1 <!doctype linuxdoc system>
5 <title>The Mutt E-Mail Client
6 <author>by Michael Elkins <htmlurl url="mailto:me@cs.hmc.edu" name="<me@cs.hmc.edu>">
7 <date>version @VERSION@
9 ``All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.'' -me, circa 1995
16 <bf/Mutt/ is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt is
17 highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced
18 features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular
19 expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for selecting
22 <p>This documentation additionaly contains documentation to <bf/Mutt-NG/, a
23 fork from Mutt with the goal to fix all the little annoyances of Mutt, to
24 integrate all the Mutt patches that are floating around in the web, and to
25 add other new features. Features specific to Mutt-ng will be discussed in
26 an extra section. Don't be confused when most of the documentation talk about
27 Mutt and not Mutt-ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt-ng features, plus many more.
31 <htmlurl url="http://www.mutt.org/"
32 name="http://www.mutt.org/">
34 <sect1>Mutt-ng Home Page
36 <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/"
37 name="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/">
43 <item><htmlurl url="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/mutt-ng-users"
44 name="mutt-ng-users@lists.berlios.de"> -- This is where the mutt-ng user support happens.
45 <item><htmlurl url="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/mutt-ng-devel" name="mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de"> -- The development mailing list for mutt-ng
48 <sect1>Software Distribution Sites
50 So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can download
51 daily snapshots from <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/" name="http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/">
54 <item><htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/"
55 name="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/">
58 For a list of mirror sites, please refer to <htmlurl
59 url="http://www.mutt.org/download.html"
60 name="http://www.mutt.org/download.html">.
66 Visit channel <em/#muttng/ on <htmlurl
67 url="http://www.freenode.net/" name="irc.freenode.net
68 (www.freenode.net)"> to chat with other people interested in Mutt-ng.
73 If you want to read fresh news about the latest development in Mutt-ng, and get informed
74 about stuff like interesting, Mutt-ng-related articles and packages for your favorite
75 distribution, you can read and/or subscribe to our
76 <htmlurl url="http://mutt-ng.supersized.org/" name="Mutt-ng development weblog">.
80 Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins
81 <me@cs.hmc.edu> and others
83 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
84 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
85 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
86 (at your option) any later version.
88 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
89 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
90 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
91 GNU General Public License for more details.
93 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
94 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
95 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
100 This section is intended as a brief overview of how to use Mutt. There are
101 many other features which are described elsewhere in the manual. There
102 is even more information available in the Mutt FAQ and various web
103 pages. See the <htmlurl url="http://www.mutt.org/mutt/"
104 name="Mutt Page"> for more details.
106 The keybindings described in this section are the defaults as distributed.
107 Your local system administrator may have altered the defaults for your site.
108 You can always type ``?'' in any menu to display the current bindings.
110 The first thing you need to do is invoke mutt, simply by typing mutt
111 at the command line. There are various command-line options, see
112 either the mutt man page or the <ref id="commandline" name="reference">.
114 <sect1>Moving Around in Menus
117 Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table
118 showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt.
121 j or Down next-entry move to the next entry
122 k or Up previous-entry move to the previous entry
123 z or PageDn page-down go to the next page
124 Z or PageUp page-up go to the previous page
125 = or Home first-entry jump to the first entry
126 * or End last-entry jump to the last entry
127 q quit exit the current menu
128 ? help list all keybindings for the current menu
131 <sect1>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing">
133 Mutt has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to input
134 textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to move
135 around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs.
138 ^A or <Home> bol move to the start of the line
139 ^B or <Left> backward-char move back one char
140 Esc B backward-word move back one word
141 ^D or <Delete> delete-char delete the char under the cursor
142 ^E or <End> eol move to the end of the line
143 ^F or <Right> forward-char move forward one char
144 Esc F forward-word move forward one word
145 <Tab> complete complete filename or alias
146 ^T complete-query complete address with query
147 ^K kill-eol delete to the end of the line
148 ESC d kill-eow delete to the end ot the word
149 ^W kill-word kill the word in front of the cursor
150 ^U kill-line delete entire line
151 ^V quote-char quote the next typed key
152 <Up> history-up recall previous string from history
153 <Down> history-down recall next string from history
154 <BackSpace> backspace kill the char in front of the cursor
155 Esc u upcase-word convert word to upper case
156 Esc l downcase-word convert word to lower case
157 Esc c capitalize-word capitalize the word
159 <Return> n/a finish editing
162 You can remap the <em/editor/ functions using the <ref id="bind" name="bind">
163 command. For example, to make the <em/Delete/ key delete the character in
164 front of the cursor rather than under, you could use
166 <tt/bind editor <delete> backspace/
168 <sect1>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager
171 Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail is
172 read in Mutt. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox, which is
173 called the ``index'' in Mutt. The second mode is the display of the
174 message contents. This is called the ``pager.''
176 The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these
179 <sect2>The Message Index
183 c change to a different mailbox
184 ESC c change to a folder in read-only mode
185 C copy the current message to another mailbox
186 ESC C decode a message and copy it to a folder
187 ESC s decode a message and save it to a folder
188 D delete messages matching a pattern
189 d delete the current message
191 l show messages matching a pattern
192 N mark message as new
193 o change the current sort method
194 O reverse sort the mailbox
195 q save changes and exit
197 T tag messages matching a pattern
198 t toggle the tag on a message
199 ESC t toggle tag on entire message thread
200 U undelete messages matching a pattern
203 x abort changes and exit
204 <Return> display-message
205 <Tab> jump to the next new message
206 @ show the author's full e-mail address
207 $ save changes to mailbox
210 ^L clear and redraw the screen
211 ^T untag messages matching a pattern
217 In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of
218 the disposition of each message is printed beside the message number.
219 Zero or more of the following ``flags'' may appear, which mean:
223 <tag/D/ message is deleted (is marked for deletion)
224 <tag/d/ message have attachments marked for deletion
225 <tag/K/ contains a PGP public key
226 <tag/N/ message is new
227 <tag/O/ message is old
228 <tag/P/ message is PGP encrypted
229 <tag/r/ message has been replied to
230 <tag/S/ message is signed, and the signature is succesfully verified
231 <tag/s/ message is signed
232 <tag/!/ message is flagged
233 <tag/*/ message is tagged
236 Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using
238 <item><bf/set-flag/ (default: w)
239 <item><bf/clear-flag/ (default: W)
243 Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed
244 to. They can be customized with the
245 <ref id="to_chars" name="$to_chars"> variable.
249 <tag/+/ message is to you and you only
250 <tag/T/ message is to you, but also to or cc'ed to others
251 <tag/C/ message is cc'ed to you
252 <tag/F/ message is from you
253 <tag/L/ message is sent to a subscribed mailing list
259 By default, Mutt uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages.
260 The pager is very similar to the Unix program <em/less/ though not nearly as
264 <Return> go down one line
265 <Space> display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message)
266 - go back to the previous page
267 n search for next match
268 S skip beyond quoted text
269 T toggle display of quoted text
271 / search for a regular expression (pattern)
272 ESC / search backwards for a regular expression
273 \ toggle search pattern coloring
274 ^ jump to the top of the message
277 In addition, many of the functions from the <em/index/ are available in
278 the pager, such as <em/delete-message/ or <em/copy-message/ (this is one
279 advantage over using an external pager to view messages).
281 Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features. For
282 one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences for
283 bold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter,
284 backspace (^H), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace,
285 ``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt will attempt to display these
286 in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If
287 not, you can use the bold and underline <ref id="color" name="color">
288 objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them.
290 Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for
291 character attributes. Mutt translates them into the correct color and
292 character settings. The sequences Mutt supports are:
296 ESC [ Ps;Ps;Ps;...;Ps m
303 3x Foreground color is x
304 4x Background color is x
317 Mutt uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they
318 can also be used by an external <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview">
319 script for highlighting purposes. <bf/Note:/ If you change the colors for your
320 display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for
321 your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green.
323 <sect2>Threaded Mode<label id="threads">
325 When the mailbox is <ref id="sort" name="sorted"> by <em/threads/, there are
326 a few additional functions available in the <em/index/ and <em/pager/ modes.
329 ^D delete-thread delete all messages in the current thread
330 ^U undelete-thread undelete all messages in the current thread
331 ^N next-thread jump to the start of the next thread
332 ^P previous-thread jump to the start of the previous thread
333 ^R read-thread mark the current thread as read
334 ESC d delete-subthread delete all messages in the current subthread
335 ESC u undelete-subthread undelete all messages in the current subthread
336 ESC n next-subthread jump to the start of the next subthread
337 ESC p previous-subthread jump to the start of the previous subthread
338 ESC r read-subthread mark the current subthread as read
339 ESC t tag-thread toggle the tag on the current thread
340 ESC v collapse-thread toggle collapse for the current thread
341 ESC V collapse-all toggle collapse for all threads
342 P parent-message jump to parent message in thread
345 <bf/Note:/ Collapsing a thread displays only the first message
346 in the thread and hides the others. This is useful when threads
347 contain so many messages that you can only see a handful of threads on
348 the screen. See %M in <ref id="index_format"name="$index_format">.
349 For example, you could use "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in <ref
350 id="index_format"name="$index_format"> to optionally
351 display the number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.
353 See also: <ref id="strict_threads" name="$strict_threads">.
355 <sect2>Miscellaneous Functions
356 <p><bf/create-alias/<label id="create-alias"> (default: a)<newline>
358 Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a
359 new one). Once editing is complete, an <ref id="alias" name="alias">
360 command is added to the file specified by the <ref id="alias_file"
361 name="$alias_file"> variable for future use. <bf/Note:/
362 Specifying an <ref id="alias_file" name="$alias_file">
363 does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also <ref
364 id="source" name="source"> the file.
366 <p><bf/check-traditional-pgp/<label id="check-traditional-pgp"> (default: ESC P)<newline>
368 This function will search the current message for content signed or
369 encrypted with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper
370 MIME tagging. Technically, this function will temporarily change
371 the MIME content types of the body parts containing PGP data; this
372 is similar to the <ref id="edit-type" name="edit-type"> function's
376 <p><bf/display-toggle-weed/<label id="display-toggle-weed"> (default: h)<newline>
378 Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by <ref id="ignore"
379 name="ignore"> commands.
381 <p><bf/edit/<label id="edit"> (default: e)<newline>
383 This command (available in the ``index'' and ``pager'') allows you to
384 edit the raw current message as it's present in the mail folder.
385 After you have finished editing, the changed message will be
386 appended to the current folder, and the original message will be
389 <p><bf/edit-type/<label id="edit-type"><newline>
390 (default: ^E on the attachment menu, and in the pager and index menus; ^T on the
393 This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's content
394 type to fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When
395 invoked from the index or from the pager, you'll have the
396 opportunity to edit the top-level attachment's content type. On the
397 <ref id="attach_menu" name="attachment menu">, you can change any
398 attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get
399 lost upon changing folders.
401 Note that this command is also available on the <ref
402 id="compose_menu" name="compose menu">. There, it's used to
403 fine-tune the properties of attachments you are going to send.
405 <p><bf/enter-command/<label id="enter-command"> (default: ``:'')<newline>
407 This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a
408 configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or
409 in conjunction with <ref id="macro" name="macros"> to change settings on the
412 <p><bf/extract-keys/<label id="extract-keys"> (default: ^K)<newline>
414 This command extracts PGP public keys from the current or tagged
415 message(s) and adds them to your PGP public key ring.
417 <p><bf/forget-passphrase/<label id="forget-passphrase"> (default:
420 This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if
421 you misspelled the passphrase.
423 <p><bf/list-reply/<label id="list-reply"> (default: L)<newline>
425 Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which
426 match the regular expressions given by the <ref id="lists" name="lists or subscribe">
427 commands, but also honor any <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header(s) if the
428 <ref id="honor_followup_to" name="$honor_followup_to">
429 configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages posted
430 to mailing lists helps avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of
431 the message you are replying to.
433 <bf/pipe-message/<label id="pipe-message"> (default: |)<newline>
435 Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or
436 tagged message(s) to it. The variables <ref id="pipe_decode"
437 name="$pipe_decode">, <ref id="pipe_split"
438 name="$pipe_split">, <ref id="pipe_sep"
439 name="$pipe_sep"> and <ref id="wait_key"
440 name="$wait_key"> control the exact behaviour of this
443 <bf/resend-message/<label id="resend-message"> (default: ESC e)<newline>
445 With resend-message, mutt takes the current message as a template for a
446 new message. This function is best described as "recall from arbitrary
447 folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while
448 preserving the original mail structure. Note that the amount of headers
449 included here depends on the value of the <ref id="weed" name="$weed">
452 This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use this
453 to easily resend a message which was included with a bounce message
454 as a message/rfc822 body part.
456 <bf/shell-escape/<label id="shell-escape"> (default: !)<newline>
458 Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <ref
459 id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> can be used to control
460 whether Mutt will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns
461 (presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on
462 the return status of the named command.
464 <bf/toggle-quoted/<label id="toggle-quoted"> (default: T)<newline>
466 The <em/pager/ uses the <ref id="quote_regexp"
467 name="$quote_regexp"> variable to detect quoted text when
468 displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the display
469 of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when
470 are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of
471 quoted text in the way.
473 <bf/skip-quoted/<label id="skip-quoted"> (default: S)<newline>
475 This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come
476 after a line of quoted text in the internal pager.
481 The following bindings are available in the <em/index/ for sending
485 m compose compose a new message
486 r reply reply to sender
487 g group-reply reply to all recipients
488 L list-reply reply to mailing list address
489 f forward forward message
490 b bounce bounce (remail) message
491 ESC k mail-key mail a PGP public key to someone
494 Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you
495 specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or
496 modify the message you are forwarding. These items are discussed
497 in greater detail in the next chapter <ref id="forwarding_mail"
498 name="``Forwarding and Bouncing Mail''">.
500 Mutt will then enter the <em/compose/ menu and prompt you for the
501 recipients to place on the ``To:'' header field. Next, it will ask
502 you for the ``Subject:'' field for the message, providing a default if
503 you are replying to or forwarding a message. See also <ref id="askcc"
504 name="$askcc">, <ref id="askbcc" name="$askbcc">, <ref
505 id="autoedit" name="$autoedit">, <ref id="bounce"
506 name="$bounce">, and <ref id="fast_reply"
507 name="$fast_reply"> for changing how Mutt asks these
510 Mutt will then automatically start your <ref id="editor"
511 name="$editor"> on the message body. If the <ref id="edit_headers"
512 name="$edit_headers"> variable is set, the headers will be at
513 the top of the message in your editor. Any messages you are replying
514 to will be added in sort order to the message, with appropriate <ref
515 id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="indent_string"
516 name="$indent_string"> and <ref id="post_indent_string"
517 name="$post_indent_string">. When forwarding a
518 message, if the <ref id="mime_forward" name="$mime_forward">
519 variable is unset, a copy of the forwarded message will be included. If
520 you have specified a <ref id="signature" name="$signature">, it
521 will be appended to the message.
523 Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
524 returned to the <em/compose/ menu. The following options are available:
527 a attach-file attach a file
528 A attach-message attach message(s) to the message
529 ESC k attach-key attach a PGP public key
530 d edit-description edit description on attachment
531 D detach-file detach a file
532 t edit-to edit the To field
533 ESC f edit-from edit the From field
534 r edit-reply-to edit the Reply-To field
535 c edit-cc edit the Cc field
536 b edit-bcc edit the Bcc field
537 y send-message send the message
538 s edit-subject edit the Subject
539 S smime-menu select S/MIME options
540 f edit-fcc specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox
541 p pgp-menu select PGP options
542 P postpone-message postpone this message until later
543 q quit quit (abort) sending the message
544 w write-fcc write the message to a folder
545 i ispell check spelling (if available on your system)
546 ^F forget-passphrase wipe passphrase(s) from memory
549 <bf/Note:/ The attach-message function will prompt you for a folder to
550 attach messages from. You can now tag messages in that folder and they
551 will be attached to the message you are sending. Note that certain
552 operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are
553 not permitted when you are in that folder. The %r in <ref
554 id="status_format" name="$status_format"> will change to
555 a 'A' to indicate that you are in attach-message mode.
557 <sect2>Editing the message header
559 When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of
560 special features available.
562 If you specify<newline>
563 <tt/Fcc:/ <em/filename/<newline>
564 Mutt will pick up <em/filename/
565 just as if you had used the <em/edit-fcc/ function in the <em/compose/ menu.
567 You can also attach files to your message by specifying<newline>
568 <tt/Attach:/ <em/filename/ [ <em/description/ ]<newline>
569 where <em/filename/ is the file to attach and <em/description/ is an
570 optional string to use as the description of the attached file.
572 When replying to messages, if you remove the <em/In-Reply-To:/ field from
573 the header field, Mutt will not generate a <em/References:/ field, which
574 allows you to create a new message thread.
576 Also see <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers">.
578 <sect2>Using Mutt with PGP
581 If you want to use PGP, you can specify
583 <tt/Pgp:/ [ <tt/E/ | <tt/S/ | <tt/S/<em/<id>/ ] <newline>
585 ``E'' encrypts, ``S'' signs and
586 ``S<id>'' signs with the given key, setting <ref
587 id="pgp_sign_as" name="$pgp_sign_as"> permanently.
589 If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you
590 through a key selection process when you try to send the message.
591 Mutt will not ask you any questions about keys which have a
592 certified user ID matching one of the message recipients' mail
593 addresses. However, there may be situations in which there are
594 several keys, weakly certified user ID fields, or where no matching
597 In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from
598 which you can select one. When you quit this menu, or mutt can't
599 find any matching keys, you are prompted for a user ID. You can, as
600 usually, abort this prompt using <tt/^G/. When you do so, mutt will
601 return to the compose screen.
603 Once you have successfully finished the key selection, the message
604 will be encrypted using the selected public keys, and sent out.
606 Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also <ref
607 id="pgp_entry_format" name="$pgp_entry_format">)
608 have obvious meanings. But some explanations on the capabilities, flags,
609 and validity fields are in order.
611 The flags sequence (%f) will expand to one of the following flags:
613 R The key has been revoked and can't be used.
614 X The key is expired and can't be used.
615 d You have marked the key as disabled.
616 c There are unknown critical self-signature
620 The capabilities field (%c) expands to a two-character sequence
621 representing a key's capabilities. The first character gives
622 the key's encryption capabilities: A minus sign (<bf/-/) means
623 that the key cannot be used for encryption. A dot (<bf/./) means that
624 it's marked as a signature key in one of the user IDs, but may
625 also be used for encryption. The letter <bf/e/ indicates that
626 this key can be used for encryption.
628 The second character indicates the key's signing capabilities. Once
629 again, a ``<bf/-/'' implies ``not for signing'', ``<bf/./'' implies
630 that the key is marked as an encryption key in one of the user-ids, and
631 ``<bf/s/'' denotes a key which can be used for signing.
633 Finally, the validity field (%t) indicates how well-certified a user-id
634 is. A question mark (<bf/?/) indicates undefined validity, a minus
635 character (<bf/-/) marks an untrusted association, a space character
636 means a partially trusted association, and a plus character (<bf/+/)
637 indicates complete validity.
639 <sect2>Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster.
642 You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an
643 anonymous remailer. Mixmaster permits you to send your messages
644 anonymously using a chain of remailers. Mixmaster support in mutt is for
645 mixmaster version 2.04 (beta 45 appears to be the latest) and 2.03.
646 It does not support earlier versions or the later so-called version 3 betas,
647 of which the latest appears to be called 2.9b23.
649 To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most
650 important, you cannot use the <tt/Cc/ and <tt/Bcc/ headers. To tell
651 Mutt to use mixmaster, you have to select a remailer chain, using
652 the mix function on the compose menu.
654 The chain selection screen is divided into two parts. In the
655 (larger) upper part, you get a list of remailers you may use. In
656 the lower part, you see the currently selected chain of remailers.
658 You can navigate in the chain using the <tt/chain-prev/ and
659 <tt/chain-next/ functions, which are by default bound to the left
660 and right arrows and to the <tt/h/ and <tt/l/ keys (think vi
661 keyboard bindings). To insert a remailer at the current chain
662 position, use the <tt/insert/ function. To append a remailer behind
663 the current chain position, use <tt/select-entry/ or <tt/append/.
664 You can also delete entries from the chain, using the corresponding
665 function. Finally, to abandon your changes, leave the menu, or
666 <tt/accept/ them pressing (by default) the <tt/Return/ key.
668 Note that different remailers do have different capabilities,
669 indicated in the %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see
670 <ref id="mix_entry_format"
671 name="$mix_entry_format">). Most important is
672 the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a capital ``M'': This
673 means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the final
674 element of a chain, but will only forward messages to other
675 mixmaster remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please
676 have a look at the mixmaster documentation.
678 <sect1>Forwarding and Bouncing Mail<label id="forwarding_mail">
681 Bouncing and forwarding let you send an existing message to recipients
682 that you specify. Bouncing a message uses the <ref id="sendmail"
683 name="sendmail"> command to send a copy to alternative addresses as if
684 they were the message's original recipients. Forwarding a message, on
685 the other hand, allows you to modify the message before it is resent
686 (for example, by adding your own comments).
688 The following keys are bound by default:
691 f forward forward message
692 b bounce bounce (remail) message
695 Forwarding can be done by including the original message in the new
696 message's body (surrounded by indicating lines) or including it as a MIME
697 attachment, depending on the value of the <ref id="mime_forward"
698 name="$mime_forward"> variable. Decoding of attachments,
699 like in the pager, can be controlled by the <ref id="forward_decode"
700 name="$forward_decode"> and <ref id="mime_forward_decode"
701 name="$mime_forward_decode"> variables,
702 respectively. The desired forwarding format may depend on the content,
703 therefore <em/$mime_forward/ is a quadoption which, for
704 example, can be set to ``ask-no''.
706 The inclusion of headers is controlled by the current setting of the
707 <ref id="weed" name="$weed"> variable, unless <ref
708 id="mime_forward" name="mime_forward"> is set.
710 Editing the message to forward follows the same procedure as sending or
711 replying to a message does.
713 <sect1>Postponing Mail<label id="postponing_mail">
716 At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have
717 already begun to compose. When the <em/postpone-message/ function is
718 used in the <em/compose/ menu, the body of your message and attachments
719 are stored in the mailbox specified by the <ref id="postponed"
720 name="$postponed"> variable. This means that you can recall the
721 message even if you exit Mutt and then restart it at a later time.
723 Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the
724 command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you <em/compose/ a new
725 message from the <em/index/ or <em/pager/ you will be prompted if postponed
726 messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the
727 <em/postponed/ menu will pop up and you can select which message you would
730 <bf/Note:/ If you postpone a reply to a message, the reply setting of
731 the message is only updated when you actually finish the message and
732 send it. Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you
733 replied to for the status of the message to be updated.
735 See also the <ref id="postpone" name="$postpone"> quad-option.
737 <sect1>Reading news via NNTP<label id="reading_news">
740 If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt can read news from newsserver
741 via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with function ``change-newsgroup''
742 (default: i). Default newsserver can be obtained from <em/NNTPSERVER/
743 environment variable. Like other news readers, info about subscribed
744 newsgroups is saved in file by <ref id="newsrc" name="$newsrc">
745 variable. Article headers are cached and can be loaded from file when
746 newsgroup entered instead loading from newsserver.
751 While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng usable right out
752 of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt to suit your own tastes. When
753 Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system'' configuration
754 file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the ``-n'' <ref
755 id="commandline" name="command line"> option is specified. This file is
756 typically <tt>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc</tt> or <tt>/etc/Muttngrc</tt>,
757 Mutt-ng users will find this file in <tt>/usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc</tt> or
758 <tt>/etc/Muttngrc</tt>. Mutt will next look for a file named <tt>.muttrc</tt>
759 in your home directory, Mutt-ng will look for <tt>.muttngrc</tt>. If this file
760 does not exist and your home directory has a subdirectory named <tt/.mutt/,
761 mutt try to load a file named <tt>.muttng/muttngrc</tt>.
763 <tt>.muttrc</tt> (or <tt>.muttngrc</tt> for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will
764 usually place your <ref id="commands" name="commands"> to configure Mutt.
766 In addition, mutt supports version specific configuration files that are
767 parsed instead of the default files as explained above. For instance, if
768 your system has a <tt/Muttrc-0.88/ file in the system configuration
769 directory, and you are running version 0.88 of mutt, this file will be
770 sourced instead of the <tt/Muttrc/ file. The same is true of the user
771 configuration file, if you have a file <tt/.muttrc-0.88.6/ in your home
772 directory, when you run mutt version 0.88.6, it will source this file
773 instead of the default <tt/.muttrc/ file. The version number is the
774 same which is visible using the ``-v'' <ref id="commandline"
775 name="command line"> switch or using the <tt/show-version/ key (default:
776 V) from the index menu.
778 <sect1>Syntax of Initialization Files<label id="muttrc-syntax">
781 An initialization file consists of a series of <ref id="commands"
782 name="commands">. Each line of the file may contain one or more commands.
783 When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (;).
785 set realname='Mutt user' ; ignore x-
787 The hash mark, or pound sign
788 (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to
789 annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character
790 to the end of the line is ignored. For example,
793 my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment
796 Single quotes (') and double quotes (&dquot;) can be used to quote strings
797 which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between
798 the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs,
799 namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is
800 not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see
801 next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which
802 should be evaluated. For example, backtics are evaluated inside of double
803 quotes, but <bf/not/ for single quotes.
805 \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh.
806 For example, if want to put quotes ``&dquot;'' inside of a string, you can use
807 ``\'' to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted
810 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
813 ``\\'' means to insert a literal ``\'' into the line.
814 ``\n'' and ``\r'' have their usual C meanings of linefeed and
815 carriage-return, respectively.
817 A \ at the end of a line can be used to split commands over
818 multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the
819 middle of command names.
821 It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
822 initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in
823 backquotes (``). For example,
825 my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a`
827 The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted before the
828 line is parsed. Note that since initialization files are line oriented, only
829 the first line of output from the Unix command will be substituted.
831 UNIX environments can be accessed like the way it is done in shells like
832 sh and bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a ``$''. For
835 set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME
838 The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs.
839 For a complete list, see the <ref id="commands" name="command reference">.
841 <sect1>Defining/Using aliases<label id="alias">
844 Usage: <tt/alias/ <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
846 It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone
847 you are communicating with. Mutt allows you to create ``aliases'' which map
848 a short string to a full address.
850 <bf/Note:/ if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than
851 one address), you <bf/must/ separate the addresses with a comma (``,'').
853 To remove an alias or aliases (``*'' means all aliases):
855 <tt/unalias/ [ * | <em/key/ <em/.../ ]
858 alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins)
859 alias theguys manny, moe, jack
862 Unlike other mailers, Mutt doesn't require aliases to be defined
863 in a special file. The <tt/alias/ command can appear anywhere in
864 a configuration file, as long as this file is <ref id="source"
865 name="sourced">. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or
866 you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc.
868 On the other hand, the <ref id="create-alias" name="create-alias">
869 function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the <ref
870 id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> variable (which is
871 <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> by default). This file is not special either,
872 in the sense that Mutt will happily append aliases to any file, but in
873 order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitly <ref
874 id="source" name="source"> this file too.
879 source /usr/local/share/Mutt.aliases
880 source ~/.mail_aliases
881 set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases
884 To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where mutt
885 prompts for addresses, such as the <em/To:/ or <em/Cc:/ prompt. You can
886 also enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you have the
887 <ref id="edit_headers" name="$edit_headers"> variable set.
889 In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab character
890 to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple matches,
891 mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to be
892 presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab with out a partial
893 alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma denoting
896 In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the
897 <em/select-entry/ key (default: RET), and use the <em/exit/ key
898 (default: q) to return to the address prompt.
900 <sect1>Changing the default key bindings<label id="bind">
902 Usage: <tt/bind/ <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
904 This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation
905 invoked when pressing a key).
907 <em/map/ specifies in which menu the binding belongs. Multiple maps may
908 be specified by separating them with commas (no additional whitespace is
909 allowed). The currently defined maps are:
914 This is not a real menu, but is used as a fallback for all of the other
915 menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not defined in
916 another menu, Mutt will look for a binding to use in this menu. This allows
917 you to bind a key to a certain function in multiple menus instead of having
918 multiple bind statements to accomplish the same task.
920 The alias menu is the list of your personal aliases as defined in your
921 muttrc. It is the mapping from a short alias name to the full email
922 address(es) of the recipient(s).
924 The attachment menu is used to access the attachments on received messages.
926 The browser is used for both browsing the local directory structure, and for
927 listing all of your incoming mailboxes.
929 The editor is the line-based editor the user enters text data.
931 The index is the list of messages contained in a mailbox.
933 The compose menu is the screen used when sending a new message.
935 The pager is the mode used to display message/attachment data, and help
938 The pgp menu is used to select the OpenPGP keys used for encrypting outgoing
941 The postpone menu is similar to the index menu, except is used when
942 recalling a message the user was composing, but saved until later.
945 <em/key/ is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a
946 control character, use the sequence <em/\Cx/, where <em/x/ is the
947 letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use
948 ``\Ca''). Note that the case of <em/x/ as well as <em/\C/ is
949 ignored, so that <em/\CA/, <em/\Ca/, <em/\cA/ and <em/\ca/ are all
950 equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit
951 octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example <em/\177/ is
952 equivalent to <em/\c?/).
954 In addition, <em/key/ may consist of:
969 <backspace> Backspace
978 <f10> function key 10
981 <em/key/ does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a
984 <em/function/ specifies which action to take when <em/key/ is pressed.
985 For a complete list of functions, see the <ref id="functions"
986 name="reference">. The special function <tt/noop/ unbinds the specified key
989 <sect1>Defining aliases for character sets <label id="charset-hook">
991 Usage: <tt/charset-hook/ <em/alias/ <em/charset/<newline>
992 Usage: <tt/iconv-hook/ <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
994 The <tt/charset-hook/ command defines an alias for a character set.
995 This is useful to properly display messages which are tagged with a
996 character set name not known to mutt.
998 The <tt/iconv-hook/ command defines a system-specific name for a
999 character set. This is helpful when your systems character
1000 conversion library insists on using strange, system-specific names
1004 <sect1>Setting variables based upon mailbox<label id="folder-hook">
1006 Usage: <tt/folder-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/command/
1008 It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are
1009 reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute
1010 any configuration command. <em/regexp/ is a regular expression specifying
1011 in which mailboxes to execute <em/command/ before loading. If a mailbox
1012 matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in the
1015 <bf/Note:/ if you use the ``!'' shortcut for <ref id="spoolfile"
1016 name="$spoolfile"> at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it
1017 inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the
1018 logical <em/not/ operator for the expression.
1020 Note that the settings are <em/not/ restored when you leave the mailbox.
1021 For example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting method
1022 based upon the mailbox being read:
1025 folder-hook mutt set sort=threads
1028 However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when
1029 reading a different mailbox. To specify a <em/default/ command, use the
1034 folder-hook . set sort=date-sent
1037 <sect1>Keyboard macros<label id="macro">
1039 Usage: <tt/macro/ <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
1041 Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of
1042 actions. When you press <em/key/ in menu <em/menu/, Mutt will behave as if
1043 you had typed <em/sequence/. So if you have a common sequence of commands
1044 you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a single
1047 <em/menu/ is the <ref id="maps" name="map"> which the macro will be bound.
1048 Multiple maps may be specified by separating multiple menu arguments by
1049 commas. Whitespace may not be used in between the menu arguments and the
1050 commas separating them.
1052 <em/key/ and <em/sequence/ are expanded by the same rules as the <ref
1053 id="bind" name="key bindings">. There are some additions however. The
1054 first is that control characters in <em/sequence/ can also be specified
1055 as <em/ˆx/. In order to get a caret (`ˆ'') you need to use
1056 <em/ˆˆ/. Secondly, to specify a certain key such as <em/up/
1057 or to invoke a function directly, you can use the format
1058 <em/<key name>/ and <em/<function name>/. For a listing of key
1059 names see the section on <ref id="bind" name="key bindings">. Functions
1060 are listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
1062 The advantage with using function names directly is that the macros will
1063 work regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not dependent on
1064 the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more robust
1065 and portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files used by more
1066 than one user (eg. the system Muttrc).
1068 Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after <em/sequence/,
1069 which is shown in the help screens.
1071 <bf/Note:/ Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are
1072 silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped.
1074 <sect1>Using color and mono video attributes<label id="color">
1076 Usage: <tt/color/ <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
1077 Usage: <tt/color/ index <em/foreground/ <em/background/ <em/pattern/<newline>
1078 Usage: <tt/uncolor/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
1080 If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt by creating your own
1081 color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information), you
1082 must specify both a foreground color <bf/and/ a background color (it is not
1083 possible to only specify one or the other).
1085 <em/object/ can be one of:
1089 <item>body (match <em/regexp/ in the body of messages)
1090 <item>bold (hiliting bold patterns in the body of messages)
1091 <item>error (error messages printed by Mutt)
1092 <item>header (match <em/regexp/ in the message header)
1093 <item>hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
1094 <item>index (match <em/pattern/ in the message index)
1095 <item>indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu)
1096 <item>markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in the pager)
1097 <item>message (informational messages)
1099 <item>quoted (text matching <ref id="quote_regexp"
1100 name="$quote_regexp"> in the body of a message)
1101 <item>quoted1, quoted2, ..., quoted<bf/N/ (higher levels of quoting)
1102 <item>search (hiliting of words in the pager)
1104 <item>status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message)
1105 <item>tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager)
1106 <item>tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu)
1107 <item>underline (hiliting underlined patterns in the body of messages)
1110 <em/foreground/ and <em/background/ can be one of the following:
1125 <em/foreground/ can optionally be prefixed with the keyword <tt/bright/ to make
1126 the foreground color boldfaced (e.g., <tt/brightred/).
1128 If your terminal supports it, the special keyword <em/default/ can be
1129 used as a transparent color. The value <em/brightdefault/ is also valid.
1130 If Mutt is linked against the <em/S-Lang/ library, you also need to set
1131 the <em/COLORFGBG/ environment variable to the default colors of your
1132 terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells):
1135 set COLORFGBG="green;black"
1139 <bf/Note:/ The <em/S-Lang/ library requires you to use the <em/lightgray/
1140 and <em/brown/ keywords instead of <em/white/ and <em/yellow/ when
1141 setting this variable.
1143 <bf/Note:/ The uncolor command can be applied to the index object only. It
1144 removes entries from the list. You <bf/must/ specify the same pattern
1145 specified in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern ``*'' is
1146 a special token which means to clear the color index list of all entries.
1148 Mutt also recognizes the keywords <em/color0/, <em/color1/, …,
1149 <em/color/<bf/N-1/ (<bf/N/ being the number of colors supported
1150 by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your
1151 display (for example by changing the color associated with <em/color2/
1152 for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning.
1154 If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change the video
1155 attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command:
1157 Usage: <tt/mono/ <em/<object> <attribute>/ [ <em/regexp/ ]<newline>
1158 Usage: <tt/mono/ index <em/attribute/ <em/pattern/<newline>
1159 Usage: <tt/unmono/ index <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]<newline>
1161 where <em/attribute/ is one of the following:
1171 <sect1>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers<label id="ignore">
1173 Usage: <tt/[un]ignore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
1175 Messages often have many header fields added by automatic processing systems,
1176 or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This command allows
1177 you to specify header fields which you don't normally want to see.
1179 You do not need to specify the full header field name. For example,
1180 ``ignore content-'' will ignore all header fields that begin with the pattern
1181 ``content-''. ``ignore *'' will ignore all headers.
1183 To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore'' command.
1184 The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt display headers with the given pattern.
1185 For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to ``unignore x-mailer''.
1187 ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list.
1191 # Sven's draconian header weeding
1193 unignore from date subject to cc
1194 unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list:
1198 <sect1>Alternative addresses<label id="alternates">
1200 Usage: <tt/[un]alternates/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
1202 With various functions, mutt will treat messages differently,
1203 depending on whether you sent them or whether you received them from
1204 someone else. For instance, when replying to a message that you
1205 sent to a different party, mutt will automatically suggest to send
1206 the response to the original message's recipients -- responding to
1207 yourself won't make much sense in many cases. (See <ref
1208 id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">.)
1210 Many users receive e-mail under a number of different addresses. To
1211 fully use mutt's features here, the program must be able to
1212 recognize what e-mail addresses you receive mail under. That's the
1213 purpose of the <tt/alternates/ command: It takes a list of regular
1214 expressions, each of which can identify an address under which you
1217 The <tt/unalternates/ command can be used to write exceptions to
1218 <tt/alternates/ patterns. If an address matches something in an
1219 <tt/alternates/ command, but you nonetheless do not think it is
1220 from you, you can list a more precise pattern under an <tt/unalternates/
1223 To remove a regular expression from the <tt/alternates/ list, use the
1224 <tt/unalternates/ command with exactly the same <em/regexp/.
1225 Likewise, if the <em/regexp/ for a <tt/alternates/ command matches
1226 an entry on the <tt/unalternates/ list, that <tt/unalternates/
1227 entry will be removed. If the <em/regexp/ for <tt/unalternates/
1228 is ``*'', <em/all entries/ on <tt/alternates/ will be removed.
1230 <sect1>Mailing lists<label id="lists">
1232 Usage: <tt/[un]lists/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]<newline>
1233 Usage: <tt/[un]subscribe/ <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
1235 Mutt has a few nice features for <ref id="using_lists" name="handling
1236 mailing lists">. In order to take advantage of them, you must
1237 specify which addresses belong to mailing lists, and which mailing
1238 lists you are subscribed to. Once you have done this, the <ref
1239 id="list-reply" name="list-reply"> function will work for all known lists.
1240 Additionally, when you send a message to a subscribed list, mutt will
1241 add a Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail user agents
1242 not to send copies of replies to your personal address. Note that
1243 the Mail-Followup-To header is a non-standard extension which is not
1244 supported by all mail user agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against
1245 receiving personal CCs of list messages. Also note that the generation
1246 of the Mail-Followup-To header is controlled by the <ref id="followup_to"
1247 name="$followup_to"> configuration variable.
1249 More precisely, Mutt maintains lists of patterns for the addresses
1250 of known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing
1251 list is known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the ``lists''
1252 command. To mark it as subscribed, use ``subscribe''.
1254 You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all
1255 messages sent to a specific bug report's address on mutt's bug
1256 tracking system as list mail, for instance, you could say
1257 ``subscribe [0-9]*@bugs.guug.de''. Often, it's sufficient to just
1258 give a portion of the list's e-mail address.
1260 Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For
1261 example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt mailing list, you will receive mail
1262 addresssed to <em/mutt-users@mutt.org/. So, to tell Mutt that this is a
1263 mailing list, you could add ``lists mutt-users'' to your
1264 initialization file. To tell mutt that you are subscribed to it,
1265 add ``subscribe mutt-users'' to your initialization file instead.
1266 If you also happen to get mail from someone whose address is
1267 <em/mutt-users@example.com/, you could use ``lists mutt-users@mutt\\.org''
1268 or ``subscribe mutt-users@mutt\\.org'' to
1269 match only mail from the actual list.
1271 The ``unlists'' command is used to remove a token from the list of
1272 known and subscribed mailing-lists. Use ``unlists *'' to remove all
1275 To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists,
1276 but keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''.
1278 <sect1>Using Multiple spool mailboxes<label id="mbox-hook">
1280 Usage: <tt/mbox-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
1282 This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to a
1283 different mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders.
1284 <em/pattern/ is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a
1285 ``spool'' mailbox and <em/mailbox/ specifies where mail should be saved when
1288 Unlike some of the other <em/hook/ commands, only the <em/first/ matching
1289 pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single
1292 <sect1>Defining mailboxes which receive mail<label id="mailboxes">
1294 Usage: <tt/[un]mailboxes/ [!]<em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
1296 This command specifies folders which can receive mail and
1297 which will be checked for new messages. By default, the
1298 main menu status bar displays how many of these folders have
1301 When changing folders, pressing <em/space/ will cycle
1302 through folders with new mail.
1304 Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the files
1305 specified by the <tt/mailboxes/ command, and indicate which contain new
1306 messages. Mutt will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the
1307 command line with the <tt/-y/ option.
1309 The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list
1310 of folders which receive mail. Use ``unmailboxes *'' to remove all
1314 <bf/Note:/ new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to
1315 the last access time. Utilities like <tt/biff/ or <tt/frm/ or any other
1316 program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt to never detect new mail
1317 for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup
1318 tools are another common reason for updated access times.
1321 <bf/Note:/ the filenames in the <tt/mailboxes/ command are resolved when
1322 the command is executed, so if these names contain <ref id="shortcuts"
1323 name="shortcut characters"> (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable
1324 definition that affect these characters (like <ref id="folder"
1325 name="$folder"> and <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile">)
1326 should be executed before the <tt/mailboxes/ command.
1328 <sect1>User defined headers<label id="my_hdr">
1331 <tt/my_hdr/ <em/string/<newline>
1332 <tt/unmy_hdr/ <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ]
1334 The ``my_hdr'' command allows you to create your own header
1335 fields which will be added to every message you send.
1337 For example, if you would like to add an ``Organization:'' header field to
1338 all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command
1341 my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA
1344 in your <tt/.muttrc/.
1346 <bf/Note:/ space characters are <em/not/ allowed between the keyword and
1347 the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that
1348 space is illegal there, so Mutt enforces the rule.
1350 If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should
1351 either set the <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers"> variable,
1352 or use the <em/edit-headers/ function (default: ``E'') in the send-menu so
1353 that you can edit the header of your message along with the body.
1355 To remove user defined header fields, use the ``unmy_hdr''
1356 command. You may specify an asterisk (``*'') to remove all header
1357 fields, or the fields to remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and
1358 ``Cc'' header fields, you could use:
1364 <sect1>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages<label id="hdr_order">
1366 Usage: <tt/hdr_order/ <em/header1/ <em/header2/ <em/header3/
1368 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt
1369 to present headers to you when viewing messages.
1371 ``unhdr_order *'' will clear all previous headers from the order list,
1372 thus removing the header order effects set by the system-wide startup
1376 hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject:
1379 <sect1>Specify default save filename<label id="save-hook">
1381 Usage: <tt/save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/filename/
1383 This command is used to override the default filename used when saving
1384 messages. <em/filename/ will be used as the default filename if the message is
1385 <em/From:/ an address matching <em/regexp/ or if you are the author and the
1386 message is addressed <em/to:/ something matching <em/regexp/.
1388 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1393 save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins
1394 save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam
1397 Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
1399 <sect1>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing<label id="fcc-hook">
1401 Usage: <tt/fcc-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
1403 This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than
1404 <ref id="record" name="$record">. Mutt searches the initial list of
1405 message recipients for the first matching <em/regexp/ and uses <em/mailbox/
1406 as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved
1407 to <ref id="record" name="$record"> mailbox.
1409 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1411 Example: <tt/fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$ +spammers/
1413 The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to
1414 the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the <ref id="fcc-save-hook"
1415 name="fcc-save-hook"> command.
1417 <sect1>Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once<label
1420 Usage: <tt/fcc-save-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
1422 This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a <ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
1423 and a <ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"> with its arguments.
1425 <sect1>Change settings based upon message recipients<label id="send-hook"><label id="reply-hook"><label id="send2-hook">
1427 Usage: <tt/reply-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
1428 Usage: <tt/send-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/<newline>
1429 Usage: <tt/send2-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
1431 These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based
1432 upon recipients of the message. <em/pattern/ is a regular expression
1433 matching the desired address. <em/command/ is executed when <em/regexp/
1434 matches recipients of the message.
1436 <tt/reply-hook/ is matched against the message you are <em/replying/
1437 <bf/to/, instead of the message you are <em/sending/. <tt/send-hook/ is
1438 matched against all messages, both <em/new/ and <em/replies/. <bf/Note:/
1439 <tt/reply-hook/s are matched <bf/before/ the <tt/send-hook/, <bf/regardless/
1440 of the order specified in the users's configuration file.
1442 <tt/send2-hook/ is matched every time a message is changed, either
1443 by editing it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients
1444 or subject. <tt/send2-hook/ is executed after <tt/send-hook/, and
1445 can, e.g., be used to set parameters such as the <ref id="sendmail"
1446 name="$sendmail"> variable depending on the message's sender
1449 For each type of <tt/send-hook/ or <tt/reply-hook/, when multiple matches
1450 occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc
1451 (for that type of hook).
1453 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1455 Example: <tt/send-hook mutt &dquot;set mime_forward signature=''&dquot;/
1457 Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the
1458 <ref id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="signature"
1459 name="$signature"> and <ref id="locale" name="$locale">
1460 variables in order to change the language of the attributions and
1461 signatures based upon the recipients.
1463 <bf/Note:/ the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial
1464 list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the
1465 message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. Also note that
1466 my_hdr commands which modify recipient headers, or the message's
1467 subject, don't have any effect on the current message when executed
1470 <sect1>Change settings before formatting a message<label id="message-hook">
1472 Usage: <tt/message-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/
1474 This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
1475 before viewing or formatting a message based upon information about the message.
1476 <em/command/ is executed if the <em/pattern/ matches the message to be
1477 displayed. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order
1478 they are specified in the muttrc.
1480 See <ref id="pattern_hook" name="Message Matching in Hooks"> for
1481 information on the exact format of <em/pattern/.
1485 message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin'
1486 message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject: .*\""'
1489 <sect1>Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient<label id="crypt-hook">
1491 Usage: <tt/crypt-hook/ <em/pattern/ <em/keyid/
1493 When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a certain
1494 key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the
1495 recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address,
1496 or because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt would
1497 normally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can
1498 specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to
1499 a certain recipient.
1501 The meaning of "key id" is to be taken broadly in this context: You
1502 can either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even
1505 <sect1>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer<label id="push">
1507 Usage: <tt/push/ <em/string/
1509 This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may
1510 contain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence
1511 string in the <ref id="macro" name="macro"> command. You may use it to
1512 automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering
1515 <sect1>Executing functions<label id="exec">
1517 Usage: <tt/exec/ <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
1519 This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are
1520 listed in the <ref id="functions" name="function reference">.
1521 ``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push <function>''.
1523 <sect1>Message Scoring<label id="score-command">
1525 Usage: <tt/score/ <em/pattern/ <em/value/<newline>
1526 Usage: <tt/unscore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
1528 The <tt/score/ commands adds <em/value/ to a message's score if <em/pattern/
1529 matches it. <em/pattern/ is a string in the format described in the <ref
1530 id="patterns" name="patterns"> section (note: For efficiency reasons, patterns
1531 which scan information not available in the index, such as <tt>˜b</tt>,
1532 <tt>˜B</tt> or <tt>˜h</tt>, may not be used). <em/value/ is a
1533 positive or negative integer. A message's final score is the sum total of all
1534 matching <tt/score/ entries. However, you may optionally prefix <em/value/ with
1535 an equal sign (=) to cause evaluation to stop at a particular entry if there is
1536 a match. Negative final scores are rounded up to 0.
1538 The <tt/unscore/ command removes score entries from the list. You <bf/must/
1539 specify the same pattern specified in the <tt/score/ command for it to be
1540 removed. The pattern ``*'' is a special token which means to clear the list
1541 of all score entries.
1543 <sect1>Spam detection<label id="spam">
1545 Usage: <tt/spam/ <em/pattern/ <em/format/<newline>
1546 Usage: <tt/nospam/ <em/pattern/
1548 Mutt has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters.
1549 By defining your spam patterns with the <tt/spam/ and <tt/nospam/
1550 commands, you can <em/limit/, <em/search/, and <em/sort/ your
1551 mail based on its spam attributes, as determined by the external
1552 filter. You also can display the spam attributes in your index
1553 display using the <tt/%H/ selector in the <ref id="index_format"
1554 name="$index_format"> variable. (Tip: try <tt/%?H?[%H] ?/
1555 to display spam tags only when they are defined for a given message.)
1557 Your first step is to define your external filter's spam patterns using
1558 the <tt/spam/ command. <em/pattern/ should be a regular expression
1559 that matches a header in a mail message. If any message in the mailbox
1560 matches this regular expression, it will receive a ``spam tag'' or
1561 ``spam attribute'' (unless it also matches a <tt/nospam/ pattern -- see
1562 below.) The appearance of this attribute is entirely up to you, and is
1563 governed by the <em/format/ parameter. <em/format/ can be any static
1564 text, but it also can include back-references from the <em/pattern/
1565 expression. (A regular expression ``back-reference'' refers to a
1566 sub-expression contained within parentheses.) <tt/%1/ is replaced with
1567 the first back-reference in the regex, <tt/%2/ with the second, etc.
1569 If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than
1570 one spam-related header. You can define <tt/spam/ patterns for each
1571 filter you use. If a message matches two or more of these patterns, and
1572 the $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the
1573 message's spam tag will consist of all the <em/format/ strings joined
1574 together, with the value of $spam_separator separating
1577 For example, suppose I use DCC, SpamAssassin, and PureMessage. I might
1578 define these spam settings:
1580 spam "X-DCC-.*-Metrics:.*(....)=many" "90+/DCC-%1"
1581 spam "X-Spam-Status: Yes" "90+/SA"
1582 spam "X-PerlMX-Spam: .*Probability=([0-9]+)%" "%1/PM"
1583 set spam_separator=", "
1586 If I then received a message that DCC registered with ``many'' hits
1587 under the ``Fuz2'' checksum, and that PureMessage registered with a
1588 97% probability of being spam, that message's spam tag would read
1589 <tt>90+/DCC-Fuz2, 97/PM</tt>. (The four characters before ``=many'' in a
1590 DCC report indicate the checksum used -- in this case, ``Fuz2''.)
1592 If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each
1593 spam pattern match supercedes the previous one. Instead of getting
1594 joined <em/format/ strings, you'll get only the last one to match.
1596 The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use
1597 <tt/%H/ in the <tt/$index_format/ variable. It's also the
1598 string that the <tt/~H/ pattern-matching expression matches against for
1599 <em/search/ and <em/limit/ functions. And it's what sorting by spam
1600 attribute will use as a sort key.
1602 That's a pretty complicated example, and most people's actual
1603 environments will have only one spam filter. The simpler your
1604 configuration, the more effective mutt can be, especially when it comes
1607 Generally, when you sort by spam tag, mutt will sort <em/lexically/ --
1608 that is, by ordering strings alphnumerically. However, if a spam tag
1609 begins with a number, mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically
1610 only when two numbers are equal in value. (This is like UNIX's
1611 <tt/sort -n/.) A message with no spam attributes at all -- that is, one
1612 that didn't match <em/any/ of your <tt/spam/ patterns -- is sorted at
1613 lowest priority. Numbers are sorted next, beginning with 0 and ranging
1614 upward. Finally, non-numeric strings are sorted, with ``a'' taking lower
1615 priority than ``z''. Clearly, in general, sorting by spam tags is most
1616 effective when you can coerce your filter to give you a raw number. But
1617 in case you can't, mutt can still do something useful.
1619 The <tt/nospam/ command can be used to write exceptions to <tt/spam/
1620 patterns. If a header pattern matches something in a <tt/spam/ command,
1621 but you nonetheless do not want it to receive a spam tag, you can list a
1622 more precise pattern under a <tt/nospam/ command.
1624 If the <em/pattern/ given to <tt/nospam/ is exactly the same as the
1625 <em/pattern/ on an existing <tt/spam/ list entry, the effect will be to
1626 remove the entry from the spam list, instead of adding an exception.
1627 Likewise, if the <em/pattern/ for a <tt/spam/ command matches an entry
1628 on the <tt/nospam/ list, that <tt/nospam/ entry will be removed. If the
1629 <em/pattern/ for <tt/nospam/ is ``*'', <em/all entries on both lists/
1630 will be removed. This might be the default action if you use <tt/spam/
1631 and <tt/nospam/ in conjunction with a <tt/folder-hook/.
1633 You can have as many <tt/spam/ or <tt/nospam/ commands as you like.
1634 You can even do your own primitive spam detection within mutt -- for
1635 example, if you consider all mail from <tt/MAILER-DAEMON/ to be spam,
1636 you can use a <tt/spam/ command like this:
1639 spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999"
1643 <sect1>Setting variables<label id="set">
1645 Usage: <tt/set/ [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
1646 Usage: <tt/toggle/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
1647 Usage: <tt/unset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline>
1648 Usage: <tt/reset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
1650 This command is used to set (and unset) <ref id="variables"
1651 name="configuration variables">. There are four basic types of variables:
1652 boolean, number, string and quadoption. <em/boolean/ variables can be
1653 <em/set/ (true) or <em/unset/ (false). <em/number/ variables can be
1654 assigned a positive integer value.
1656 <em/string/ variables consist of any number of printable characters.
1657 <em/strings/ must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You
1658 may also use the ``C'' escape sequences <bf/\n/ and <bf/\t/ for
1659 newline and tab, respectively.
1661 <em/quadoption/ variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted
1662 for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of <em/yes/
1663 will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered
1664 yes to the question. Similarly, a value of <em/no/ will cause the the
1665 action to be carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of
1666 <em/ask-yes/ will cause a prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and
1667 <em/ask-no/ will provide a default answer of ``no.''
1669 Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: <tt/set noaskbcc/.
1671 For <em/boolean/ variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with
1672 <tt/inv/ to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing
1673 macros. Example: <tt/set invsmart_wrap/.
1675 The <tt/toggle/ command automatically prepends the <tt/inv/ prefix to all
1676 specified variables.
1678 The <tt/unset/ command automatically prepends the <tt/no/ prefix to all
1679 specified variables.
1681 Using the enter-command function in the <em/index/ menu, you can query the
1682 value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question
1689 The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption
1692 The <tt/reset/ command resets all given variables to the compile time
1693 defaults (hopefully mentioned in this manual). If you use the command
1694 <tt/set/ and prefix the variable with ``&'' this has the same
1695 behavior as the reset command.
1697 With the <tt/reset/ command there exists the special variable ``all'',
1698 which allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults.
1700 <sect1>Reading initialization commands from another file<label id="source">
1702 Usage: <tt/source/ <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
1704 This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands
1705 from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in
1706 <tt>˜/.mail_aliases</tt> so that I can make my
1707 <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> readable and keep my aliases private.
1709 If the filename begins with a tilde (``˜''), it will be expanded to the
1710 path of your home directory.
1712 If the filename ends with a vertical bar (|), then <em/filename/ is
1713 considered to be an executable program from which to read input (eg.
1714 <tt>source ~/bin/myscript|</tt>).
1716 <sect1>Removing hooks<label id="unhook">
1718 Usage: <tt/unhook/ [ * | <em/hook-type/ ]
1720 This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined.
1721 You can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an
1722 argument, or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying
1723 something like <tt/unhook send-hook/.
1725 <sect>Advanced Usage
1727 <sect1>Regular Expressions<label id="regexp">
1729 All string patterns in Mutt including those in more complex
1730 <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> must be specified
1731 using regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX extended'' syntax (which
1732 is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your
1733 convenience, we have included below a brief description of this syntax.
1735 The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper
1736 case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\''
1737 must be quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization
1738 command: ``\\''.
1740 A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings.
1741 Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic
1742 expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
1744 Note that the regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either &dquot;
1745 or ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space
1746 character. See <ref id="muttrc-syntax" name="Syntax of Initialization Files">
1747 for more information on &dquot; and ' delimiter processing. To match a
1748 literal &dquot; or ' you must preface it with \ (backslash).
1750 The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match
1751 a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits,
1752 are regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with
1753 special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
1755 The period ``.'' matches any single character. The caret ``ˆ'' and
1756 the dollar sign ``&dollar'' are metacharacters that respectively match
1757 the empty string at the beginning and end of a line.
1759 A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``]'' matches any
1760 single character in that list; if the first character of the list
1761 is a caret ``ˆ'' then it matches any character <bf/not/ in the
1762 list. For example, the regular expression <bf/[0123456789]/
1763 matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified
1764 by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen
1765 ``‐''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
1766 lists. To include a literal ``]'' place it first in the list.
1767 Similarly, to include a literal ``ˆ'' place it anywhere but first.
1768 Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``‐'' place it last.
1770 Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes
1771 consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''.
1772 The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard:
1775 <tag/[:alnum:]/
1776 Alphanumeric characters.
1777 <tag/[:alpha:]/
1778 Alphabetic characters.
1779 <tag/[:blank:]/
1780 Space or tab characters.
1781 <tag/[:cntrl:]/
1783 <tag/[:digit:]/
1785 <tag/[:graph:]/
1786 Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable,
1787 but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.)
1788 <tag/[:lower:]/
1789 Lower-case alphabetic characters.
1790 <tag/[:print:]/
1791 Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.)
1792 <tag/[:punct:]/
1793 Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control
1794 characters, or space characters).
1795 <tag/[:space:]/
1796 Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few).
1797 <tag/[:upper:]/
1798 Upper-case alphabetic characters.
1799 <tag/[:xdigit:]/
1800 Characters that are hexadecimal digits.
1803 A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the
1804 brackets of a character list. Note that the brackets in these
1805 class names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included
1806 in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket list. For
1807 example, <bf/[[:digit:]]/ is equivalent to
1808 <bf/[0-9]/.
1810 Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These
1811 apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols (called
1812 collating elements) that are represented with more than one character,
1813 as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating or
1817 <tag/Collating Symbols/
1818 A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed in
1819 ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating
1820 element, then <bf/[[.ch.]]/ is a regexp that matches
1821 this collating element, while <bf/[ch]/ is a regexp that
1822 matches either ``c'' or ``h''.
1823 <tag/Equivalence Classes/
1824 An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of
1825 characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in ``[=''
1826 and ``=]''. For example, the name ``e'' might be used to
1827 represent all of ``è'' ``é'' and ``e''. In this case,
1828 <bf/[[=e=]]/ is a regexp that matches any of
1829 ``è'', ``é'' and ``e''.
1832 A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one
1833 of several repetition operators:
1837 The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
1839 The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
1841 The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
1843 The preceding item is matched exactly <em/n/ times.
1844 <tag/{n,}/
1845 The preceding item is matched <em/n/ or more times.
1846 <tag/{,m}/
1847 The preceding item is matched at most <em/m/ times.
1848 <tag/{n,m}/
1849 The preceding item is matched at least <em/n/ times, but no more than
1853 Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular
1854 expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings
1855 that respectively match the concatenated subexpressions.
1857 Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator ``|'';
1858 the resulting regular expression matches any string matching either
1861 Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes
1862 precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in
1863 parentheses to override these precedence rules.
1865 <bf/Note:/ If you compile Mutt with the GNU <em/rx/ package, the
1866 following operators may also be used in regular expressions:
1870 Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word.
1872 Matches the empty string within a word.
1873 <tag/\\</
1874 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word.
1875 <tag/\\>/
1876 Matches the empty string at the end of a word.
1878 Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or underscore).
1880 Matches any character that is not word-constituent.
1882 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string).
1884 Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer.
1887 Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so
1888 they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems.
1890 <sect1>Patterns<label id="patterns">
1892 Many of Mutt's commands allow you to specify a pattern to match
1893 (limit, tag-pattern, delete-pattern, etc.). There are several ways to select
1898 ~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body
1899 ~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole message
1900 ~c USER messages carbon-copied to USER
1901 ~C EXPR message is either to: or cc: EXPR
1903 ~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range
1905 ~e EXPR message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field
1907 ~f USER messages originating from USER
1908 ~g cryptographically signed messages
1909 ~G cryptographically encrypted messages
1910 ~H EXPR messages with a spam attribute matching EXPR
1911 ~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message header
1912 ~k message contains PGP key material
1913 ~i ID message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field
1914 ~L EXPR message is either originated or received by EXPR
1915 ~l message is addressed to a known mailing list
1916 ~m [MIN]-[MAX] message in the range MIN to MAX *)
1917 ~n [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)
1920 ~p message is addressed to you (consults alternates)
1921 ~P message is from you (consults alternates)
1922 ~Q messages which have been replied to
1924 ~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range
1925 ~S superseded messages
1926 ~s SUBJECT messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field.
1928 ~t USER messages addressed to USER
1930 ~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
1931 ~V cryptographically verified messages
1932 ~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field
1933 ~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field
1934 ~z [MIN]-[MAX] messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)
1935 ~= duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)
1936 ~$ unreferenced messages (requires threaded view)
1937 ~* ``From'' contains realname and (syntactically) valid
1938 address (excluded are addresses matching against
1939 alternates or any alias)
1942 Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are
1943 <ref id="regexp" name="regular expressions">. Special attention has to be
1944 made when using regular expressions inside of patterns. Specifically,
1945 Mutt's parser for these patterns will strip one level of backslash (\),
1946 which is normally used for quoting. If it is your intention to use a
1947 backslash in the regular expression, you will need to use two backslashes
1950 *) The forms <tt/<[MAX]/, <tt/>[MIN]/,
1951 <tt/[MIN]-/ and <tt/-[MAX]/
1954 <sect2>Pattern Modifier
1957 Note that patterns matching 'lists' of addresses (notably c,C,p,P and t)
1958 match if there is at least one match in the whole list. If you want to
1959 make sure that all elements of that list match, you need to prefix your
1961 This example matches all mails which only has recipients from Germany.
1967 <sect2>Complex Patterns
1970 Logical AND is performed by specifying more than one criterion. For
1977 would select messages which contain the word ``mutt'' in the list of
1978 recipients <bf/and/ that have the word ``elkins'' in the ``From'' header
1981 Mutt also recognizes the following operators to create more complex search
1985 <item>! -- logical NOT operator
1986 <item>| -- logical OR operator
1987 <item>() -- logical grouping operator
1990 Here is an example illustrating a complex search pattern. This pattern will
1991 select all messages which do not contain ``mutt'' in the ``To'' or ``Cc''
1992 field and which are from ``elkins''.
1995 !(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins
1998 Here is an example using white space in the regular expression (note
1999 the ' and &dquot; delimiters). For this to match, the mail's subject must
2000 match the ``^Junk +From +Me$'' and it must be from either ``Jim +Somebody''
2001 or ``Ed +SomeoneElse'':
2004 '~s "^Junk +From +Me$" ~f ("Jim +Somebody"|"Ed +SomeoneElse")'
2007 Note that if a regular expression contains parenthesis, or a veritical bar
2008 ("|"), you <bf/must/ enclose the expression in double or single quotes since
2009 those characters are also used to separate different parts of Mutt's
2010 pattern language. For example,
2013 ~f "me@(mutt\.org|cs\.hmc\.edu)"
2016 Without the quotes, the parenthesis wouldn't end.
2017 This would be seperated to two OR'd patterns: <em/˜f me@(mutt\.org/
2018 and <em/cs\.hmc\.edu)/. They are never what you want.
2020 <sect2>Searching by Date
2022 Mutt supports two types of dates, <em/absolute/ and <em/relative/.
2024 <bf/Absolute/. Dates <bf/must/ be in DD/MM/YY format (month and year are
2025 optional, defaulting to the current month and year). An example of a valid
2029 Limit to messages matching: ~d 20/1/95-31/10
2032 If you omit the minimum (first) date, and just specify ``-DD/MM/YY'', all
2033 messages <em/before/ the given date will be selected. If you omit the maximum
2034 (second) date, and specify ``DD/MM/YY-'', all messages <em/after/ the given
2035 date will be selected. If you specify a single date with no dash (``-''),
2036 only messages sent on the given date will be selected.
2038 <bf/Error Margins/. You can add error margins to absolute dates.
2039 An error margin is a sign (+ or -), followed by a digit, followed by
2040 one of the following units:
2047 As a special case, you can replace the sign by a ``*'' character,
2048 which is equivalent to giving identical plus and minus error margins.
2050 Example: To select any messages two weeks around January 15, 2001,
2051 you'd use the following pattern:
2053 Limit to messages matching: ~d 15/1/2001*2w
2057 <bf/Relative/. This type of date is relative to the current date, and may
2060 <item>><em/offset/ (messages older than <em/offset/ units)
2061 <item><<em/offset/ (messages newer than <em/offset/ units)
2062 <item>=<em/offset/ (messages exactly <em/offset/ units old)
2065 <em/offset/ is specified as a positive number with one of the following
2074 Example: to select messages less than 1 month old, you would use
2076 Limit to messages matching: ~d <1m
2081 <bf/Note:/ all dates used when searching are relative to the
2082 <bf/local/ time zone, so unless you change the setting of your <ref
2083 id="index_format" name="$index_format"> to include a
2084 <tt/%[...]/ format, these are <bf/not/ the dates shown
2090 Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of
2091 messages all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be
2092 to save messages to a mailing list to a separate folder, or to
2093 delete all messages with a given subject. To tag all messages
2094 matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to
2095 ``shift-T'' by default. Or you can select individual messages by
2096 hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by
2097 default. See <ref id="patterns" name="patterns"> for Mutt's pattern
2100 Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the
2101 ``tag-prefix'' operator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default.
2102 When the ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the <bf/next/ operation will
2103 be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that
2104 manner. If the <ref id="auto_tag" name="$auto_tag">
2105 variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages
2106 automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''.
2108 In <ref id="macro" name="macros"> or <ref id="push" name="push"> commands,
2109 you can use the ``tag-prefix-cond'' operator. If there are no tagged
2110 messages, mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to abort it's execution.
2111 Mutt will stop "eating" the macro when it encounters the ``end-cond''
2112 operator; after this operator the rest of the macro will be executed as
2115 <sect1>Using Hooks<label id="hooks">
2117 A <em/hook/ is a concept borrowed from the EMACS editor which allows you to
2118 execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation. For example,
2119 you may wish to tailor your configuration based upon which mailbox you are
2120 reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt world, a <em/hook/
2121 consists of a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> or
2122 <ref id="patterns" name="pattern"> along with a
2123 configuration option/command. See
2125 <item><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook">
2126 <item><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook">
2127 <item><ref id="message-hook" name="message-hook">
2128 <item><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook">
2129 <item><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook">
2130 <item><ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">
2131 <item><ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook">
2133 for specific details on each type of <em/hook/ available.
2135 <bf/Note:/ if a hook changes configuration settings, these changes remain
2136 effective until the end of the current mutt session. As this is generally
2137 not desired, a default hook needs to be added before all other hooks to
2138 restore configuration defaults. Here is an example with send-hook and the
2142 send-hook . 'unmy_hdr From:'
2143 send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c
2146 <sect2>Message Matching in Hooks<label id="pattern_hook">
2148 Hooks that act upon messages (<tt/send-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook,
2149 message-hook/) are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other
2150 types of hooks, a <ref id="regexp" name="regular expression"> is
2151 sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain of control is
2152 needed for matching since for different purposes you want to match
2155 Mutt allows the use of the <ref id="patterns" name="search pattern">
2156 language for matching messages in hook commands. This works in
2157 exactly the same way as it would when <em/limiting/ or
2158 <em/searching/ the mailbox, except that you are restricted to those
2159 operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of
2160 the message (i.e. from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.).
2162 For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending
2163 mail to a specific address, you could do something like:
2165 send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt User <user@host>'
2167 which would execute the given command when sending mail to
2170 However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the
2171 full searching language. You can still specify a simple <em/regular
2172 expression/ like the other hooks, in which case Mutt will translate your
2173 pattern into the full language, using the translation specified by the
2174 <ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> variable. The
2175 pattern is translated at the time the hook is declared, so the value of
2176 <ref id="default_hook" name="$default_hook"> that is in effect
2177 at that time will be used.
2179 <sect1>Usingg the sidebar<label id="sidebar">
2181 The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox listing
2182 which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI mail clients.
2183 The sidebar lists all specified mailboxes, shows the number in each
2184 and highlights the ones with new email
2185 Use the following configuration commands:
2187 set sidebar_visible="yes"
2188 set sidebar_width=25
2191 If you want to specify the mailboxes you can do so with:
2200 You can also specify the colors for mailboxes with new mails by using:
2202 color sidebar_new red black
2205 The available functions are:
2207 sidebar-scroll-up Scrolls the mailbox list up 1 page
2208 sidebar-scroll-down Scrolls the mailbox list down 1 page
2209 sidebar-next Hilights the next mailbox
2210 sidebar-next-new Hilights the next mailbox with new mail
2211 sidebar-previous Hilights the previous mailbox
2212 sidebar-open Opens the currently hilighted mailbox
2215 Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this:
2217 bind index \Cp sidebar-prev
2218 bind index \Cn sidebar-next
2219 bind index \Cb sidebar-open
2220 bind pager \Cp sidebar-prev
2221 bind pager \Cn sidebar-next
2222 bind pager \Cb sidebar-open
2224 macro index B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
2225 macro pager B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
2228 You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and
2229 switch on and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'.
2231 <sect1>External Address Queries<label id="query">
2233 Mutt supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP,
2234 ph/qi, bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt
2235 using a simple interface. Using the <ref id="query_command"
2236 name="$query_command"> variable, you specify the wrapper
2237 command to use. For example:
2240 set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl '%s'"
2243 The wrapper script should accept the query on the command-line. It
2244 should return a one line message, then each matching response on a
2245 single line, each line containing a tab separated address then name then
2246 some other optional information. On error, or if there are no matching
2247 addresses, return a non-zero exit code and a one line error message.
2249 An example multiple response output:
2251 Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching:
2252 me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude
2253 blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more
2254 roessler@guug.de Thomas Roessler mutt pgp
2257 There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of mutt. One
2258 is to do a query from the index menu using the query function (default: Q).
2259 This will prompt for a query, then bring up the query menu which will
2260 list the matching responses. From the query menu, you can select
2261 addresses to create aliases, or to mail. You can tag multiple addresses
2262 to mail, start a new query, or have a new query appended to the current
2265 The other mechanism for accessing the query function is for address
2266 completion, similar to the alias completion. In any prompt for address
2267 entry, you can use the complete-query function (default: ^T) to run a
2268 query based on the current address you have typed. Like aliases, mutt
2269 will look for what you have typed back to the last space or comma. If
2270 there is a single response for that query, mutt will expand the address
2271 in place. If there are multiple responses, mutt will activate the query
2272 menu. At the query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be
2273 added to the prompt.
2275 <sect1>Mailbox Formats
2277 Mutt supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
2278 mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there
2279 is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new
2280 mailboxes, Mutt uses the default specified with the <ref id="mbox_type"
2281 name="$mbox_type"> variable.
2283 <bf/mbox/. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All
2284 messages are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the form:
2287 From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST
2290 to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the
2291 ``From_'' line).
2293 <bf/MMDF/. This is a variant of the <em/mbox/ format. Each message is
2294 surrounded by lines containing ``^A^A^A^A'' (four control-A's).
2296 <bf/MH/. A radical departure from <em/mbox/ and <em/MMDF/, a mailbox
2297 consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file.
2298 The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not
2299 correspond to the message number Mutt displays). Deleted messages are
2300 renamed with a comma (,) prepended to the filename. <bf/Note:/ Mutt
2301 detects this type of mailbox by looking for either <tt/.mh_sequences/
2302 or <tt/.xmhcache/ (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH
2305 <bf/Maildir/. The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a
2306 replacement for sendmail). Similar to <em/MH/, except that it adds three
2307 subdirectories of the mailbox: <em/tmp/, <em/new/ and <em/cur/. Filenames
2308 for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when two
2309 programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking
2312 <sect1>Mailbox Shortcuts<label id="shortcuts">
2314 There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes.
2315 These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox
2319 <item>! -- refers to your <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile"> (incoming) mailbox
2320 <item>> -- refers to your <ref id="mbox" name="$mbox"> file
2321 <item>< -- refers to your <ref id="record" name="$record"> file
2322 <item>- or !! -- refers to the file you've last visited
2323 <item>˜ -- refers to your home directory
2324 <item>= or + -- refers to your <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> directory
2325 <item>@<em/alias/ -- refers to the <ref id="save-hook"
2326 name="default save folder"> as determined by the address of the alias
2329 <sect1>Handling Mailing Lists<label id="using_lists">
2332 Mutt has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
2333 amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt
2334 know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically
2335 this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most
2336 often used for), and what lists you are subscribed to. This is
2337 accomplished through the use of the <ref id="lists"
2338 name="lists and subscribe"> commands in your muttrc.
2340 Now that Mutt knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
2341 things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list
2342 through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in
2343 the <em/index/ menu display. This is useful to distinguish between
2344 personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the <ref id="index_format"
2345 name="$index_format"> variable, the escape ``%L''
2346 will return the string ``To <list>'' when ``list'' appears in the
2347 ``To'' field, and ``Cc <list>'' when it appears in the ``Cc''
2348 field (otherwise it returns the name of the author).
2350 Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages
2351 tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the
2352 author of the message they are reply to from the list, resulting in
2353 two or more copies being sent to that person. The ``list-reply''
2354 function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the <em/index/ menu
2355 and <em/pager/, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the
2356 known mailing list addresses instead of all recipients (except as
2357 specified by <tt/Mail-Followup-To/, see below).
2359 Mutt also supports the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header. When you send
2360 a message to a list of recipients which includes one or several
2361 subscribed mailing lists, and if the <ref id="followup_to"
2362 name="$followup_to"> option is set, mutt will generate
2363 a Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom
2364 you send this message, but not your address. This indicates that
2365 group-replies or list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this
2366 message should only be sent to the original recipients of the
2367 message, and not separately to you - you'll receive your copy through
2368 one of the mailing lists you are subscribed to.
2370 Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which
2371 has a <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header, mutt will respect this header if
2372 the <ref id="honor_followup_to"
2373 name="$honor_followup_to"> configuration
2374 variable is set. Using list-reply will in this case also make sure
2375 that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if it's not specified
2376 in the list of recipients in the <tt/Mail-Followup-To/.
2378 Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a
2379 <tt/Mail-Followup-To/ header manually. Mutt will only auto-generate
2380 this header if it doesn't exist when you send the message.
2383 The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a
2384 ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather
2385 than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying
2386 to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients
2387 will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To''
2388 field. Mutt uses the <ref id="reply_to" name="$reply_to">
2389 variable to help decide which address to use. If set to <em/ask-yes/ or
2390 <em/ask-no/, you will be
2391 prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in
2392 the ``Reply-To'' field, or reply directly to the address given in the
2393 ``From'' field. When set to <em/yes/, the ``Reply-To'' field will be used when
2396 The ``X-Label:'' header field can be used to further identify mailing
2397 lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages
2398 individually). The <ref id="index_format"
2399 name="$index_format"> variable's ``%y'' and
2400 ``%Y'' escapes can be used to expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the
2401 index, and Mutt's pattern-matcher can match regular expressions to
2402 ``X-Label:'' fields with the ``~y'' selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a
2403 standard message header field, but it can easily be inserted by procmail
2404 and other mail filtering agents.
2406 Lastly, Mutt has the ability to <ref id="sort" name="sort"> the mailbox into
2407 <ref id="threads" name="threads">. A thread is a group of messages which all relate to the same
2408 subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a
2409 message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever
2410 used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes dealing
2411 with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete
2412 uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value.
2414 <sect1>Editing threads
2416 Mutt has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
2417 either by misconfigured software or bad behaviour from some
2418 correspondents. This allows to clean your mailboxes formats) from these
2419 annoyances which make it hard to follow a discussion.
2421 If you want to use these functions with IMAP, you need to compile Mutt
2422 with the <em/--enable-imap-edit-threads/ configure flag.
2424 <sect2>Linking threads
2427 Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and
2428 "References:" headers when replying to a message. This results in broken
2429 discussions because Mutt has not enough information to guess the correct
2431 You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to the parent message
2432 and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by default). The
2433 reply will then be connected to this "parent" message.
2435 You can also connect multiple childs at once, tagging them and using the
2436 tag-prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option.
2438 <sect2>Breaking threads
2441 On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new
2442 discussion by hitting "reply" to any message from the list and changing
2443 the subject to a totally unrelated one.
2444 You can fix such threads by using the ``break-thread'' function (bound
2445 by default to #), which will turn the subthread starting from the
2446 current message into a whole different thread.
2448 <sect1>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support
2451 RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information
2452 about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as
2453 ``return receipts.'' Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command
2454 line options in which the mail client can make requests as to what type
2455 of status messages should be returned.
2457 To support this, there are two variables. <ref id="dsn_notify"
2458 name="$dsn_notify"> is used to request receipts for
2459 different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.).
2460 <ref id="dsn_return" name="$dsn_return"> requests how much
2461 of your message should be returned with the receipt (headers or full
2462 message). Refer to the man page on sendmail for more details on DSN.
2464 <sect1>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL)
2467 If Mutt was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <em/configure/
2468 script with the <em/--enable-pop/ flag), it has the ability to work
2469 with mailboxes located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local
2472 You can access the remote POP3 mailbox by selecting the folder
2473 <tt>pop://popserver/</tt>.
2475 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, ie:
2476 <tt>pop://popserver:port/</tt>.
2478 You can also specify different username for each folder, ie:
2479 <tt>pop://username@popserver[:port]/</tt>.
2481 Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
2482 reason the frequency at which Mutt will check for mail remotely can be
2484 <ref id="pop_checkinterval" name="$pop_checkinterval">
2485 variable, which defaults to every 60 seconds.
2487 If Mutt was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
2488 script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to POP3 servers
2489 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
2490 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with POP3/SSL, you should
2491 use pops: prefix, ie:
2492 <tt>pops://[username@]popserver[:port]/</tt>.
2494 Another way to access your POP3 mail is the <em/fetch-mail/ function
2495 (default: G). It allows to connect to <ref id="pop_host"
2496 name="pop_host">, fetch all your new mail and place it in the
2497 local <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile">. After this
2498 point, Mutt runs exactly as if the mail had always been local.
2500 <bf/Note:/ If you only need to fetch all messages to local mailbox
2501 you should consider using a specialized program, such as <htmlurl
2502 url="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail" name="fetchmail">
2504 <sect1>IMAP Support (OPTIONAL)
2507 If Mutt was compiled with IMAP support (by running the <em/configure/
2508 script with the <em/--enable-imap/ flag), it has the ability to work
2509 with folders located on a remote IMAP server.
2511 You can access the remote inbox by selecting the folder
2512 <tt>imap://imapserver/INBOX</tt>, where <tt/imapserver/ is the name of the
2513 IMAP server and <tt/INBOX/ is the special name for your spool mailbox on
2514 the IMAP server. If you want to access another mail folder at the IMAP
2515 server, you should use <tt>imap://imapserver/path/to/folder</tt> where
2516 <tt>path/to/folder</tt> is the path of the folder you want to access.
2518 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, ie:
2519 <tt>imap://imapserver:port/INBOX</tt>.
2521 You can also specify different username for each folder, ie:
2522 <tt>imap://username@imapserver[:port]/INBOX</tt>.
2524 If Mutt was compiled with SSL support (by running the <em/configure/
2525 script with the <em/--with-ssl/ flag), connections to IMAP servers
2526 can be encrypted. This naturally requires that the server supports
2527 SSL encrypted connections. To access a folder with IMAP/SSL, you should
2528 use <tt>imaps://[username@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder</tt> as your
2531 Pine-compatible notation is also supported, ie
2532 <tt>{[username@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder</tt>
2534 Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt should
2535 correctly notice which separator is being used by the server and convert
2538 When browsing folders on an IMAP server, you can toggle whether to look
2539 at only the folders you are subscribed to, or all folders with the
2540 <em/toggle-subscribed/ command. See also the
2541 <ref id="imap_list_subscribed"
2542 name="$imap_list_subscribed"> variable.
2544 Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So, you'll
2545 want to carefully tune the
2546 <ref id="mail_check" name="$mail_check">
2548 <ref id="timeout" name="$timeout">
2549 variables. Personally I use
2554 with relatively good results over my slow modem line.
2556 Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior to
2557 v12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another client
2558 selects the same folder.
2560 <sect2>The Folder Browser
2563 As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP
2564 server. This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the
2565 following differences:
2567 <item>In lieu of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP",
2568 possibly followed by the symbol "+", indicating
2569 that the entry contains both messages and subfolders. On
2570 Cyrus-like servers folders will often contain both messages and
2572 <item>For the case where an entry can contain both messages and
2573 subfolders, the selection key (bound to <tt>enter</tt> by default)
2574 will choose to descend into the subfolder view. If you wish to view
2575 the messages in that folder, you must use <tt>view-file</tt> instead
2576 (bound to <tt>space</tt> by default).
2577 <item>You can create, delete and rename mailboxes with the
2578 <tt>create-mailbox</tt>, <tt>delete-mailbox</tt>, and
2579 <tt>rename-mailbox</tt> commands (default bindings: <tt>C</tt>,
2580 <tt>d</tt> and <tt>r</tt>, respectively). You may also
2581 <tt>subscribe</tt> and <tt>unsubscribe</tt> to mailboxes (normally
2582 these are bound to <tt>s</tt> and <tt>u</tt>, respectively).
2585 <sect2>Authentication
2588 Mutt supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
2589 GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, and LOGIN (there is a patch by Grant Edwards to add
2590 NTLM authentication for you poor exchange users out there, but it has
2591 yet to be integrated into the main tree). There is also support for
2592 the pseudo-protocol ANONYMOUS, which allows you to log in to a public
2593 IMAP server without having an account. To use ANONYMOUS, simply make
2594 your username blank or "anonymous".
2596 SASL is a special super-authenticator, which selects among several protocols
2597 (including GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, ANONYMOUS, and DIGEST-MD5) the most secure
2598 method available on your host and the server. Using some of these methods
2599 (including DIGEST-MD5 and possibly GSSAPI), your entire session will be
2600 encrypted and invisible to those teeming network snoops. It is the best
2601 option if you have it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL library
2602 installed on your system and compile mutt with the <em/--with-sasl/ flag.
2604 Mutt will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the server,
2605 in the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN.
2607 There are a few variables which control authentication:
2609 <item><ref id="imap_user" name="$imap_user"> - controls
2610 the username under which you request authentication on the IMAP server,
2611 for all authenticators. This is overridden by an explicit username in
2612 the mailbox path (ie by using a mailbox name of the form
2614 <item><ref id="imap_pass" name="$imap_pass"> - a
2615 password which you may preset, used by all authentication methods where
2616 a password is needed.
2617 <item><ref id="imap_authenticators"
2618 name="$imap_authenticators"> - a colon-delimited list of IMAP
2619 authentication methods to try, in the order you wish to try them. If
2620 specified, this overrides mutt's default (attempt everything, in the order
2624 <sect1>Managing multiple IMAP/POP accounts (OPTIONAL)<label id="account-hook">
2627 If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers,
2628 you may find managing all the authentication settings inconvenient and
2629 error-prone. The account-hook command may help. This hook works like
2630 folder-hook but is invoked whenever you access a remote mailbox
2631 (including inside the folder browser), not just when you open the
2637 account-hook . 'unset imap_user; unset imap_pass; unset tunnel'
2638 account-hook imap://host1/ 'set imap_user=me1 imap_pass=foo'
2639 account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"'
2642 <sect1>Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)<label id="urlview">
2644 If a message contains URLs (<em/unified resource locator/ = address in the
2645 WWW space like <em>http://www.mutt.org/</em>), it is efficient to get
2646 a menu with all the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This
2647 functionality is provided by the external urlview program which can be
2648 retrieved at <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/"
2649 name="ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/"> and the configuration commands:
2651 macro index \cb |urlview\n
2652 macro pager \cb |urlview\n
2655 <sect1>Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL)
2658 If Mutt was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
2659 <em/configure/ script with the <em/--enable-compressed/ flag), Mutt
2660 can open folders stored in an arbitrary format, provided that the user
2661 has a script to convert from/to this format to one of the accepted.
2663 The most common use is to open compressed archived folders e.g. with
2666 In addition, the user can provide a script that gets a folder in an
2667 accepted format and appends its context to the folder in the
2668 user-defined format, which may be faster than converting the entire
2669 folder to the accepted format, appending to it and converting back to
2670 the user-defined format.
2672 There are three hooks defined (<ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook">,
2673 <ref id="close-hook" name="close-hook"> and <ref id="append-hook"
2674 name="append-hook">) which define commands to uncompress and compress
2675 a folder and to append messages to an existing compressed folder
2681 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
2682 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
2683 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
2686 You do not have to specify all of the commands. If you omit <ref
2687 id="append-hook" name="append-hook">, the folder will be open and
2688 closed again each time you will add to it. If you omit <ref
2689 id="close-hook" name="close-hook"> (or give empty command) , the
2690 folder will be open in the mode. If you specify <ref
2691 id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> though you'll be able to append
2694 Note that Mutt will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one of
2695 the accepted formats. In particular, if the file is empty, mutt
2696 supposes it is not compressed. This is important because it allows the
2697 use of programs that do not have well defined extensions. Just use
2698 &dquot;.&dquot; as a regexp. But this may be surprising if your
2699 compressing script produces empty files. In this situation, unset <ref
2700 id="save_empty" name="$save_empty">, so that the compressed file
2701 will be removed if you delete all of the messages.
2703 <sect2>Open a compressed mailbox for reading<label id="open-hook">
2705 Usage: <tt/open-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
2707 The <em/command/ is the command that can be used for opening the
2708 folders whose names match <em/regexp/.
2710 The <em/command/ string is the printf-like format string, and it
2711 should accept two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the
2712 (compressed) folder name, and %t which is replaced with the
2713 name of the temporary folder to which to write.
2715 %f and %t can be repeated any number of times in the
2716 command string, and all of the entries are replaced with the
2717 appropriate folder name. In addition, %% is replaced by
2718 %, as in printf, and any other %anything is left as is.
2720 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the original compressed file.
2721 The <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so
2722 mutt knows something's wrong.
2727 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
2730 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
2733 <sect2>Write a compressed mailbox<label id="close-hook">
2735 Usage: <tt/close-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
2737 This is used to close the folder that was open with the <ref id="open-hook"
2738 name="open-hook"> command after some changes were made to it.
2740 The <em/command/ string is the command that can be used for closing the
2741 folders whose names match <em/regexp/. It has the same format as in
2742 the <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> command. Temporary folder
2743 in this case is the folder previously produced by the <<ref id="open-hook"
2744 name="open-hook"> command.
2746 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the decompressed file. The
2747 <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt
2748 knows something's wrong.
2753 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
2756 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
2757 type, and the file can only be open in the readonly mode.
2759 <ref id="close-hook" name ="close-hook"> is not called when you exit
2760 from the folder if the folder was not changed.
2762 <sect2>Append a message to a compressed mailbox<label id="append-hook">
2764 Usage: <tt/append-hook/ <em/regexp/ &dquot;<em/command/&dquot;
2766 This command is used for saving to an existing compressed folder.
2767 The <em/command/ is the command that can be used for appending to the
2768 folders whose names match <em/regexp/. It has the same format as in
2769 the <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> command.
2770 The temporary folder in this case contains the messages that are being
2773 The <em/command/ should <bf/not/ remove the decompressed file. The
2774 <em/command/ should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt
2775 knows something's wrong.
2780 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
2783 When <ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> is used, the folder is
2784 not opened, which saves time, but this means that we can not find out
2785 what the folder type is. Thus the default (<ref id="mbox_type"
2786 name="$mbox_type">) type is always supposed (i.e.
2787 this is the format used for the temporary folder).
2789 If the file does not exist when you save to it, <ref id="close-hook"
2790 name="close-hook"> is called, and not <ref id="append-hook"
2791 name="append-hook">. <ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"> is only
2792 for appending to existing folders.
2794 If the <em/command/ is empty, this operation is disabled for this file
2795 type. In this case, the folder will be open and closed again (using
2796 <ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"> and <ref id="close-hook"
2797 name="close-hook">respectively) each time you will add to it.
2799 <sect2>Encrypted folders
2801 The compressed folders support can also be used to handle encrypted
2802 folders. If you want to encrypt a folder with PGP, you may want to use
2803 the following hooks:
2806 open-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -f < %f > %t"
2807 close-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -fe YourPgpUserIdOrKeyId < %t > %f"
2810 Please note, that PGP does not support appending to an encrypted
2811 folder, so there is no append-hook defined.
2813 <bf/Note:/ the folder is temporary stored decrypted in the /tmp
2814 directory, where it can be read by your system administrator. So think
2815 about the security aspects of this.
2817 <sect>Mutt's MIME Support
2819 Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt the premier text-mode
2820 MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that
2821 the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
2822 wherever possible. When configuring Mutt for MIME, there are two extra
2823 types of configuration files which Mutt uses. One is the
2824 <tt/mime.types/ file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to
2825 IANA MIME types. The other is the <tt/mailcap/ file, which specifies
2826 the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
2828 <sect1>Using MIME in Mutt
2830 There are three areas/menus in Mutt which deal with MIME, they are the
2831 pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose
2834 <sect2>Viewing MIME messages in the pager
2836 When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt
2837 decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt internally supports
2838 a number of MIME types, including <tt>text/plain, text/enriched,
2839 message/rfc822, and message/news</tt>. In addition, the export
2840 controlled version of Mutt recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
2841 including PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
2843 Mutt will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
2844 These lines are of the form:
2846 [-- Attachment #1: Description --]
2847 [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --]
2849 Where the <tt/Description/ is the description or filename given for the
2850 attachment, and the <tt/Encoding/ is one of
2851 <tt>7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</tt>.
2853 If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
2855 [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
2858 <sect2>The Attachment Menu<label id="attach_menu">
2860 The default binding for <tt/view-attachments/ is `v', which displays the
2861 attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list of
2862 the attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can save,
2863 print, pipe, delete, and view attachments. You can apply these
2864 operations to a group of attachments at once, by tagging the attachments
2865 and by using the ``tag-prefix'' operator. You can also reply to the
2866 current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or the
2867 attachments tagged) will be quoted in your reply. You can view
2868 attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer definition.
2870 Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like
2871 <ref id="resend-message" name="resend-message">, and the reply
2872 and forward functions) to attachments of type <tt>message/rfc822</tt>.
2874 See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
2876 <sect2>The Compose Menu<label id="compose_menu">
2878 The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It
2879 allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects
2880 of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your
2881 message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy,
2882 filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a
2883 list of tagged attachments. You can also modifying the attachment
2884 information, notably the type, encoding and description.
2886 Attachments appear as follows:
2888 - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description>
2889 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description>
2892 The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending (or
2893 postponing, or cancelling) the message. It can be toggled with the
2894 <tt/toggle-unlink/ command (default: u). The next field is the MIME
2895 content-type, and can be changed with the <tt/edit-type/ command
2896 (default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment,
2897 which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit
2898 links. It can be changed with the <tt/edit-encoding/ command
2899 (default: ^E). The next field is the size of the attachment,
2900 rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename,
2901 which can be changed with the <tt/rename-file/ command (default: R).
2902 The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
2903 changed with the <tt/edit-description/ command (default: d).
2905 <sect1>MIME Type configuration with <tt/mime.types/
2907 When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your
2908 personal mime.types file at <tt>${HOME}/.mime.types</tt>, and then
2909 the system mime.types file at <tt>/usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types</tt> or
2910 <tt>/etc/mime.types</tt>
2912 The mime.types file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space
2913 separated list of extensions. For example:
2915 application/postscript ps eps
2917 audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff
2919 A sample <tt/mime.types/ file comes with the Mutt distribution, and
2920 should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
2922 If Mutt can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you
2923 attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
2924 information, Mutt will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
2925 as <tt>text/plain</tt>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt will
2926 mark it as <tt>application/octet-stream</tt>. You can change the MIME
2927 type that Mutt assigns to an attachment by using the <tt/edit-type/
2928 command from the compose menu (default: ^T). The MIME type is actually a
2929 major mime type followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major
2930 types: application, text, image, video, audio, and model have been approved
2931 after various internet discussions. Mutt recognises all of these if the
2932 appropriate entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recognises other
2933 major mime types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the
2934 molecular modelling community to pass molecular data in various forms to
2935 various molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be used
2936 if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments.
2938 <sect1>MIME Viewer configuration with <tt/mailcap/
2940 Mutt supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
2941 specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format
2942 is commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant
2943 programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling
2944 for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to
2945 use this format include Netscape, XMosaic, lynx and metamail.
2947 In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt can not handle
2948 internally, Mutt parses a series of external configuration files to
2949 find an external handler. The default search string for these files
2950 is a colon delimited list set to
2952 ${HOME}/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mutt/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap
2954 where <tt/$HOME/ is your home directory.
2956 In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file,
2957 usually as <tt>/usr/local/etc/mailcap</tt>, which contains some baseline
2960 <sect2>The Basics of the mailcap file
2962 A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank,
2965 A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want.
2967 A blank line is blank.
2969 A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any
2970 number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is divided
2971 by a semicolon ';' character.
2973 The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype method.
2975 <tt>text/plain, text/html, image/gif, </tt>
2976 etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for
2977 wildcards, one using the special '*' subtype, the other is the implicit
2978 wild, where you only include the major type. For example, <tt>image/*</tt>, or
2979 <tt>video,</tt> will match all image types and video types,
2982 The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There
2983 are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send
2984 the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change
2985 this behaviour by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
2986 This will cause Mutt to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary
2987 file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by
2988 the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt will turn over the
2989 terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time Mutt
2990 will remove the temporary file if it exists.
2992 So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the
2993 external pager more on stdin:
2997 Or, you could send the message as a file:
3001 Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html
3006 In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you
3007 must use the %s syntax.
3008 <bf/Note:/ <em>Some older versions of lynx contain a bug where they
3009 will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will find
3010 the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to continuously
3011 spawn itself to view the object.</em>
3013 On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you
3014 just want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can
3017 text/html; lynx -dump %s | more
3020 Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on
3021 all other text formats, then you would use the following:
3026 This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
3028 <sect2>Secure use of mailcap
3030 The interpretion of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
3031 can lead to security problems in general. Mutt tries to quote parameters
3032 in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by
3033 substituting them, see the <ref id="mailcap_sanitize"
3034 name="mailcap_sanitize"> variable.
3036 Although mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be
3037 safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care
3038 of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
3040 <em/Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting./
3041 Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt does this for
3042 you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets
3043 mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful
3044 with eval statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to fix
3045 broken behaviour with quotes introduces new leaks - there is no
3046 alternative to correct quoting in the first place.
3048 If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you need
3049 quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable
3050 and reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following
3051 example (using <tt/$charset/ inside the backtick expansion is safe,
3052 since it is not itself subject to any further expansion):
3055 text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \
3056 && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1
3059 <sect2>Advanced mailcap Usage
3062 <sect3>Optional Fields
3064 In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you
3065 can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options.
3066 Mutt recognizes the following optional fields:
3069 This flag tells Mutt that the command passes possibly large amounts of
3070 text on stdout. This causes Mutt to invoke a pager (either the internal
3071 pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output
3072 of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt assumes that the command
3073 is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <tt>more</tt>
3074 in the <tt>lynx -dump</tt> example in the Basic section:
3076 text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput
3078 This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain
3079 and Mutt will use your standard pager to display the results.
3081 Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view"
3082 name="autoview">, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting
3083 of the <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> variable or
3084 not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the
3085 corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, Mutt will use
3086 <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> and the exit status
3087 of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the
3088 external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt
3090 <tag>compose=<command></tag>
3091 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
3092 specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu.
3093 <tag>composetyped=<command></tag>
3094 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
3095 specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose command in
3096 that mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data. This can be
3097 used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for a new
3098 attachment. Mutt supports this from the compose menu.
3099 <tag>print=<command></tag>
3100 This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type.
3101 Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
3102 <tag>edit=<command></tag>
3103 This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type.
3104 Mutt supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose
3105 new attachments. Mutt will default to the defined editor for text
3107 <tag>nametemplate=<template></tag>
3108 This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the
3109 command fields. Certain programs will require a certain file extension,
3110 for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance, lynx will only
3111 interpret a file as <tt>text/html</tt> if the file ends in <tt/.html/.
3112 So, you would specify lynx as a <tt>text/html</tt> viewer with a line in
3113 the mailcap file like:
3115 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
3117 <tag>test=<command></tag>
3118 This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap
3119 entry should be used. The command is defined with the command expansion
3120 rules defined in the next section. If the command returns 0, then the
3121 test passed, and Mutt uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero,
3122 then the test failed, and Mutt continues searching for the right entry.
3123 <bf/Note:/ <em>the content-type must match before Mutt performs the test.</em>
3126 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
3129 In this example, Mutt will run the program RunningX which will return 0
3130 if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it isn't. If
3131 RunningX returns 0, then Mutt will call netscape to display the
3132 text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt will go on
3133 to the next entry and use lynx to display the text/html object.
3138 When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt will search for
3139 the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are
3140 attempting to print an <tt>image/gif</tt>, and you have the following
3141 entries in your mailcap file, Mutt will search for an entry with the
3145 image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
3148 Mutt will skip the <tt>image/*</tt> entry and use the <tt>image/gif</tt>
3149 entry with the print command.
3151 In addition, you can use this with <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">
3152 to denote two commands for viewing an attachment, one to be viewed
3153 automatically, the other to be viewed interactively from the attachment
3154 menu. In addition, you can then use the test feature to determine which
3155 viewer to use interactively depending on your environment.
3157 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
3158 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
3159 text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
3161 For <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">, Mutt will choose the third
3162 entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt
3163 will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the first
3164 entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt will use the second entry
3165 for interactive viewing.
3167 <sect3>Command Expansion
3169 The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
3170 <tt>/bin/sh</tt> shell using the system() function. Before the
3171 command is passed to <tt>/bin/sh -c</tt>, it is parsed to expand
3172 various special parameters with information from Mutt. The keywords
3176 As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded
3177 to a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains
3178 the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing
3179 program should place the results of composition. In addition, the
3180 use of this keyword causes Mutt to not pass the body of the message
3181 to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
3183 Mutt will expand %t to the text representation of the content
3184 type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the
3185 mailcap definition line, ie <tt>text/html</tt> or
3187 <tag>%{<parameter>}</tag>
3188 Mutt will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
3189 from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if
3190 Your mail message contains:
3192 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3194 then Mutt will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail
3195 mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn an xterm
3196 using the right charset to view the message.
3197 <tag>\%</tag>
3198 This will be replaced by a %
3200 Mutt does not currently support the %F and %n keywords
3201 specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for
3202 multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt.
3204 <sect2>Example mailcap files
3206 This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
3208 # I'm always running X :)
3209 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
3210 image/*; xv %s > /dev/null
3212 # I'm always running netscape (if my computer had more memory, maybe)
3213 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'
3216 This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples:
3219 # Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup,
3220 # send that to /dev/null so I don't see it
3221 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
3223 # Send html to a running netscape by remote
3224 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningNetscape
3226 # If I'm not running netscape but I am running X, start netscape on the
3228 text/html; netscape %s; test=RunningX
3230 # Else use lynx to view it as text
3233 # This version would convert the text/html to text/plain
3234 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput
3236 # I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page
3237 text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s
3239 # Netscape adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally
3240 image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal
3242 # Use xv to view images if I'm running X
3243 # In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor
3245 image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; \
3248 # Convert images to text using the netpbm tools
3249 image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm |
3250 pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput
3252 # Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box
3253 application/ms-excel; open.pl %s
3256 <sect1>MIME Autoview<label id="auto_view">
3258 In addition to explicitly telling Mutt to view an attachment with the
3259 MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt has support for
3260 automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
3262 To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
3263 <tt/copiousoutput/ option to denote that it is non-interactive.
3264 Usually, you also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text
3265 representation which you can view in the pager.
3267 You then use the <tt/auto_view/ muttrc command to list the
3268 content-types that you wish to view automatically.
3270 For instance, if you set auto_view to:
3272 auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip application/postscript image/gif application/x-tar-gz
3275 Mutt could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
3276 attachments of these types.
3278 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
3279 image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput
3280 application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput
3281 application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput
3282 application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput
3285 ``unauto_view'' can be used to remove previous entries from the autoview list.
3286 This can be used with message-hook to autoview messages based on size, etc.
3287 ``unauto_view *'' will remove all previous entries.
3289 <sect1>MIME Multipart/Alternative<label id="alternative_order">
3291 Mutt has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
3292 multipart/alternative type to display. First, mutt will check the
3293 alternative_order list to determine if one of the available types
3294 is preferred. The alternative_order list consists of a number of
3295 mimetypes in order, including support for implicit and explicit
3296 wildcards, for example:
3298 alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text application/postscript image/*
3301 Next, mutt will check if any of the types have a defined
3302 <ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view">, and use that. Failing
3303 that, Mutt will look for any text type. As a last attempt, mutt will
3304 look for any type it knows how to handle.
3306 To remove a MIME type from the <tt/alternative_order/ list, use the
3307 <tt/unalternative_order/ command.
3309 <sect1>MIME Lookup<label id="mime_lookup">
3311 Mutt's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
3312 be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed to
3313 deal with binary types such as application/octet-stream. When an attachment's
3314 mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the filename will
3315 be compared to the list of extensions in the mime.types file. The mime-type
3316 associated with this extension will then be used to process the attachment
3317 according to the rules in the mailcap file and according to any other configuration
3318 options (such as auto_view) specified. Common usage would be:
3320 mime_lookup application/octet-stream application/X-Lotus-Manuscript
3323 In addition, the unmime_lookup command may be used to disable this feature
3324 for any particular mime-type if it had been set, for example, in a global
3328 <sect1>Command line options<label id="commandline">
3330 Running <tt/mutt/ with no arguments will make Mutt attempt to read your spool
3331 mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and
3332 to send messages from the command line as well.
3336 -a attach a file to a message
3337 -b specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address
3338 -c specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address
3339 -e specify a config command to be run after initilization files are read
3340 -f specify a mailbox to load
3341 -F specify an alternate file to read initialization commands
3342 -h print help on command line options
3343 -H specify a draft file from which to read a header and body
3344 -i specify a file to include in a message composition
3345 -m specify a default mailbox type
3346 -n do not read the system Muttrc
3347 -p recall a postponed message
3348 -Q query a configuration variable
3349 -R open mailbox in read-only mode
3350 -s specify a subject (enclose in quotes if it contains spaces)
3351 -v show version number and compile-time definitions
3352 -x simulate the mailx(1) compose mode
3353 -y show a menu containing the files specified by the mailboxes command
3354 -z exit immediately if there are no messages in the mailbox
3355 -Z open the first folder with new message,exit immediately if none
3358 To read messages in a mailbox
3360 <tt/mutt/ [ -nz ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -m <em/type/ ] [ -f <em/mailbox/ ]
3362 To compose a new message
3364 <tt/mutt/ [ -n ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -a <em/file/ ] [ -c <em/address/ ] [ -i <em/filename/ ] [ -s <em/subject/ ] <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ]
3366 Mutt also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply redirect
3367 input from the file you wish to send. For example,
3369 <tt>mutt -s &dquot;data set for run #2&dquot; professor@bigschool.edu
3370 < ˜/run2.dat</tt>
3372 This command will send a message to ``professor@bigschool.edu'' with a subject
3373 of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the contents
3374 of the file ``˜/run2.dat''.
3376 <sect1>Configuration Commands<label id="commands">
3378 The following are the commands understood by mutt.
3382 <tt><ref id="account-hook" name="account-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
3384 <tt><ref id="alias" name="alias"></tt> <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ]
3386 <tt><ref id="alias" name="unalias"></tt> [ * | <em/key/ ... ]
3388 <tt><ref id="alternates" name="alternates"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
3390 <tt><ref id="alternates" name="unalternates"></tt> [ * | <em/regexp/ ... ]
3392 <tt><ref id="alternative_order" name="alternative_order"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
3394 <tt><ref id="alternative_order" name="unalternative_order"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
3396 <tt><ref id="append-hook" name="append-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
3398 <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
3400 <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="unauto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
3402 <tt><ref id="bind" name="bind"></tt> <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/
3404 <tt><ref id="charset-hook" name="charset-hook"></tt> <em/alias/ <em/charset/
3406 <tt><ref id="close-hook" name="close-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
3408 <tt><ref id="color" name="color"></tt> <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ]
3410 <tt><ref id="color" name="uncolor"></tt> <em/index/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
3412 <tt><ref id="exec" name="exec"></tt> <em/function/ [ <em/function/ ... ]
3414 <tt><ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
3416 <tt><ref id="fcc-save-hook" name="fcc-save-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
3418 <tt><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
3420 <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="hdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ]
3422 <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="unhdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ]
3424 <tt><ref id="charset-hook" name="iconv-hook"></tt> <em/charset/ <em/local-charset/
3426 <tt><ref id="ignore" name="ignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
3428 <tt><ref id="ignore" name="unignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
3430 <tt><ref id="lists" name="lists"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
3432 <tt><ref id="lists" name="unlists"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
3434 <tt><ref id="macro" name="macro"></tt> <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ [ <em/description/ ]
3436 <tt><ref id="mailboxes" name="mailboxes"></tt> <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ]
3438 <tt><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/
3440 <tt><ref id="message-hook" name="message-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/
3442 <tt><ref id="mime_lookup" name="mime_lookup"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
3444 <tt><ref id="mime_lookup" name="unmime_lookup"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ]
3446 <tt><ref id="color" name="mono"></tt> <em/object attribute/ [ <em/regexp/ ]
3448 <tt><ref id="color" name="unmono"></tt> <em/index/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
3450 <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"></tt> <em/string/
3452 <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="unmy_hdr"></tt> <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ]
3454 <tt><ref id="open-hook" name="open-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
3456 <tt><ref id="crypt-hook" name="crypt-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/key-id/
3458 <tt><ref id="push" name="push"></tt> <em/string/
3460 <tt><ref id="set" name="reset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
3462 <tt><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/filename/
3464 <tt><ref id="score-command" name="score"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/value/
3466 <tt><ref id="score-command" name="unscore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ]
3468 <tt><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
3470 <tt><ref id="reply-hook" name="reply-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/
3472 <tt><ref id="set" name="set"></tt> [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]
3474 <tt><ref id="set" name="unset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
3476 <tt><ref id="source" name="source"></tt> <em/filename/
3478 <tt><ref id="spam" name="spam"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/format/
3480 <tt><ref id="spam" name="nospam"></tt> <em/pattern/
3482 <tt><ref id="lists" name="subscribe"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
3484 <tt><ref id="lists" name="unsubscribe"></tt> <em/regexp/ [ <em/regexp/ ... ]
3486 <tt><ref id="set" name="toggle"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]
3488 <tt><ref id="unhook" name="unhook"></tt> <em/hook-type/
3491 <sect1>Configuration variables<label id="variables">