sent Mail': 'sent',
'[Gmail]/Starred': 'flagged',
'[Gmail]/Trash': 'trash',
'[Gmail]/All Mail': 'archive',
}.get(folder, folder)
folderfilter = lambda folder: folder not in ['[Gmail]/Trash',
'Nagios',
'Django',
'Flask',
'[Gmail]/Important',
'[Gmail]/Spam',
]
It's kind of a beast, so let's go through it line by line and see what's going
on.
[general]
ui = TTY.TTYUI
accounts = SteveLosh
pythonfile=~/.mutt/offlineimap.py
fsync = False
First we tell offlineimap to use the `TTY.TTYUI` ui. Yes, this program that
syncs yoiur email has multiple user interfaces. I guess if you can't decide
what color the bikeshed should be you can just build a whole bunch of bikesheds
instead.
Then we specify the accounts. There's only one, because as I said before:
I only use a single email account that all my addresses forward to. If you
wanted to have many, you'd change this line.
The `pythonfile` is just a file that offlineimap will parse (as Python) before
loading the rest of the config, so you can define custom helper functions more
easily. We'll see more of this later.
We're also telling offlineimap that it doesn't need to fsync after every single
operation. This will speed things up, and since it's just a local copy it's
typically not a big deal if we lose an email here and there from a crash (it'll
just be synced the next time anyway).
[Account SteveLosh]
localrepository = SteveLosh-Local
remoterepository = SteveLosh-Remote
status_backend = sqlite
This next section hooks up a few things. First, it tells offlineimap which
local and remote repositories to use for the account. Manual configuration
instead of sane defaults is a recurring theme we'll see throughout this process.
Hey, I titled the entry "The *Homely* Mutt" for a reason.
We're also going to use a SQLite-based cache for this account. If you don't
already have SQLite you'll want to get it with `brew install sqlite`.
[Repository SteveLosh-Local]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/.mail/steve-stevelosh.com
nametrans = lambda folder: {'drafts': '[Gmail]/Drafts',
'sent': '[Gmail]/Sent Mail',
'flagged': '[Gmail]/Starred',
'trash': '[Gmail]/Trash',
'archive': '[Gmail]/All Mail',
}.get(folder, folder)
Now we're getting to the meat of the configuration. This "local repository" is
going to be the mail as it sites on our hard drive. We're going to use the
[Maildir format][maildir] because it plays nicely with Mutt (and tons of other
stuff).
Then we specify the path where we're going to keep the mail. This is going to
take a lot of space if you've got a lot of mail. Attachments are downloaded
too. When I said you're getting an offline copy of your email I meant all of
it.
I think offlineimap needs the `~/.mail` directory created for it. It's been
a while since I did this, so I might be wrong, but if it complains about not
being able to access the mail folders just go ahead and `mkdir ~/.mail`.
Next we have the craziest part of the offlineimap configuration: name
translation.
Here's the issue: offlineimap needs to know how to translate the names of
folders on the IMAP server to folder names on your hard drive.
Also, Gmail doesn't actually use *folders* but its own concept called "labels".
But since the IMAP protocol doesn't know about labels, it fakes them by making
them appear to be folders.
User-created labels in Gmail (like "Mercurial" or "Clients") will appear as
folders with those names through IMAP.
Built-in, special Gmail folders have names that start with `[Gmail]/`. We need
to turn those into something sane for our hard drive, so that's what this
nametrans setting is for. It's a Python function that takes the remote folder
name and returns the name that should be used on your local hard drive.
Yes, you read that right. This is Python code embedded in the right hand side
of an INI file's setting assignment. I am not fucking with you, this is
seriously how you do it. Go ahead and crack open that beer now.
So the "Sent Mail" folder in your Gmail account will be synced to
`~/.mail/steve-stevelosh.com/sent`. Cool.
(No, I don't know what would happen if you created a label called `[Gmail]/All
Mail` in Gmail. If you try, let me know, but I take no responsibility if it
ends with all your email deleted.)
[maildir]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir
[Repository SteveLosh-Remote]
maxconnections = 1
type = Gmail
remoteuser = steve@stevelosh.com
remotepasseval = get_keychain_pass(account="steve@stevelosh.com", server="imap.gmail.com")
realdelete = no
nametrans = lambda folder: {'[Gmail]/Drafts': 'drafts',
'[Gmail]/Sent Mail': 'sent',
'[Gmail]/Starred': 'flagged',
'[Gmail]/Trash': 'trash',
'[Gmail]/All Mail': 'archive',
}.get(folder, folder)
folderfilter = lambda folder: folder not in ['[Gmail]/Trash',
'Nagios',
'Django',
'Flask',
'[Gmail]/Important',
'[Gmail]/Spam',
]
Finally, the home stretch. The last section described the folder on our local
hard drive, and this one describes our Gmail account.
First, we tell offlineimap to only ever use a single connection at a time. You
can try increasing this number for better performance, but in my experience
Google is not stingy with its rate limits and would cut me off fairly often when
I tried that. Just leave it at one if you want to be safe.
Next is the type. Luckily offlineimap provides a `Gmail` type that handles
a lot of the craziness that is Gmail's IMAP setup. Nice.
Then we have the username. Nothing special here, except that if you have
a non-apps account (i.e.: an actual vanilla Gmail account) you may or may not
need to include the `@gmail.com` in the username. I don't know. If one doesn't
work, just try the other.
Next we have `remotepasseval`. This is a bit of Python code (drink!) that
should return the password for the account.
What is this `get_keychain_pass` function? Well, remember when we saw the
`pythonfile` setting back in the general section? It's a function defined in
there. I'll talk about that in the next section, for now just accept that it
works.
Next we set `realdelete` to no. If this is set to yes, then deleting an email
in your inbox would actually delete it entirely. When you set it to no, then
deleting an email from your inbox (or any label's folder) will leave it in
Gmail's All Mail.
If you want to really delete an email, you'll need to delete it from All Mail
(which is named archive on our local filesystem, remember?). I feel like this
is a good compromise. I rarely care about actually deleting mail, given that
I have many unused gigabytes available on Gmail.
Next we have another nametrans setting. This is a Python function (drink!) just
like the one for the local repository, except it goes in the other direction.
It takes the name of a local folder and returns the name of the folder on the
IMAP server. Knowing this, it should be easy to understand this setting.
Finally, we have `folderfilter`. This is a Python function (drink!) that takes
a **remote** folder name and returns `True` if that folder should be synced, or
`False` if it should *not* be synced. I've chosen to skip syncing my Spam and
Trash folders, as well as a few mailing list labels I don't check all that
often. Customize this to your own taste.
### Retrieving Passwords
We're almost ready, but there's one more thing we need to do, and that's
implement a secure way for offlineimap to get access to our Gmail password.
If you don't care too much about security, you *can* configure offlineimap with
a plaintext password right in the config file. But don't do that. It'll only
take a minute to do this securely.
First, you need to add your Gmail password into your OS X keychain. Open the
Keychain Access app and press the `+` button:
Then fill out the form. The "Keychain Item Name" should be
`http://imap.gmail.com`. The "Account Name" should be your email address. The
password should be your password:
Press "Add". Now repeat the process for the SMTP server. The "Keychain Item
Name" should be `smtp://smtp.gmail.com`. The "Account Name" should be your
email address. The password should be your password:
Now we need to create the `offlineimap.py` file we pointed offlineimap to
earlier. It needs to contain the `get_keychain_pass` function, which takes an
`account` and `server` and return the password. Here's the file I'm using:
:::python
#!/usr/bin/python
import re, subprocess
def get_keychain_pass(account=None, server=None):
params = {
'security': '/usr/bin/security',
'command': 'find-internet-password',
'account': account,
'server': server,
'keychain': '/Users/sjl/Library/Keychains/login.keychain',
}
command = "sudo -u sjl %(security)s -v %(command)s -g -a %(account)s -s %(server)s %(keychain)s" % params
output = subprocess.check_output(command, shell=True, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
outtext = [l for l in output.splitlines()
if l.startswith('password: ')][0]
return re.match(r'password: "(.*)"', outtext).group(1)
In a nutshell, it uses `/usr/bin/security` to retrieve the password. Read
through the code if you're curious.
This is not *completely* secure, but it's better than having your password in
a plaintext file in your home directory.
Whew! Time to actually run this thing and pull down our email!
### Running offlineimap
Assuming everything is in place, open a terminal and run offlineimap:
offlineimap
Go read a book, because this is going to pull down all the email (with
attachments) in any folders you didn't exclude in the config file.
**If there's an error, stop and figure out what went wrong**. Remember,
offlineimap is a *two-way* sync, so there's always the possibility it'll eat
your email if you seriously mess something up! I wish it had a
`--dont-touch-remote` option you could use as a safety net for the original
sync, but it doesn't, so be careful!
In the future you can use `offlineimap -q` to run it in "quick mode". It'll
perform fewer checks but will generally be much faster.
If you want to set up offlineimap to run every 5 minutes or so, you can use
launchd. `cron` does not work for some reason. I'm not entirely sure why.
Personally I actually *like* having to press a key to fetch new mail. It's less
of a distraction than having new mail rolling in all the time. I can get new
email when I'm ready to actually look at it, rather than having it nagging me
all the time.
Mutt!
-----
Now that you've got your email on your computer, it's finally time to start
using Mutt itself!
### Installing
Mutt can be installed in a bunch of different ways, but the easiest is through
Homebrew:
brew install mutt --sidebar-patch
The sidebar patch is a third-party patch that adds a sidebar to Mutt. I don't
know why it's not in core Mutt because it's insanely useful. Oh well, at least
Homebrew makes it simple to get.
That's pretty much it for installation, but don't get too relaxed because you're
far from done.
### Configuring
Mutt is *very* configurable. This is great once you've become a power user and
want to mold it to your will, but terrible when you're just getting started.
Mutt settings are kept in a `~/.muttrc` file. If this file doesn't exist Mutt
will look for `~/.mutt/muttrc` (note the lack of a dot in the filename), so you
can put it there if you prefer.
Here's a basic `~/.muttrc` to get you started (a lot of which was taken from
[this article][pris]). Once you've got a bit of Mutt under your belt you'll
want to read [the documentation][muttdoc] for these settings, but for now just
use them to keep things sane:
[pris]: http://pbrisbin.com/posts/two_accounts_in_mutt
[muttdoc]: http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-6.html
# Paths
set alias_file = ~/.mutt/alias # where to store aliases
set header_cache = ~/.mutt/cache/headers # where to store headers
set message_cachedir = ~/.mutt/cache/bodies # where to store bodies
set certificate_file = ~/.mutt/certificates # where to store certs
set tmpdir = ~/.mutt/temp # where to keep temp files
set signature = ~/.mutt/sig # signature file
# Use Vim to compose email, with a few default options.
set editor = "vim -c 'normal! }' -c 'redraw'"
# Colors!
source ~/.vim/bundle/badwolf/contrib/badwolf.muttrc
# Basic Options
set wait_key = no # shut up, mutt
set mbox_type = Maildir # mailbox type
set folder = ~/.mail # mailbox location
set timeout = 3 # idle time before scanning
set mail_check = 0 # minimum time between scans
unset move # gmail does that
set delete # don't ask, just do
unset confirmappend # don't ask, just do!
set quit # don't ask, just do!!
unset mark_old # read/new is good enough for me
set beep_new # bell on new mails
set pipe_decode # strip headers and eval mimes when piping
set thorough_search # strip headers and eval mimes before searching
# Sidebar Patch
set sidebar_delim = ' │'
set sidebar_visible = yes
set sidebar_width = 24
color sidebar_new color221 color233
bind index,pager <down> sidebar-next
bind index,pager <up> sidebar-prev
bind index,pager <right> sidebar-open
# Status Bar
set status_chars = " *%A"
set status_format = "───[ Folder: %f ]───[%r%m messages%?n? (%n new)?%?d? (%d to delete)?%?t? (%t tagged)? ]───%>─%?p?( %p postponed )?───"
# Index View
set date_format = "%m/%d"
set index_format = "[%Z] %D %-20.20F %s"
set sort = threads # like gmail
set sort_aux = reverse-last-date-received # like gmail
set uncollapse_jump # don't collapse on an unread message
set sort_re # thread based on regex
set reply_regexp = "^(([Rr][Ee]?(\[[0-9]+\])?: *)?(\[[^]]+\] *)?)*"
# Pager View
set pager_index_lines = 10 # number of index lines to show
set pager_context = 3 # number of context lines to show
set pager_stop # don't go to next message automatically
set menu_scroll # scroll in menus
set tilde # show tildes like in vim
unset markers # no ugly plus signs
set quote_regexp = "^( {0,4}[>|:#%]| {0,4}[a-z0-9]+[>|]+)+"
alternative_order text/plain text/enriched text/html
# Compose View
set realname = "Steve Losh" # who am i?
set envelope_from # which from?
set sig_dashes # dashes before sig
set edit_headers # show headers when composing
set fast_reply # skip to compose when replying
set askcc # ask for CC:
set fcc_attach # save attachments with the body
unset mime_forward # forward attachments as part of body
set forward_format = "Fwd: %s" # format of subject when forwarding
set forward_decode # decode when forwarding
set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:" # format of quoting header
set reply_to # reply to Reply to: field
set reverse_name # reply as whomever it was to
set include # include message in replies
set forward_quote # include message in forwards
# Headers
ignore * # ignore all headers
unignore from: to: cc: date: subject: # show only these
hdr_order from: to: cc: date: subject: # and in this order
# steve@stevelosh.com {{{
# Default inbox.
set spoolfile = "+steve-stevelosh.com/INBOX"
# Alternate email addresses.
alternates sjl@pculture.org still\.?life@gmail.com steve@ladyluckblues.com steve@pculture.org
# Mailboxes to show in the sidebar.
mailboxes +steve-stevelosh.com/INBOX \
+steve-stevelosh.com/vim \
+steve-stevelosh.com/clojure \
+steve-stevelosh.com/python \
+steve-stevelosh.com/mercurial \
+steve-stevelosh.com/archive \
+steve-stevelosh.com/sent \
+steve-stevelosh.com/drafts \
# Other special folders.
set mbox = "+steve-stevelosh.com/archive"
set postponed = "+steve-stevelosh.com/drafts"
# Sending email.
set from = "steve@stevelosh.com"
set sendmail = "/usr/local/bin/msmtp -a stevelosh"
set sendmail_wait = 0 # no please don't silently fail, email is important
unset record
# }}}
# Account Hooks {{{
# folder-hook steve-stevelosh.com/* source ~/.mutt/steve-stevelosh.com.muttrc
# }}}
# Key Bindings {{{
# Unbind Stupid Keys {{{
bind index,pager \# noop
bind index i noop
bind index w noop
# }}}
# Pager {{{
bind pager i exit
bind pager / search
bind pager k previous-line
bind pager j next-line
bind pager gg top
bind pager G bottom
bind pager R group-reply
macro pager \Cu "|urlview<enter>" "call urlview to open links"
macro pager s "<pipe-message>cat > ~/Desktop/" "save message as"
# }}}
# Index {{{
bind index R group-reply
bind index <tab> sync-mailbox
bind index k previous-entry
bind index j next-entry
bind index gg first-entry
bind index G last-entry
bind index p recall-message
bind index <space> collapse-thread
macro index s "<pipe-message>cat > ~/Desktop/" "save message as"
# Mark all as read
macro index \Cr "T~U<enter><tag-prefix><clear-flag>N<untag-pattern>.<enter>" "mark all messages as read"
# Quickly change date formats
macro index <esc>f ":set date_format = \"%m/%d\"<enter>" "short date format"
macro index <esc>F ":set date_format = \"%m/%d at %I:%M %P\"<enter>" "long date format"
# Sync email
macro index O "<shell-escape>offlineimap -q<enter>" "run offlineimap to sync mail in the foreground"
macro index o "<shell-escape>offlineimap -q >/dev/null 2>&1 &<enter>" "run offlineimap to sync mail in the background"
# Saner copy/move dialogs
macro index C "<copy-message>?<toggle-mailboxes>" "copy a message to a mailbox"
macro index M "<save-message>?<toggle-mailboxes>" "move a message to a mailbox"
# Quickly change mailboxes
macro index \' "<change-folder>+steve-stevelosh.com/INBOX<enter>" "go to stevelosh/INBOX"
macro index \" "<change-folder>+steve-stevelosh.com/archive<enter>" "go to stevelosh/archive"
# Just use notmuch for everything
macro index / "<enter-command>unset wait_key<enter><shell-escape>read -p 'notmuch query: ' x; echo \$x >~/.cache/mutt_terms<enter><limit>~i \"\`notmuch search --output=messages \$(cat ~/.cache/mutt_terms) | head -n 600 | tr '+' '.' | perl -le '@a=<>;chomp@a;s/\^id:// for@a;$,=\"|\";print@a'\`\"<enter>" "show only messages matching a notmuch pattern"
# Unlimit aka show [a]ll
macro index a "<limit>all\n" "show all messages (undo limit)"
# }}}
# Compose {{{
bind compose p postpone-message
# }}}
# Attachment {{{
# View, god dammit!
bind attach <return> view-mailcap
# }}}
# "Open in Vim" {{{
macro index,pager V "|vim -c 'setlocal ft=mail' -c 'setlocal buftype=nofile' -<enter>" "open in vim"
macro index,pager M "|mvim -c 'setlocal ft=mail' -c 'setlocal buftype=nofile' - >/dev/null<enter>" "open in macvim"
# }}}
# }}}
### Running
Now that you've got Mutt configured you can run it:
mutt
I like to always be in my `~/Desktop` folder when in Mutt, so that when I save
emails or attachments they go there by default. I have a little shell function
set up that cd's there for be before running Mutt.
If you run the [new fish shell][fish], this is going to cause problems later
(long story, but it's related to the `read` builtin). Do yourself a favor and
head those confusing issues off at the pass with a fish function:
:::text
function mutt
bash -c 'cd ~/Desktop; /usr/local/bin/mutt' $argv;
end
[fish]: http://ridiculousfish.com/shell/
Reading Email
-------------
Reading email is pretty straightforward in Mutt. You select a message in the
index and pretty return, and Mutt will display the "pager" with the contents of
the email:
Let's add a few settings to our `~/.muttrc` to make reading email a bit
smoother.
set pager_index_lines = 10
This sets the number of lines of the index (the top "pane") to show while
reading email. I like to have 10 so I can tell where I'm at in the list of
email.
set pager_context = 3
This tells Mutt how far it should scroll when you "page down" in the pager with
space. I have it set to three, so when I press space Mutt scrolls down far
enough that the last three lines on the screen become the first three lines.
It's there to help you avoid losing your place when reading.
set pager_stop
Prevents Mutt from automatically going to the next message when you page down
when already at the end of a message. I'll move to the next message when I'm
good and ready, thank you.
set tilde
Shows tildes at the end of the message, like Vim does after the end of the file.
This is personal preference, but as a Vim user I like it.
unset markers
By default, when Mutt wraps long lines of text in the pager it will display
a `+` and the beginning of the wrapped lines. That's kind of ugly, so this
setting turns it off.
set quote_regexp = "^( {0,4}[>|:#%]| {0,4}[a-z0-9]+[>|]+)+"
This defines how Mutt finds "quoted text" in emails. Mutt will highlight quoted
text differently:
This regex will tell Mutt to look for lines prefixed with `>` characters as
quoted text. Each `>` is one level of quoting. This is pretty standard.
Writing Email
-------------
Sending Email
-------------
Mutt does have (some) built-in SMTP support, but we're going to use a separate
program to do our sending for a few reasons.
First, Mutt's SMTP support was considered "experimental" the last time
I checked. Sending email is kind of important, so we'll stick with something
tried and true.
Second, we want a method that won't require our password in a plaintext config
file.
Go ahead and install the `msmtp` program through Homebrew:
brew install msmtp
Next we're going to need to create a `~/.msmtprc` file with the following
contents:
account stevelosh
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
protocol smtp
auth on
from steve@stevelosh.com
user steve@stevelosh.com
tls on
tls_trust_file ~/.mutt/Equifax_Secure_CA.cert
account default : stevelosh
`msmtp` will look in your keychain for your SMTP password, which we added
earlier. No plaintext passwords!
The other "interesting" bit here is the `tls_trust_file`. We're going to be
connecting to Gmail's SMTP server over SSL, and `msmtp` needs to know if it can
trust the certificate that the server on the other end is sending back.
Copy the following and paste it into the path `tls_trust_file` is set to:
:::text
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIDIDCCAomgAwIBAgIENd70zzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADBOMQswCQYDVQQGEwJVUzEQMA4GA1UE
ChMHRXF1aWZheDEtMCsGA1UECxMkRXF1aWZheCBTZWN1cmUgQ2VydGlmaWNhdGUgQXV0aG9yaXR5
MB4XDTk4MDgyMjE2NDE1MVoXDTE4MDgyMjE2NDE1MVowTjELMAkGA1UEBhMCVVMxEDAOBgNVBAoT
B0VxdWlmYXgxLTArBgNVBAsTJEVxdWlmYXggU2VjdXJlIENlcnRpZmljYXRlIEF1dGhvcml0eTCB
nzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOBjQAwgYkCgYEAwV2xWGcIYu6gmi0fCG2RFGiYCh7+2gRvE4RiIcPR
fM6fBeC4AfBONOziipUEZKzxa1NfBbPLZ4C/QgKO/t0BCezhABRP/PvwDN1Dulsr4R+AcJkVV5MW
8Q+XarfCaCMczE1ZMKxRHjuvK9buY0V7xdlfUNLjUA86iOe/FP3gx7kCAwEAAaOCAQkwggEFMHAG
A1UdHwRpMGcwZaBjoGGkXzBdMQswCQYDVQQGEwJVUzEQMA4GA1UEChMHRXF1aWZheDEtMCsGA1UE
CxMkRXF1aWZheCBTZWN1cmUgQ2VydGlmaWNhdGUgQXV0aG9yaXR5MQ0wCwYDVQQDEwRDUkwxMBoG
A1UdEAQTMBGBDzIwMTgwODIyMTY0MTUxWjALBgNVHQ8EBAMCAQYwHwYDVR0jBBgwFoAUSOZo+SvS
spXXR9gjIBBPM5iQn9QwHQYDVR0OBBYEFEjmaPkr0rKV10fYIyAQTzOYkJ/UMAwGA1UdEwQFMAMB
Af8wGgYJKoZIhvZ9B0EABA0wCxsFVjMuMGMDAgbAMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBQUAA4GBAFjOKer89961
zgK5F7WF0bnj4JXMJTENAKaSbn+2kmOeUJXRmm/kEd5jhW6Y7qj/WsjTVbJmcVfewCHrPSqnI0kB
BIZCe/zuf6IWUrVnZ9NA2zsmWLIodz2uFHdh1voqZiegDfqnc1zqcPGUIWVEX/r87yloqaKHee95
70+sB3c4
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
If you're paranoid and don't trust that I'm giving you the right cert (or that
someone has hacked my site and changed it), you can generate it yourself. I'll
leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Now we need to tell Mutt to use msmtp. Add the following to your `~/.muttrc`
file:
set from = "steve@stevelosh.com"
set sendmail = "/usr/local/bin/msmtp -a stevelosh"
set sendmail_wait = 0
unset record
The `-a stevelosh` will need to change to whatever you named your account in the
msmtp config.
The `unset record` line tells Mutt to not append a copy of every email you send
to a file on your hard drive. Gmail will save the emails you send in the sent
folder, so you'll get the the next time you sync with offlineimap anyway.
The `sendmail_wait` line tells Mutt to wait for the msmtp program to finish
sending the mail before returning control, instead of running it in the
background. This makes it obvious if there's a problem sending a message, which
I prefer to silent, backgrounded failures.
Now you can send email! Awesome!
Once you've composed a test email and saved it you'll be presented with a screen
like this:
The keys you need are listed along the top. Pressing `y` now will invoke msmtp
and send your email!
You'll see "Sending message..." at the bottom of the screen while msmtp is
working. If there's a problem, Mutt will tell you the error. Figure it out
before moving on.
Contacts
--------
Next we'll want to get Mutt to autocomplete our contacts from the OS X address
book. Unfortunately I've got some bad news for you:
You're going to need to install XCode.
No, not the command-line developer tools. The full XCode. I'm sorry, but trust
me when I say it's going to save you a lot of pain, so just grumble to yourself
a bit and do it.
Okay, now that you've got XCode you can install the `contacts` program through
Homebrew:
brew install contacts
`contacts` is a command-line program that you can use to query your address
book. To tell Mutt how to use it add the following lines to your
`~/.mutt/muttrc`:
set query_command = "contacts -Sf '%eTOKEN%n' '%s' | sed -e 's/TOKEN/\t/g'"
bind editor <Tab> complete-query
bind editor ^T complete
Now when you're filling out an email address field you can type a few characters
and hit Tab to get a screen like this:
You can use `j` and `k` to select an item, press return to complete it. Press
`q` if you've changed your mind and want to cancel the completion. Look at the
top of the screen for more handy little keys you can use here.
If there's only one item in the list Mutt won't bother showing you this screen
and will just complete it right away.
This completion searches more than just the email address. It'll also search
the names and possibly other fields from the address book entries as well.
Searching Email
---------------
notmuch
muttrc
{% endblock article %}