1 The Mutt Next Generation E-Mail Client
15 Michael Elinks on mutt, circa 1995: ``All mail clients suck. This one just
18 Sven Guckes on mutt, ca. 2003: ``But it still sucks!''
20 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
32 4. Software Distribution Sites
44 1.1. Screens and Menus
76 3. Moving Around in Menus
78 4. Editing Input Fields
80 5. Reading Mail - The Index and Pager
82 5.1. The Message Index
88 5.4. Miscellaneous Functions
92 6.1. Composing new messages
96 6.3. Editing the message header
98 6.4. Using Mutt-ng with PGP
100 6.5. Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster
102 7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail
108 1. Locations of Configuration Files
110 2. Basic Syntax of Initialization Files
112 3. Expansion within variables
114 3.1. Commands' Output
116 3.2. Environment Variables
118 3.3. Configuration Variables
120 3.4. Self-Defined Variables
122 3.5. Pre-Defined Variables
124 3.6. Type Conversions
126 4. Defining/Using aliases
128 5. Changing the default key bindings
130 6. Defining aliases for character sets
132 7. Setting variables based upon mailbox
136 9. Using color and mono video attributes
138 10. Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers
140 11. Alternative addresses
146 12.2. Receiving: Display Setup
150 12.4. Additional Notes
154 14. Using Multiple spool mailboxes
156 15. Defining mailboxes which receive mail
158 16. User defined headers
160 17. Defining the order of headers when viewing messages
162 18. Specify default save filename
164 19. Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing
166 20. Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at
169 21. Change settings based upon message recipients
171 22. Change settings before formatting a message
173 23. Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient
175 24. Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer
177 25. Executing functions
183 28. Setting variables
185 29. Reading initialization commands from another file
195 31.3. Conditional parts
197 32. Obsolete Variables
201 1. Regular Expressions
205 2.1. Complex Patterns
207 2.2. Patterns and Dates
213 3.2. Conditional Expansion
215 3.3. Modifications and Padding
221 5.1. Message Matching in Hooks
225 7. External Address Queries
231 10. Handling Mailing Lists
235 11.1. Linking threads
237 11.2. Breaking threads
239 12. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support
241 13. POP3 Support (OPTIONAL)
243 14. IMAP Support (OPTIONAL)
245 14.1. The Folder Browser
249 15. NNTP Support (OPTIONAL)
253 16. SMTP Support (OPTIONAL)
255 17. Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL)
257 18. Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)
259 19. Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL)
261 19.1. Open a compressed mailbox for reading
263 19.2. Write a compressed mailbox
265 19.3. Append a message to a compressed mailbox
267 19.4. Encrypted folders
269 5. Mutt-ng's MIME Support
271 1. Using MIME in Mutt
273 1.1. Viewing MIME messages in the pager
275 1.2. The Attachment Menu
277 1.3. The Compose Menu
279 2. MIME Type configuration with mime.types
281 3. MIME Viewer configuration with mailcap
283 3.1. The Basics of the mailcap file
285 3.2. Secure use of mailcap
287 3.3. Advanced mailcap Usage
289 3.4. Example mailcap files
293 5. MIME Multipart/Alternative
297 6. Security Considerations
305 3.1. Message-ID: headers
307 3.2. mailto:-style links
309 4. External applications
317 1. Command line options
321 3. Configuration Commands
323 4. Configuration variables
355 2.1. Default Menu Movement Keys
357 2.2. Built-In Editor Functions
359 2.3. Default Index Menu Bindings
361 2.4. Default Pager Menu Bindings
363 2.5. ANSI Escape Sequences
367 2.7. Default Thread Function Bindings
369 2.8. Default Mail Composition Bindings
371 2.9. Default Compose Menu Bindings
373 2.10. PGP Key Menu Flags
375 3.1. Alternative Key Names
377 4.1. Default Sidebar Function Bindings
379 7.1. Mutt-NG Command Line Options
383 7.3. Obsolete Variables
385 Chapter 1. Introduction
395 4. Software Distribution Sites
405 Mutt-ng is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt-ng
406 is highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with
407 advanced features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading,
408 regular expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for
409 selecting groups of messages.
411 This documentation additionally contains documentation to Mutt-NG ,a fork
412 from Mutt with the goal to fix all the little annoyances of Mutt, to
413 integrate all the Mutt patches that are floating around in the web, and to
414 add other new features. Features specific to Mutt-ng will be discussed in
415 an extra section. Don't be confused when most of the documentation talk
416 about Mutt and not Mutt-ng, Mutt-ng contains all Mutt features, plus many
421 http://www.muttng.org
425 o <mutt-ng-users@lists.berlios.de>: This is where the mutt-ng user
428 o <mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de>: The development mailing list for
431 4. Software Distribution Sites
433 So far, there are no official releases of Mutt-ng, but you can download
434 daily snapshots from http://mutt-ng.berlios.de/snapshots/
438 Visit channel #muttng on irc.freenode.net (www.freenode.net) to chat with
439 other people interested in Mutt-ng.
443 If you want to read fresh news about the latest development in Mutt-ng,
444 and get informed about stuff like interesting, Mutt-ng-related articles
445 and packages for your favorite distribution, you can read and/or subscribe
446 to our Mutt-ng development weblog.
450 Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Michael R. Elkins <me@cs.hmc.edu> and
453 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
454 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
455 Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option)
458 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
459 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
460 or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
463 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
464 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
465 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
467 Chapter 2. Getting Started
473 1.1. Screens and Menus
505 3. Moving Around in Menus
507 4. Editing Input Fields
509 5. Reading Mail - The Index and Pager
511 5.1. The Message Index
517 5.4. Miscellaneous Functions
521 6.1. Composing new messages
525 6.3. Editing the message header
527 6.4. Using Mutt-ng with PGP
529 6.5. Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster
531 7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail
537 1.1. Screens and Menus
539 mutt-ng offers different screens of which every has its special purpose:
541 o The index displays the contents of the currently opened mailbox.
543 o The pager is responsible for displaying messages, that is, the header,
544 the body and all attached parts.
546 o The file browser offers operations on and displays information of all
547 folders mutt-ng should watch for mail.
549 o The sidebar offers a permanent view of which mailboxes contain how
550 many total, new and/or flagged mails.
552 o The help screen lists for all currently available commands how to
553 invoke them as well as a short description.
555 o The compose menu is a comfortable interface take last actions before
556 sending mail: change subjects, attach files, remove attachements, etc.
558 o The attachement menu gives a summary and the tree structure of the
559 attachements of the current message.
561 o The alias menu lists all or a fraction of the aliases a user has
564 o The key menu used in connection with encryption lets users choose the
565 right key to encrypt with.
567 When mutt-ng is started without any further options, it'll open the users
568 default mailbox and display the index.
572 Mutt-ng does not feature an internal configuration interface or menu due
573 to the simple fact that this would be too complex to handle (currently
574 there are several hundred variables which fine-tune the behaviour.)
576 Mutt-ng is configured using configuration files which allow users to add
577 comments or manage them via version control systems to ease maintenance.
579 Also, mutt-ng comes with a shell script named grml-muttng kindly
580 contributed by users which really helps and eases the creation of a user's
581 configuration file. When downloading the source code via a snapshot or via
582 subversion, it can be found in the contrib directory.
586 Mutt-ng offers great flexibility due to the use of functions: internally,
587 every action a user can make mutt-ng perform is named ``function.'' Those
588 functions are assigned to keys (or even key sequences) and may be
589 completely adjusted to user's needs. The basic idea is that the impatient
590 users get a very intuitive interface to start off with and advanced users
591 virtually get no limits to adjustments.
595 Mutt-ng has two basic concepts of user interaction:
597 1. There is one dedicated line on the screen used to query the user for
598 input, issue any command, query variables and display error and
599 informational messages. As for every type of user input, this requires
600 manual action leading to the need of input.
602 2. The automatized interface for interaction are the so called hooks.
603 Hooks specify actions the user wants to be performed at well-defined
604 situations: what to do when entering which folder, what to do when
605 displaying or replying to what kind of message, etc. These are
606 optional, i.e. a user doesn't need to specify them but can do so.
610 Although mutt-ng has many functionality built-in, many features can be
611 delegated to external tools to increase flexibility: users can define
612 programs to filter a message through before displaying, users can use any
613 program they want for displaying a message, message types (such as PDF or
614 PostScript) for which mutt-ng doesn't have a built-in filter can be
615 rendered by arbitrary tools and so forth. Although mutt-ng has an alias
616 mechanism built-in, it features using external tools to query for nearly
617 every type of addresses from sources like LDAP, databases or just the list
618 of locally known users.
622 Mutt-ng has a built-in pattern matching ``language'' which is as widely
623 used as possible to present a consistent interface to users. The same
624 ``pattern terms'' can be used for searching, scoring, message selection
631 The index is the screen that you usually see first when you start mutt-ng.
632 It gives an overview over your emails in the currently opened mailbox. By
633 default, this is your system mailbox. The information you see in the index
634 is a list of emails, each with its number on the left, its flags (new
635 email, important email, email that has been forwarded or replied to,
636 tagged email, ...), the date when email was sent, its sender, the email
637 size, and the subject. Additionally, the index also shows thread
638 hierarchies: when you reply to an email, and the other person replies
639 back, you can see the other's person email in a "sub-tree" below. This is
640 especially useful for personal email between a group of people or when
641 you've subscribed to mailing lists.
645 The pager is responsible for showing the email content. On the top of the
646 pager you have an overview over the most important email headers like the
647 sender, the recipient, the subject, and much more information. How much
648 information you actually see depends on your configuration, which we'll
651 Below the headers, you see the email body which usually contains the
652 message. If the email contains any attachments, you will see more
653 information about them below the email body, or, if the attachments are
654 text files, you can view them directly in the pager.
656 To give the user a good overview, it is possible to configure mutt-ng to
657 show different things in the pager with different colors. Virtually
658 everything that can be described with a regular expression can be colored,
659 e.g. URLs, email addresses or smileys.
663 The file browser is the interface to the local or remote file system. When
664 selecting a mailbox to open, the browser allows custom sorting of items,
665 limiting the items shown by a regular expression and a freely adjustable
666 format of what to display in which way. It also allows for easy navigation
667 through the file system when selecting file(s) to attach to a message,
668 select multiple files to attach and many more.
672 The sidebar comes in handy to manage mails which are spread over different
673 folders. All folders users setup mutt-ng to watch for new mail will be
674 listed. The listing includes not only the name but also the number of
675 total messages, the number of new and flagged messages. Items with new
676 mail may be colored different from those with flagged mail, items may be
677 shortened or compress if they're they to long to be printed in full form
678 so that by abbreviated names, user still now what the name stands for.
682 The help screen is meant to offer a quick help to the user. It lists the
683 current configuration of key bindings and their associated commands
684 including a short description, and currently unbound functions that still
685 need to be associated with a key binding (or alternatively, they can be
686 called via the mutt-ng command prompt).
690 The compose menu features a split screen containing the information which
691 really matter before actually sending a message by mail or posting an
692 article to a newsgroup: who gets the message as what (recipient,
693 newsgroup, who gets what kind of copy). Additionally, users may set
694 security options like deciding whether to sign, encrypt or sign and
695 encrypt a message with/for what keys.
697 Also, it's used to attach messages, news articles or files to a message,
698 to re-edit any attachment including the message itself.
702 The alias menu is used to help users finding the recipients of messages.
703 For users who need to contact many people, there's no need to remember
704 addresses or names completely because it allows for searching, too. The
705 alias mechanism and thus the alias menu also features grouping several
706 addresses by a shorter nickname, the actual alias, so that users don't
707 have to select each single recipient manually.
711 As will be later discussed in detail, mutt-ng features a good and stable
712 MIME implementation, that is, is greatly supports sending and receiving
713 messages of arbitrary type. The attachment menu displays a message's
714 structure in detail: what content parts are attached to which parent part
715 (which gives a true tree structure), which type is of what type and what
716 size. Single parts may saved, deleted or modified to offer great and easy
717 access to message's internals.
723 3. Moving Around in Menus
725 Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a
726 tableshowing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt-ng.
728 Table 2.1. Default Menu Movement Keys
730 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
731 | Key | Function | Description |
732 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
733 | j or Down | next-entry | move to the next entry |
734 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
735 | k or Up | previous-entry | move to the previous entry |
736 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
737 | z or PageDn | page-down | go to the next page |
738 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
739 | Z or PageUp | page-up | go to the previous page |
740 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
741 | = or Home | first-entry | jump to the first entry |
742 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
743 | * or End | last-entry | jump to the last entry |
744 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
745 | q | quit | exit the current menu |
746 |-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------|
747 | ? | help | list all key bindings for the current |
749 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
751 4. Editing Input Fields
753 Mutt-ng has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to
754 input textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to
755 move around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs.
757 Table 2.2. Built-In Editor Functions
759 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
760 | Key | Function | Description |
761 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
762 | ^A or <Home> | bol | move to the start of the line |
763 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
764 | ^B or <Left> | backward-char | move back one char |
765 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
766 | Esc B | backward-word | move back one word |
767 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
768 | ^D or <Delete> | delete-char | delete the char under the cursor |
769 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
770 | ^E or <End> | eol | move to the end of the line |
771 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
772 | ^F or <Right> | forward-char | move forward one char |
773 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
774 | Esc F | forward-word | move forward one word |
775 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
776 | <Tab> | complete | complete filename or alias |
777 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
778 | ^T | complete-query | complete address with query |
779 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
780 | ^K | kill-eol | delete to the end of the line |
781 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
782 | ESC d | kill-eow | delete to the end of the word |
783 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
784 | ^W | kill-word | kill the word in front of the |
786 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
787 | ^U | kill-line | delete entire line |
788 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
789 | ^V | quote-char | quote the next typed key |
790 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
791 | <Up> | history-up | recall previous string from history |
792 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
793 | <Down> | history-down | recall next string from history |
794 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
795 | <BackSpace> | backspace | kill the char in front of the |
797 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
798 | Esc u | upcase-word | convert word to upper case |
799 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
800 | Esc l | downcase-word | convert word to lower case |
801 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
802 | Esc c | capitalize-word | capitalize the word |
803 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
805 |----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------|
806 | <Return> | n/a | finish editing |
807 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
809 You can remap the editor functions using the bind command. For example, to
810 make the Delete key delete the character in front of the cursor rather
811 than under, you could use
813 bind editor <delete> backspace
815 5. Reading Mail - The Index and Pager
817 Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail
818 isread in Mutt-ng. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox,
819 which is called the ``index'' in Mutt-ng. The second mode is the display
820 of the message contents. This is called the ``pager.''
822 The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these
825 5.1. The Message Index
827 Table 2.3. Default Index Menu Bindings
829 +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
830 | Key | Function | Description |
831 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
832 | c | | change to a different mailbox |
833 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
834 | ESC c | | change to a folder in read-only mode |
835 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
836 | C | | copy the current message to another mailbox |
837 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
838 | ESC C | | decode a message and copy it to a folder |
839 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
840 | ESC s | | decode a message and save it to a folder |
841 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
842 | D | | delete messages matching a pattern |
843 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
844 | d | | delete the current message |
845 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
846 | F | | mark as important |
847 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
848 | l | | show messages matching a pattern |
849 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
850 | N | | mark message as new |
851 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
852 | o | | change the current sort method |
853 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
854 | O | | reverse sort the mailbox |
855 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
856 | q | | save changes and exit |
857 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
858 | s | | save-message |
859 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
860 | T | | tag messages matching a pattern |
861 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
862 | t | | toggle the tag on a message |
863 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
864 | ESC t | | toggle tag on entire message thread |
865 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
866 | U | | undelete messages matching a pattern |
867 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
868 | u | | undelete-message |
869 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
870 | v | | view-attachments |
871 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
872 | x | | abort changes and exit |
873 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
874 | <Return> | | display-message |
875 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
876 | <Tab> | | jump to the next new or unread message |
877 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
878 | @ | | show the author's full e-mail address |
879 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
880 | $ | | save changes to mailbox |
881 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
883 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
884 | ESC / | | search-reverse |
885 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
886 | ^L | | clear and redraw the screen |
887 |----------+----------+---------------------------------------------|
888 | ^T | | untag messages matching a pattern |
889 +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
893 In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of
894 the disposition of each message is printed beside the message number. Zero
895 or more of the following ``flags'' may appear, which mean:
899 message is deleted (is marked for deletion)
903 message have attachments marked for deletion
907 contains a PGP public key
919 message is PGP encrypted
923 message has been replied to
927 message is signed, and the signature is succesfully verified
941 Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using
943 o set-flag (default: w)
945 o clear-flag (default: W)
947 Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed to.
948 They can be customized with the $to_chars variable.
952 message is to you and you only
956 message is to you, but also to or cc'ed to others
960 message is cc'ed to you
968 message is sent to a subscribed mailing list
972 By default, Mutt-ng uses its builtin pager to display the body of
973 messages. The pager is very similar to the Unix program less though not
974 nearly as featureful.
976 Table 2.4. Default Pager Menu Bindings
978 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
979 | Key | Function | Description |
980 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
981 | <Return> | | go down one line |
982 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
983 | <Space> | | display the next page (or next message if at the |
984 | | | end of a message) |
985 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
986 | - | | go back to the previous page |
987 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
988 | n | | search for next match |
989 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
990 | S | | skip beyond quoted text |
991 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
992 | T | | toggle display of quoted text |
993 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
994 | ? | | show key bindings |
995 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
996 | / | | search for a regular expression (pattern) |
997 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
998 | ESC / | | search backwards for a regular expression |
999 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
1000 | \ | | toggle search pattern coloring |
1001 |----------+----------+--------------------------------------------------|
1002 | ^ | | jump to the top of the message |
1003 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1005 In addition, many of the functions from the index are available in the
1006 pager, such as delete-message or copy-message (this is one advantage over
1007 using an external pager to view messages).
1009 Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features. For
1010 one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences forbold
1011 and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter,
1012 backspace (^H), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace, ``_''
1013 for denoting underline. Mutt-ng will attempt to display these in bold and
1014 underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If not, you can use
1015 the bold and underline color objects to specify a color or mono attribute
1018 Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for
1019 character attributes. Mutt-ng translates them into the correct color and
1020 character settings. The sequences Mutt-ng supports are: ESC [
1021 Ps;Ps;Ps;...;Ps m (see table below for possible values for Ps).
1023 Table 2.5. ANSI Escape Sequences
1025 +-------------------------------------------------+
1026 | Value | Attribute |
1027 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1028 | 0 | All Attributes Off |
1029 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1031 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1032 | 4 | Underline on |
1033 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1035 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1036 | 7 | Reverse video on |
1037 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1038 | 3x | Foreground color is x (see table below) |
1039 |-------+-----------------------------------------|
1040 | 4x | Background color is x (see table below) |
1041 +-------------------------------------------------+
1043 Table 2.6. ANSI Colors
1045 +------------------+
1047 |--------+---------|
1049 |--------+---------|
1051 |--------+---------|
1053 |--------+---------|
1055 |--------+---------|
1057 |--------+---------|
1059 |--------+---------|
1061 |--------+---------|
1063 +------------------+
1065 Mutt-ng uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and
1066 they can also be used by an external autoview script for highlighting
1067 purposes. Note: If you change the colors for your display, for example by
1068 changing the color associated with color2 for your xterm, then that color
1069 will be used instead of green.
1073 When the mailbox is sorted by threads ,there are a few additional
1074 functions available in the index and pager modes.
1076 Table 2.7. Default Thread Function Bindings
1078 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1079 | Key | Function | Description |
1080 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1081 | ^D | delete-thread | delete all messages in the current thread |
1082 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1083 | ^U | undelete-thread | undelete all messages in the current |
1085 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1086 | ^N | next-thread | jump to the start of the next thread |
1087 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1088 | ^P | previous-thread | jump to the start of the previous thread |
1089 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1090 | ^R | read-thread | mark the current thread as read |
1091 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1092 | ESC d | delete-subthread | delete all messages in the current |
1094 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1095 | ESC u | undelete-subthread | undelete all messages in the current |
1097 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1098 | ESC n | next-subthread | jump to the start of the next subthread |
1099 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1100 | ESC p | previous-subthread | jump to the start of the previous |
1102 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1103 | ESC r | read-subthread | mark the current subthread as read |
1104 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1105 | ESC t | tag-thread | toggle the tag on the current thread |
1106 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1107 | ESC v | collapse-thread | toggle collapse for the current thread |
1108 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1109 | ESC V | collapse-all | toggle collapse for all threads |
1110 |-------+--------------------+-------------------------------------------|
1111 | P | parent-message | jump to parent message in thread |
1112 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1114 Note: Collapsing a thread displays only the first message in the thread
1115 and hides the others. This is useful when threads contain so many messages
1116 that you can only see a handful of threads onthe screen. See %M in
1117 index-format . For example, you could use "%?M?(#%03M)&(%4l)?" in
1118 index-format to optionally display the number of hidden messages if the
1119 thread is collapsed.
1121 See also: strict-threads.
1123 5.4. Miscellaneous Functions
1125 create-alias (default: a)
1127 Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a new
1128 one). Once editing is complete, an alias command is added to the file
1129 specified by the alias-file variable for future use. Note: Specifying an
1130 alias-file does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also
1133 check-traditional-pgp (default: ESC P)
1135 This function will search the current message for content signed or
1136 encrypted with PGP the "traditional" way, that is, without proper MIME
1137 tagging. Technically, this function will temporarily change the MIME
1138 content types of the body parts containing PGP data; this is similar to
1139 the edit-type function's effect.
1141 display-toggle-weed (default: h)
1143 Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by ignore commands.
1147 This command (available in the ``index'' and ``pager'') allows you to edit
1148 the raw current message as it's present in the mail folder. After you have
1149 finished editing, the changed message will be appended to the current
1150 folder, and the original message will be marked for deletion.
1152 edit-type (default: ^E on the attachment menu, and in the pager and index
1153 menus; ^T on the compose menu)
1155 This command is used to temporarily edit an attachment's content type to
1156 fix, for instance, bogus character set parameters. When invoked from the
1157 index or from the pager, you'll have the opportunity to edit the top-level
1158 attachment's content type. On the attach-menu, you can change any
1159 attachment's content type. These changes are not persistent, and get lost
1160 upon changing folders.
1162 Note that this command is also available on the compose-menu .There, it's
1163 used to fine-tune the properties of attachments you are going to send.
1165 enter-command (default: ``:'')
1167 This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a
1168 configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or
1169 in conjunction with macro to change settings on the fly.
1171 extract-keys (default: ^K)
1173 This command extracts PGP public keys from the current or tagged
1174 message(s) and adds them to your PGP public key ring.
1176 forget-passphrase (default: ^F)
1178 This command wipes the passphrase(s) from memory. It is useful, if you
1179 misspelled the passphrase.
1181 list-reply (default: L)
1183 Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses
1184 which match the regular expressions given by the lists commands, but also
1185 honor any Mail-Followup-To header(s) if the honor-followup-to
1186 configuration variable is set. Using this when replying to messages posted
1187 to mailing lists helps avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of
1188 the message you are replying to.
1190 pipe-message (default: |)
1192 Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or tagged
1193 message(s) to it. The variables pipe-decode ,pipe-split, pipe-sep and
1194 wait-key control the exact behavior of this function.
1196 resend-message (default: ESC e)
1198 With resend-message, mutt takes the current message as a template for a
1199 new message. This function is best described as "recall from arbitrary
1200 folders". It can conveniently be used to forward MIME messages while
1201 preserving the original mail structure. Note that the amount of headers
1202 included here depends on the value of the weed variable.
1204 This function is also available from the attachment menu. You can use this
1205 to easily resend a message which was included with a bounce message as a
1206 message/rfc822 body part.
1208 shell-escape (default: !)
1210 Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The wait-key can be
1211 used to control whether Mutt-ng will wait for a key to be pressed when the
1212 command returns (presumably to let the user read the output of the
1213 command), based on the return status of the named command.
1215 toggle-quoted (default: T)
1217 The pager uses the quote-regexp variable to detect quoted text when
1218 displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the displayof
1219 the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when are
1220 interested in just the response and there is a large amount of quoted text
1223 skip-quoted (default: S)
1225 This function will go to the next line of non-quoted text which come after
1226 a line of quoted text in the internal pager.
1230 The following bindings are available in the index for sending messages.
1232 Table 2.8. Default Mail Composition Bindings
1234 +--------------------------------------------------------+
1235 | Key | Function | Description |
1236 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1237 | m | compose | compose a new message |
1238 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1239 | r | reply | reply to sender |
1240 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1241 | g | group-reply | reply to all recipients |
1242 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1243 | L | list-reply | reply to mailing list address |
1244 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1245 | f | forward | forward message |
1246 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1247 | b | bounce | bounce (remail) message |
1248 |-------+-------------+----------------------------------|
1249 | ESC k | mail-key | mail a PGP public key to someone |
1250 +--------------------------------------------------------+
1252 Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you specify.
1253 Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or modify the message you
1254 are forwarding. These items are discussed in greater detail in the next
1255 chapter forwarding-mail .
1257 6.1. Composing new messages
1259 When you want to send an email using mutt-ng, simply press m on your
1260 keyboard. Then, mutt-ng asks for the recipient via a prompt in the last
1265 After you've finished entering the recipient(s), press return. If you want
1266 to send an email to more than one recipient, separate the email addresses
1267 using the comma ",". Mutt-ng then asks you for the email subject. Again,
1268 press return after you've entered it. After that, mutt-ng got the most
1269 important information from you, and starts up an editor where you can then
1272 The editor that is called is selected in the following way: you can e.g.
1273 set it in the mutt-ng configuration:
1275 set editor = "vim +/^$/ -c ':set tw=72'"
1277 set editor = "emacs"
1279 If you don't set your preferred editor in your configuration, mutt-ng
1280 first looks whether the environment variable $VISUAL is set, and if so, it
1281 takes its value as editor command. Otherwise, it has a look at $EDITOR and
1282 takes its value if it is set. If no editor command can be found, mutt-ng
1283 simply assumes vi to be the default editor, since it's the most widespread
1284 editor in the Unix world and it's pretty safe to assume that it is
1285 installed and available.
1287 When you've finished entering your message, save it and quit your editor.
1288 Mutt-ng will then present you with a summary screen, the compose menu. On
1289 the top, you see a summary of the most important available key commands.
1290 Below that, you see the sender, the recipient(s), Cc and/or Bcc
1291 recipient(s), the subject, the reply-to address, and optionally
1292 information where the sent email will be stored and whether it should be
1293 digitally signed and/or encrypted.
1295 Below that, you see a list of "attachments". The mail you've just entered
1296 before is also an attachment, but due to its special type (it's plain
1297 text), it will be displayed as the normal message on the receiver's side.
1299 At this point, you can add more attachments, pressing a, you can edit the
1300 recipient addresses, pressing t for the "To:" field, c for the "Cc:"
1301 field, and b for the "Bcc: field. You can also edit the subject the
1302 subject by simply pressing s or the email message that you've entered
1303 before by pressing e. You will then again return to the editor. You can
1304 even edit the sender, by pressing <esc>f, but this shall only be used with
1307 Alternatively, you can configure mutt-ng in a way that most of the above
1308 settings can be edited using the editor. Therefore, you only need to add
1309 the following to your configuration:
1313 Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are
1314 returned to the compose menu. The following options are available:
1316 Table 2.9. Default Compose Menu Bindings
1318 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1319 | Key | Function | Description |
1320 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1321 | a | attach-file | attach a file |
1322 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1323 | A | attach-message | attach message(s) to the message |
1324 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1325 | ESC k | attach-key | attach a PGP public key |
1326 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1327 | d | edit-description | edit description on attachment |
1328 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1329 | D | detach-file | detach a file |
1330 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1331 | t | edit-to | edit the To field |
1332 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1333 | ESC f | edit-from | edit the From field |
1334 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1335 | r | edit-reply-to | edit the Reply-To field |
1336 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1337 | c | edit-cc | edit the Cc field |
1338 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1339 | b | edit-bcc | edit the Bcc field |
1340 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1341 | y | send-message | send the message |
1342 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1343 | s | edit-subject | edit the Subject |
1344 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1345 | S | smime-menu | select S/MIME options |
1346 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1347 | f | edit-fcc | specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox |
1348 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1349 | p | pgp-menu | select PGP options |
1350 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1351 | P | postpone-message | postpone this message until later |
1352 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1353 | q | quit | quit (abort) sending the message |
1354 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1355 | w | write-fcc | write the message to a folder |
1356 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1357 | i | ispell | check spelling (if available on your |
1359 |-------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------|
1360 | ^F | forget-passphrase | wipe passphrase(s) from memory |
1361 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1363 Note: The attach-message function will prompt you for a folder to attach
1364 messages from. You can now tag messages in that folder and theywill be
1365 attached to the message you are sending. Note that certainoperations like
1366 composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are not permitted when
1367 you are in that folder. The %r in status-format will change to a 'A' to
1368 indicate that you are in attach-message mode.
1372 6.2.1. Simple Replies
1374 When you want to reply to an email message, select it in the index menu
1375 and then press r. Mutt-ng's behaviour is then similar to the behaviour
1376 when you compose a message: first, you will be asked for the recipient,
1377 then for the subject, and then, mutt-ng will start the editor with the
1378 quote attribution and the quoted message. This can e.g. look like the
1381 On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 05:02:12PM +0100, Michael Svensson wrote:
1382 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1383 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1384 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1385 > project will go live.
1387 You can start editing the email message. It is strongly recommended to put
1388 your answer below the quoted text and to only quote what is really
1389 necessary and that you refer to. Putting your answer on top of the quoted
1390 message, is, although very widespread, very often not considered to be a
1391 polite way to answer emails.
1393 The quote attribution is configurable, by default it is set to
1395 set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:"
1397 It can also be set to something more compact, e.g.
1399 set attribution = "attribution="* %n <%a> [%(%y-%m-%d %H:%M)]:"
1401 The example above results in the following attribution:
1403 * Michael Svensson <svensson@foobar.com> [05-03-06 17:02]:
1404 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
1405 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
1406 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
1407 > project will go live.
1409 Generally, try to keep your attribution short yet information-rich. It is
1410 not the right place for witty quotes, long "attribution" novels or
1411 anything like that: the right place for such things is - if at all - the
1412 email signature at the very bottom of the message.
1414 When you're done with writing your message, save and quit the editor. As
1415 before, you will return to the compose menu, which is used in the same way
1418 6.2.2. Group Replies
1420 In the situation where a group of people uses email as a discussion, most
1421 of the emails will have one or more recipients, and probably several "Cc:"
1422 recipients. The group reply functionalityensures that when you press g
1423 instead of r to do a reply, each and every recipient that is contained in
1424 the original message will receive a copy of the message, either as normal
1425 recipient or as "Cc:" recipient.
1429 When you use mailing lists, it's generally better to send your reply to a
1430 message only to the list instead of the list and the original author. To
1431 make this easy to use, mutt-ng features list replies.
1433 To do a list reply, simply press L. If the email contains a
1434 Mail-Followup-To: header, its value will be used as reply address.
1435 Otherwise, mutt-ng searches through all mail addresses in the original
1436 message and tries to match them a list of regular expressions which can be
1437 specified using the lists command. If any of the regular expression
1438 matches, a mailing list address has been found, and it will be used as
1441 lists linuxevent@luga\.at vuln-dev@ mutt-ng-users@
1443 Nowadays, most mailing list software like GNU Mailman adds a
1444 Mail-Followup-To: header to their emails anyway, so setting lists is
1445 hardly ever necessary in practice.
1447 6.3. Editing the message header
1449 When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of
1450 special features available.
1452 If you specify Fcc: filename Mutt-ng will pick up filename just as if you
1453 had used the edit-fcc function in the compose menu.
1455 You can also attach files to your message by specifying Attach: filename [
1456 description ] where filename is the file to attach and description is an
1457 optional string to use as the description of the attached file.
1459 When replying to messages, if you remove the In-Reply-To: field from the
1460 header field, Mutt-ng will not generate a References: field, which allows
1461 you to create a new message thread.
1463 Also see edit-headers.
1465 6.4. Using Mutt-ng with PGP
1467 If you want to use PGP, you can specify
1469 Pgp: [ E | S | S<id> ]
1471 ``E'' encrypts, ``S'' signs and ``S<id>'' signs with the given key,
1472 setting pgp-sign-as permanently.
1474 If you have told mutt to PGP encrypt a message, it will guide you through
1475 a key selection process when you try to send the message. Mutt-ng will not
1476 ask you any questions about keys which have a certified user ID matching
1477 one of the message recipients' mail addresses. However, there may be
1478 situations in which there are several keys, weakly certified user ID
1479 fields, or where no matching keys can be found.
1481 In these cases, you are dropped into a menu with a list of keys from which
1482 you can select one. When you quit this menu, or mutt can't find any
1483 matching keys, you are prompted for a user ID. You can, as usually, abort
1484 this prompt using ^G. When you do so, mutt will return to the compose
1487 Once you have successfully finished the key selection, the message will be
1488 encrypted using the selected public keys, and sent out.
1490 Most fields of the entries in the key selection menu (see also
1491 pgp-entry-format ) have obvious meanings. But some explanations on the
1492 capabilities, flags, and validity fields are in order.
1494 The flags sequence (%f) will expand to one of the following flags:
1496 Table 2.10. PGP Key Menu Flags
1498 +-----------------------------------------------------------+
1499 | Flag | Description |
1500 |------+----------------------------------------------------|
1501 | R | The key has been revoked and can't be used. |
1502 |------+----------------------------------------------------|
1503 | X | The key is expired and can't be used. |
1504 |------+----------------------------------------------------|
1505 | d | You have marked the key as disabled. |
1506 |------+----------------------------------------------------|
1507 | c | There are unknown critical self-signature packets. |
1508 +-----------------------------------------------------------+
1510 The capabilities field (%c) expands to a two-character
1511 sequencerepresenting a key's capabilities. The first character gives the
1512 key's encryption capabilities: A minus sign (- )means that the key cannot
1513 be used for encryption. A dot (. )means that it's marked as a signature
1514 key in one of the user IDs, but may also be used for encryption. The
1515 letter e indicates that this key can be used for encryption.
1517 The second character indicates the key's signing capabilities. Once again,
1518 a ``-'' implies ``not for signing'', ``.'' implies that the key is marked
1519 as an encryption key in one of the user-ids, and ``s'' denotes a key which
1520 can be used for signing.
1522 Finally, the validity field (%t) indicates how well-certified a user-id
1523 is. A question mark (?) indicates undefined validity, a minus character
1524 (-) marks an untrusted association, a space character means a partially
1525 trusted association, and a plus character (+ ) indicates complete
1528 6.5. Sending anonymous messages via mixmaster
1530 You may also have configured mutt to co-operate with Mixmaster, an
1531 anonymous remailer. Mixmaster permits you to send your messages
1532 anonymously using a chain of remailers. Mixmaster support in mutt is for
1533 mixmaster version 2.04 (beta 45 appears to be the latest) and 2.03. It
1534 does not support earlier versions or the later so-called version 3 betas,
1535 of which the latest appears to be called 2.9b23.
1537 To use it, you'll have to obey certain restrictions. Most important, you
1538 cannot use the Cc and Bcc headers. To tell Mutt-ng to use mixmaster, you
1539 have to select a remailer chain, using the mix function on the compose
1542 The chain selection screen is divided into two parts. In the (larger)
1543 upper part, you get a list of remailers you may use. In the lower part,
1544 you see the currently selected chain of remailers.
1546 You can navigate in the chain using the chain-prev and chain-next
1547 functions, which are by default bound to the left and right arrows and to
1548 the h and l keys (think vi keyboard bindings). To insert a remailer at the
1549 current chain position, use the insert function. To append a remailer
1550 behind the current chain position, use select-entry or append . You can
1551 also delete entries from the chain, using the corresponding function.
1552 Finally, to abandon your changes, leave the menu, or accept them pressing
1553 (by default) the Return key.
1555 Note that different remailers do have different capabilities, indicated in
1556 the %c entry of the remailer menu lines (see mix-entry-format). Most
1557 important is the ``middleman'' capability, indicated by a capital ``M'':
1558 This means that the remailer in question cannot be used as the final
1559 element of a chain, but will only forward messages to other mixmaster
1560 remailers. For details on the other capabilities, please have a look at
1561 the mixmaster documentation.
1563 7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail
1565 Often, it is necessary to forward mails to other people. Therefore,
1566 mutt-ng supports forwarding messages in two different ways.
1568 The first one is regular forwarding, as you probably know it from other
1569 mail clients. You simply press f, enter the recipient email address, the
1570 subject of the forwarded email, and then you can edit the message to be
1571 forwarded in the editor. The forwarded message is separated from the rest
1572 of the message via the two following markers:
1574 ----- Forwarded message from Lucas User <luser@example.com> -----
1576 From: Lucas User <luser@example.com>
1577 Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:08:34 +0100
1578 To: Michael Random <mrandom@example.com>
1579 Subject: Re: blackmail
1581 Pay me EUR 50,000.- cash or your favorite stuffed animal will die
1584 ----- End forwarded message -----
1586 When you're done with editing the mail, save and quit the editor, and you
1587 will return to the compose menu, the same menu you also encounter when
1588 composing or replying to mails.
1590 The second mode of forwarding emails with mutt-ng is the so-called
1591 bouncing: when you bounce an email to another address, it will be sent in
1592 practically the same format you send it (except for headers that are
1593 created during transporting the message). To bounce a message, press b and
1594 enter the recipient email address. By default, you are then asked whether
1595 you really want to bounce the message to the specified recipient. If you
1596 answer with yes, the message will then be bounced.
1598 To the recipient, the bounced email will look as if he got it like a
1599 regular email where he was Bcc: recipient. The only possibility to find
1600 out whether it was a bounced email is to carefully study the email headers
1601 and to find out which host really sent the email.
1605 At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have already
1606 begun to compose. When the postpone-message function is used in the
1607 compose menu, the body of your message and attachments are stored in the
1608 mailbox specified by the postponed variable. This means that you can
1609 recall the message even if you exit Mutt-ng and then restart it at a later
1612 Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the
1613 command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you compose a new
1614 message from the index or pager you will be prompted if postponed messages
1615 exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the postponed menu
1616 will pop up and you can select which message you would like to resume.
1618 Note: If you postpone a reply to a message, the reply setting of the
1619 message is only updated when you actually finish the message and send it.
1620 Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you replied to for
1621 the status of the message to be updated.
1623 See also the postpone quad-option.
1625 Chapter 3. Configuration
1629 1. Locations of Configuration Files
1631 2. Basic Syntax of Initialization Files
1633 3. Expansion within variables
1635 3.1. Commands' Output
1637 3.2. Environment Variables
1639 3.3. Configuration Variables
1641 3.4. Self-Defined Variables
1643 3.5. Pre-Defined Variables
1645 3.6. Type Conversions
1647 4. Defining/Using aliases
1649 5. Changing the default key bindings
1651 6. Defining aliases for character sets
1653 7. Setting variables based upon mailbox
1657 9. Using color and mono video attributes
1659 10. Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers
1661 11. Alternative addresses
1667 12.2. Receiving: Display Setup
1671 12.4. Additional Notes
1675 14. Using Multiple spool mailboxes
1677 15. Defining mailboxes which receive mail
1679 16. User defined headers
1681 17. Defining the order of headers when viewing messages
1683 18. Specify default save filename
1685 19. Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing
1687 20. Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once
1689 21. Change settings based upon message recipients
1691 22. Change settings before formatting a message
1693 23. Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient
1695 24. Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer
1697 25. Executing functions
1703 28. Setting variables
1705 29. Reading initialization commands from another file
1711 31.1. Character Sets
1713 31.2. Modularization
1715 31.3. Conditional parts
1717 32. Obsolete Variables
1719 1. Locations of Configuration Files
1721 While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt-ng usable
1722 right out of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt-ng to suit your
1723 own tastes. When Mutt-ng is first invoked, it will attempt to read the
1724 ``system'' configuration file (defaults set by your local system
1725 administrator), unless the ``-n'' commandline option is specified. This
1726 file is typically /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttngrc or /etc/Muttngrc ,
1727 Mutt-ng users will find this file in /usr/local/share/muttng/Muttrc or
1728 /etc/Muttngrc. Mutt will next look for a file named .muttrc in your home
1729 directory, Mutt-ng will look for .muttngrc. If this file does not exist
1730 and your home directory has a subdirectory named .mutt , mutt try to load
1731 a file named .muttng/muttngrc.
1733 .muttrc (or .muttngrc for Mutt-ng) is the file where you will usually
1734 place your commands to configure Mutt-ng.
1736 2. Basic Syntax of Initialization Files
1738 An initialization file consists of a series of commands .Each line of the
1739 file may contain one or more commands. When multiple commands are used,
1740 they must be separated by a semicolon (;).
1742 set realname='Mutt-ng user' ; ignore x-
1744 The hash mark, or pound sign (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character.
1745 You can use it to annotate your initialization file. All text after the
1746 comment character to the end of the line is ignored. For example,
1748 my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment
1750 Single quotes (') and double quotes (") can be used to quote strings which
1751 contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between the two
1752 types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs, namely
1753 that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not
1754 interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see next
1755 paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which should be
1756 evaluated. For example, backtics are evaluated inside of double quotes,
1757 but not for single quotes.
1759 \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh. For
1760 example, if want to put quotes ``"'' inside of a string, you can use ``\''
1761 to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted
1764 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
1766 ``\\'' means to insert a literal ``\'' into the line. ``\n'' and ``\r''
1767 have their usual C meanings of linefeed and carriage-return, respectively.
1769 A \ at the end of a line can be used to split commands over multiple
1770 lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the middle of
1773 Please note that, unlike the various shells, mutt-ng interprets a ``\'' at
1774 the end of a line also in comments. This allows you to disable a command
1775 split over multiple lines with only one ``#''.
1778 set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins"
1780 When testing your config files, beware the following caveat. The backslash
1781 at the end of the commented line extends the current line with the next
1782 line - then referred to as a ``continuation line''. As the first line is
1783 commented with a hash (#) all following continuation lines are also part
1784 of a comment and therefore are ignored, too. So take care of comments when
1785 continuation lines are involved within your setup files!
1795 line1 ``continues'' until line4. however, the part after the # is a
1796 comment which includes line3 and line4. line5 is a new line of its own and
1797 thus is interpreted again.
1799 The commands understood by mutt are explained in the next paragraphs. For
1800 a complete list, see the commands.
1802 3. Expansion within variables
1804 Besides just assign static content to variables, there's plenty of ways of
1805 adding external and more or less dynamic content.
1807 3.1. Commands' Output
1809 It is possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
1810 initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in
1811 backquotes (``) as in, for example:
1813 my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a`
1815 The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted before the
1816 line is parsed. Note that since initialization files are line oriented,
1817 only the first line of output from the Unix command will be substituted.
1819 3.2. Environment Variables
1821 UNIX environments can be accessed like the way it is done in shells like
1822 sh and bash: Prepend the name of the environment by a ``$'' sign. For
1825 set record=+sent_on_$HOSTNAME
1827 sets the record variable to the string +sent_on_ and appends the value of
1828 the evironment variable $HOSTNAME.
1830 Note: There will be no warning if an environment variable is not defined.
1831 The result will of the expansion will then be empty.
1833 3.3. Configuration Variables
1835 As for environment variables, the values of all configuration variables as
1836 string can be used in the same way, too. For example,
1838 set imap_home_namespace = $folder
1840 would set the value of imap-home-namespace to the value to which folder is
1843 Note: There're no logical links established in such cases so that the the
1844 value for imap-home-namespace won't change even if folder gets changed.
1846 Note: There will be no warning if a configuration variable is not defined
1847 or is empty. The result will of the expansion will then be empty.
1849 3.4. Self-Defined Variables
1851 Mutt-ng flexibly allows users to define their own variables. To avoid
1852 conflicts with the standard set and to prevent misleading error messages,
1853 there's a reserved namespace for them: all user-defined variables must be
1854 prefixed with user_ and can be used just like any ordinary configuration
1855 or environment variable.
1857 For example, to view the manual, users can either define two macros like
1860 macro generic <F1> "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual"
1861 macro pager <F1> "!less -r /path/to/manual" "Show manual"
1863 for generic, pager and index .The alternative is to define a custom
1866 set user_manualcmd = "!less -r /path/to_manual"
1867 macro generic <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
1868 macro pager <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
1869 macro index <F1> "$user_manualcmd<enter>" "Show manual"
1871 to re-use the command sequence as in:
1873 macro index <F2> "$user_manualcmd | grep '\^[ ]\\+~. '" "Show Patterns"
1875 Using this feature, arbitrary sequences can be defined once and recalled
1876 and reused where necessary. More advanced scenarios could include to save
1877 a variable's value at the beginning of macro sequence and restore it at
1880 When the variable is first defined, the first value it gets assigned is
1881 also the initial value to which it can be reset using the reset command.
1883 The complete removal is done via the unset keyword.
1885 After the following sequence:
1890 the variable $user_foo has a current value of 666 and an initial of 42.
1895 will show 666. After doing the reset via
1899 a following query will give 42 as the result. After unsetting it via
1903 any query or operation (except the noted expansion within other
1904 statements) will lead to an error message.
1906 3.5. Pre-Defined Variables
1908 In order to allow users to share one setup over a number of different
1909 machines without having to change its contents, there's a number of
1910 pre-defined variables. These are prefixed with muttng_ and are read-only,
1911 i.e. they cannot be set, unset or reset. The reference chapter lists all
1912 available variables.
1914 Please consult the local copy of your manual for their values as they may
1915 differ from different manual sources. Where the manual is installed in can
1916 be queried (already using such a variable) by running:
1918 muttng -Q muttng_docdir
1920 To extend the example for viewing the manual via self-defined variables,
1921 it can be made more readable and more portable by changing the real path
1924 set user_manualcmd = '!less -r /path/to_manual'
1928 set user_manualcmd = "!less -r $muttng_docdir/manual.txt"
1930 which works everywhere if a manual is installed.
1932 Please note that by the type of quoting, muttng determines when to expand
1933 these values: when it finds double quotes, the value will be expanded
1934 during reading the setup files but when it finds single quotes, it'll
1935 expand it at runtime as needed.
1937 For example, the statement
1939 folder-hook . "set user_current_folder = $muttng_folder_name"
1941 will be already be translated to the following when reading the startup
1944 folder-hook . "set user_current_folder = some_folder"
1946 with some_folder being the name of the first folder muttng opens. On the
1949 folder-hook . 'set user_current_folder = $muttng_folder_name'
1951 will be executed at runtime because of the single quotes so that
1952 user_current_folder will always have the value of the currently opened
1955 A more practical example is:
1957 folder-hook . 'source ~/.mutt/score-$muttng_folder_name'
1959 which can be used to source files containing score commands depending on
1960 the folder the user enters.
1962 3.6. Type Conversions
1964 A note about variable's types during conversion: internally values are
1965 stored in internal types but for any dump/query or set operation they're
1966 converted to and from string. That means that there's no need to worry
1967 about types when referencing any variable. As an example, the following
1968 can be used without harm (besides makeing muttng very likely behave
1972 set folder = $read_inc
1973 set read_inc = $folder
1974 set user_magic_number = 42
1975 set folder = $user_magic_number
1977 4. Defining/Using aliases
1979 Usage: alias key address [ , address, ... ]
1981 It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of
1982 someone you are communicating with. Mutt-ng allows you to create
1983 ``aliases'' which map a short string to a full address.
1985 Note: if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than
1986 one address), you must separate the addresses with a comma (``,'').
1988 To remove an alias or aliases (``*'' means all aliases):
1990 unalias [ * | key ... ]
1992 alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins)
1993 alias theguys manny, moe, jack
1995 Unlike other mailers, Mutt-ng doesn't require aliases to be defined in a
1996 special file. The alias command can appear anywhere in a configuration
1997 file, as long as this file is source .Consequently, you can have multiple
1998 alias files, or you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc.
2000 On the other hand, the create-alias function can use only one file, the
2001 one pointed to by the alias-file variable (which is ˜/.muttrc by
2002 default). This file is not special either, in the sense that Mutt-ng will
2003 happily append aliases to any file, but in order for the new aliases to
2004 take effect you need to explicitly source this file too.
2008 source /usr/local/share/Mutt-ng.aliases
2009 source ~/.mail_aliases
2010 set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases
2012 To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where
2013 muttprompts for addresses, such as the To: or Cc: prompt. You can also
2014 enter aliases in your editor at the appropriate headers if you have the
2015 edit-headers variable set.
2017 In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab character
2018 to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple
2019 matches, mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to
2020 be presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab with out a
2021 partial alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma
2022 denoting multiple addresses.
2024 In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the
2025 select-entry key (default: RET), and use the exit key (default: q) to
2026 return to the address prompt.
2028 5. Changing the default key bindings
2030 Usage: bind map key function
2032 This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation
2033 invoked when pressing a key).
2035 map specifies in which menu the binding belongs. Multiple maps may be
2036 specified by separating them with commas (no additional whitespace
2037 isallowed). The currently defined maps are:
2041 This is not a real menu, but is used as a fallback for all of the
2042 other menus except for the pager and editor modes. If a key is not
2043 defined in another menu, Mutt-ng will look for a binding to use in
2044 this menu. This allows you to bind a key to a certain function in
2045 multiple menus instead of having multiple bind statements to
2046 accomplish the same task.
2050 The alias menu is the list of your personal aliases as defined in
2051 your muttrc. It is the mapping from a short alias name to the full
2052 email address(es) of the recipient(s).
2056 The attachment menu is used to access the attachments on received
2061 The browser is used for both browsing the local directory
2062 structure, and for listing all of your incoming mailboxes.
2066 The editor is the line-based editor the user enters text data.
2070 The index is the list of messages contained in a mailbox.
2074 The compose menu is the screen used when sending a new message.
2078 The pager is the mode used to display message/attachment data, and
2083 The pgp menu is used to select the OpenPGP keys used for
2084 encrypting outgoing messages.
2088 The postpone menu is similar to the index menu, except is used
2089 when recalling a message the user was composing, but saved until
2092 key is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a control
2093 character, use the sequence \Cx, where x is the letter of the control
2094 character (for example, to specify control-A use ``\Ca''). Note that the
2095 case of x as well as \C is ignored, so that \CA, \Ca, \cA and \ca are all
2096 equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit
2097 octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example \177 is equivalent to
2100 In addition, key may consist of:
2102 Table 3.1. Alternative Key Names
2104 +-----------------------------------+
2105 | Sequence | Description |
2106 |-------------+---------------------|
2108 |-------------+---------------------|
2110 |-------------+---------------------|
2111 | <backtab> | backtab / shift-tab |
2112 |-------------+---------------------|
2113 | \r | carriage return |
2114 |-------------+---------------------|
2116 |-------------+---------------------|
2118 |-------------+---------------------|
2120 |-------------+---------------------|
2122 |-------------+---------------------|
2123 | <down> | down arrow |
2124 |-------------+---------------------|
2125 | <left> | left arrow |
2126 |-------------+---------------------|
2127 | <right> | right arrow |
2128 |-------------+---------------------|
2129 | <pageup> | Page Up |
2130 |-------------+---------------------|
2131 | <pagedown> | Page Down |
2132 |-------------+---------------------|
2133 | <backspace> | Backspace |
2134 |-------------+---------------------|
2135 | <delete> | Delete |
2136 |-------------+---------------------|
2137 | <insert> | Insert |
2138 |-------------+---------------------|
2140 |-------------+---------------------|
2141 | <return> | Return |
2142 |-------------+---------------------|
2144 |-------------+---------------------|
2146 |-------------+---------------------|
2147 | <space> | Space bar |
2148 |-------------+---------------------|
2149 | <f1> | function key 1 |
2150 |-------------+---------------------|
2151 | <f10> | function key 10 |
2152 +-----------------------------------+
2154 key does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a space (``
2157 function specifies which action to take when key is pressed. For a
2158 complete list of functions, see the functions .The special function noop
2159 unbinds the specified key sequence.
2161 6. Defining aliases for character sets
2163 Usage: charset-hook alias charset Usage: iconv-hook charset local-charset
2165 The charset-hook command defines an alias for a character set. This is
2166 useful to properly display messages which are tagged with a character set
2167 name not known to mutt.
2169 The iconv-hook command defines a system-specific name for a character set.
2170 This is helpful when your systems character conversion library insists on
2171 using strange, system-specific names for character sets.
2173 7. Setting variables based upon mailbox
2175 Usage: folder-hook [!]regexp command
2177 It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are
2178 reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can
2179 execute any configuration command. regexp is a regular expression
2180 specifying in which mailboxes to execute command before loading. If a
2181 mailbox matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order
2182 given in the muttrc.
2184 Note: if you use the ``!'' shortcut for spoolfile at the beginning of the
2185 pattern, you must place it inside of double or single quotes in order to
2186 distinguish it from the logical not operator for the expression.
2188 Note that the settings are not restored when you leave the mailbox. For
2189 example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting methodbased
2190 upon the mailbox being read:
2192 folder-hook mutt set sort=threads
2194 However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when
2195 reading a different mailbox. To specify a default command, use the pattern
2198 folder-hook . set sort=date-sent
2202 Usage: macro menu key sequence [ description ]
2204 Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of
2205 actions. When you press key in menu menu ,Mutt-ng will behave as if you
2206 had typed sequence. So if you have a common sequence of commands you type,
2207 you can create a macro to execute those commands with a singlekey.
2209 menu is the maps which the macro will be bound. Multiple maps may be
2210 specified by separating multiple menu arguments by commas. Whitespace may
2211 not be used in between the menu arguments and thecommas separating them.
2213 key and sequence are expanded by the same rules as the bind. There are
2214 some additions however. The first is that control characters in sequence
2215 can also be specified as ^x. In order to get a caret (`^'') you need to
2216 use ^^. Secondly, to specify a certain key such as up or to invoke a
2217 function directly, you can use the format <key name> and <function name>
2218 .For a listing of key names see the section on bind. Functions are listed
2221 The advantage with using function names directly is that the macros
2222 willwork regardless of the current key bindings, so they are not dependent
2223 on the user having particular key definitions. This makes them more
2224 robustand portable, and also facilitates defining of macros in files used
2225 by more than one user (eg. the system Muttngrc).
2227 Optionally you can specify a descriptive text after sequence, which is
2228 shown in the help screens.
2230 Note: Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are
2231 silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped.
2233 9. Using color and mono video attributes
2235 Usage: color object foreground background [ regexp ] Usage: color index
2236 foreground background pattern Usage: uncolor index pattern [ pattern ... ]
2238 If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt-ng by creating your
2239 own color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information),
2240 you must specify both a foreground color and a background color (it is not
2241 possible to only specify one or the other).
2243 object can be one of:
2247 o body (match regexp in the body of messages)
2249 o bold (highlighting bold patterns in the body of messages)
2251 o error (error messages printed by Mutt-ng)
2253 o header (match regexp in the message header)
2255 o hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager)
2257 o index (match pattern in the message index)
2259 o indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu)
2261 o markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in the
2264 o message (informational messages)
2268 o quoted (text matching quote-regexp in the body of a message)
2270 o quoted1, quoted2, ..., quotedN (higher levels of quoting)
2272 o search (highlighting of words in the pager)
2276 o status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message)
2278 o tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager)
2280 o tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu)
2282 o underline (highlighting underlined patterns in the body of messages)
2284 foreground and background can be one of the following:
2306 foreground can optionally be prefixed with the keyword bright to make the
2307 foreground color boldfaced (e.g., brightred).
2309 If your terminal supports it, the special keyword default can be used as a
2310 transparent color. The value brightdefault is also valid. If Mutt-ng is
2311 linked against the S-Lang library, you also need to set the COLORFGBG
2312 environment variable to the default colors of your terminal for this to
2313 work; for example (for Bourne-like shells):
2315 set COLORFGBG="green;black"
2318 Note: The S-Lang library requires you to use the lightgray and brown
2319 keywords instead of white and yellow when setting this variable.
2321 Note: The uncolor command can be applied to the index object only. It
2322 removes entries from the list. You must specify the same pattern specified
2323 in the color command for it to be removed. The pattern ``*'' is a special
2324 token which means to clear the color index list of all entries.
2326 Mutt-ng also recognizes the keywords color0, color1 ,…, colorN-1 (N
2327 being the number of colors supported by your terminal). This is useful
2328 when you remap the colors for your display (for example by changing the
2329 color associated with color2 for your xterm), since color names may then
2330 lose their normal meaning.
2332 If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change the
2333 video attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command:
2335 Usage: mono <object> <attribute> [ regexp ] Usage: mono index attribute
2336 pattern Usage: unmono index pattern [ pattern ... ]
2338 where attribute is one of the following:
2350 10. Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers
2352 Usage: [un]ignore pattern [ pattern ... ]
2354 Messages often have many header fields added by automatic processing
2355 systems, or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This
2356 command allows you to specify header fields which you don't normally want
2359 You do not need to specify the full header field name. For example,
2360 ``ignore content-'' will ignore all header fields that begin with the
2361 pattern ``content-''. ``ignore *'' will ignore all headers.
2363 To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore''
2364 command. The ``unignore'' command will make Mutt-ng display headers with
2365 the given pattern. For example, if you do ``ignore x-'' it is possible to
2366 ``unignore x-mailer''.
2368 ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list.
2372 # Sven's draconian header weeding
2374 unignore from date subject to cc
2375 unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list:
2378 11. Alternative addresses
2380 Usage: [un]alternates regexp [ regexp ... ]
2382 With various functions, mutt will treat messages differently, depending on
2383 whether you sent them or whether you received them from someone else. For
2384 instance, when replying to a message that you sent to a different party,
2385 mutt will automatically suggest to send the response to the original
2386 message's recipients -- responding to yourself won't make much sense in
2387 many cases. (See reply-to .)
2389 Many users receive e-mail under a number of different addresses. To fully
2390 use mutt's features here, the program must be able to recognize what
2391 e-mail addresses you receive mail under. That's the purpose of the
2392 alternates command: It takes a list of regular expressions, each of which
2393 can identify an address under which you receive e-mail.
2395 The unalternates command can be used to write exceptions to alternates
2396 patterns. If an address matches something in an alternates command, but
2397 you nonetheless do not think it is from you, you can list a more precise
2398 pattern under an unalternates command.
2400 To remove a regular expression from the alternates list, use the
2401 unalternates command with exactly the same regexp . Likewise, if the
2402 regexp for a alternates command matches an entry on the unalternates list,
2403 that unalternates entry will be removed. If the regexp for unalternates is
2404 ``*'', all entries on alternates will be removed.
2410 Mutt-ng contains support for so-called format=flowed messages. In the
2411 beginning of email, each message had a fixed line width, and it was enough
2412 for displaying them on fixed-size terminals. But times changed, and
2413 nowadays hardly anybody still uses fixed-size terminals: more people
2414 nowaydays use graphical user interfaces, with dynamically resizable
2415 windows. This led to the demand of a new email format that makes it
2416 possible for the email client to make the email look nice in a resizable
2417 window without breaking quoting levels and creating an incompatible email
2418 format that can also be displayed nicely on old fixed-size terminals.
2420 For introductory information on format=flowed messages, see
2421 <http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html>.
2423 12.2. Receiving: Display Setup
2425 When you receive emails that are marked as format=flowed messages, and is
2426 formatted correctly, mutt-ng will try to reformat the message to optimally
2427 fit on your terminal. If you want a fixed margin on the right side of your
2428 terminal, you can set the following:
2432 The code above makes the line break 10 columns before the right side of
2435 If your terminal is so wide that the lines are embarrassingly long, you
2436 can also set a maximum line length:
2438 set max_line_length = 120
2440 The example above will give you lines not longer than 120 characters.
2442 When you view at format=flowed messages, you will often see the quoting
2443 hierarchy like in the following example:
2445 >Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
2446 >Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
2447 >production server that we want to set up before our customer's
2448 >project will go live.
2450 This obviously doesn't look very nice, and it makes it very hard to
2451 differentiate between text and quoting character. The solution is to
2452 configure mutt-ng to "stuff" the quoting:
2456 This will lead to a nicer result that is easier to read:
2458 > Bill, can you please send last month's progress report to Mr.
2459 > Morgan? We also urgently need the cost estimation for the new
2460 > production server that we want to set up before our customer's
2461 > project will go live.
2465 If you want mutt-ng to send emails with format=flowed set, you need to
2470 Additionally, you have to use an editor which supports writing
2471 format=flowed-conforming emails. For vim, this is done by adding w to the
2472 formatoptions (see :h formatoptions and :h fo-table) when writing emails.
2474 Also note that format=flowed knows about ``space-stuffing'', that is, when
2475 sending messages, some kinds of lines have to be indented with a single
2476 space on the sending side. On the receiving side, the first space (if any)
2477 is removed. As a consequence and in addition to the above simple setting,
2478 please keep this in mind when making manual formattings within the editor.
2479 Also note that mutt-ng currently violates the standard (RfC 3676) as it
2480 does not space-stuff lines starting with:
2482 o > This is not the quote character but a right angle used for other
2485 o From with a trailing space.
2487 o just a space for formatting reasons
2489 Please make sure that you manually prepend a space to each of them.
2491 12.4. Additional Notes
2493 For completeness, the delete-space variable provides the mechanism to
2494 generate a DelSp=yes parameter on outgoing messages. According to the
2495 standard, clients receiving a format=flowed messages should delete the
2496 last space of a flowed line but still interpret the line as flowed.
2497 Because flowed lines usually contain only one space at the end, this
2498 parameter would make the receiving client concatenate the last word of the
2499 previous with the first of the current line without a space. This makes
2500 ordinary text unreadable and is intended for languages rarely using
2501 spaces. So please use this setting only if you're sure what you're doing.
2505 Usage: [un]lists regexp [ regexp ... ] Usage: [un]subscribe regexp [
2508 Mutt-ng has a few nice features for using-lists .In order to take
2509 advantage of them, you must specify which addresses belong to mailing
2510 lists, and which mailing lists you are subscribed to. Once you have done
2511 this, the list-reply function will work for all known lists. Additionally,
2512 when you send a message to a subscribed list, mutt will add a
2513 Mail-Followup-To header to tell other users' mail user agents not to send
2514 copies of replies to your personal address. Note that the Mail-Followup-To
2515 header is a non-standard extension which is not supported by all mail user
2516 agents. Adding it is not bullet-proof against receiving personal CCs of
2517 list messages. Also note that the generation of the Mail-Followup-To
2518 header is controlled by the followup-to configuration variable.
2520 More precisely, Mutt-ng maintains lists of patterns for the addresses of
2521 known and subscribed mailing lists. Every subscribed mailing list is
2522 known. To mark a mailing list as known, use the ``lists'' command. To mark
2523 it as subscribed, use ``subscribe''.
2525 You can use regular expressions with both commands. To mark all messages
2526 sent to a specific bug report's address on mutt's bug tracking system as
2527 list mail, for instance, you could say ``subscribe [0-9]*@bugs.guug.de''.
2528 Often, it's sufficient to just give a portion of the list's e-mail
2531 Specify as much of the address as you need to to remove ambiguity. For
2532 example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt-ng mailing list, you will
2533 receive mail addressed to mutt-users@mutt.org. So, to tell Mutt-ng that
2534 this is a mailing list, you could add ``lists mutt-users'' to your
2535 initialization file. To tell mutt that you are subscribed to it, add
2536 ``subscribe mutt-users'' to your initialization file instead. If you also
2537 happen to get mail from someone whose address is mutt-users@example.com,
2538 you could use ``lists mutt-users@mutt\\.org'' or ``subscribe
2539 mutt-users@mutt\\.org'' to match only mail from the actual list.
2541 The ``unlists'' command is used to remove a token from the list of known
2542 and subscribed mailing-lists. Use ``unlists *'' to remove all tokens.
2544 To remove a mailing list from the list of subscribed mailing lists, but
2545 keep it on the list of known mailing lists, use ``unsubscribe''.
2547 14. Using Multiple spool mailboxes
2549 Usage: mbox-hook [!]pattern mailbox
2551 This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to
2552 adifferent mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders. pattern
2553 is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a ``spool''
2554 mailbox and mailbox specifies where mail should be saved when read.
2556 Unlike some of the other hook commands, only the first matching pattern is
2557 used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single mailbox).
2559 15. Defining mailboxes which receive mail
2561 Usage: [un]mailboxes [!]filename [ filename ... ]
2563 This command specifies folders which can receive mail and which will be
2564 checked for new messages. By default, the main menu status bar displays
2565 how many of these folders have new messages.
2567 When changing folders, pressing space will cycle through folders with new
2570 Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the
2571 files specified by the mailboxes command, and indicate which contain new
2572 messages. Mutt-ng will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the
2573 command line with the -y option.
2575 The ``unmailboxes'' command is used to remove a token from the list of
2576 folders which receive mail. Use ``unmailboxes *'' to remove all tokens.
2578 Note: new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to the
2579 last access time. Utilities like biff or frm or any other program which
2580 accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt-ng to never detect new mail for that
2581 mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. Backup tools are
2582 another common reason for updated access times.
2584 Note: the filenames in the mailboxes command are resolved when the command
2585 is executed, so if these names contain shortcuts (such as ``='' and
2586 ``!''), any variable definition that affect these characters (like folder
2587 and spoolfile) should be executed before the mailboxes command.
2589 16. User defined headers
2591 Usage: my_hdr string unmy_hdr field [ field ... ]
2593 The ``my_hdr'' command allows you to create your own header fields which
2594 will be added to every message you send.
2596 For example, if you would like to add an ``Organization:'' header field to
2597 all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command
2599 my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA
2603 Note: space characters are not allowed between the keyword and the colon
2604 (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that space is
2605 illegal there, so Mutt-ng enforces the rule.
2607 If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should
2608 either set the edit-headers variable, or use the edit-headers function
2609 (default: ``E'') in the send-menu so that you can edit the header of your
2610 message along with the body.
2612 To remove user defined header fields, use the ``unmy_hdr'' command. You
2613 may specify an asterisk (``*'') to remove all header fields, or the fields
2614 to remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and ``Cc'' header fields, you
2619 17. Defining the order of headers when viewing messages
2621 Usage: hdr_order header1 header2 header3
2623 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt to
2624 present headers to you when viewing messages.
2626 ``unhdr_order *'' will clear all previous headers from the order list,
2627 thus removing the header order effects set by the system-wide startup
2630 hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject:
2632 18. Specify default save filename
2634 Usage: save-hook [!]pattern filename
2636 This command is used to override the default filename used when saving
2637 messages. filename will be used as the default filename if the message is
2638 From: an address matching regexp or if you are the author and the message
2639 is addressed to: something matching regexp .
2641 See pattern-hook for information on the exact format of pattern.
2645 save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins
2646 save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam
2648 Also see the fcc-save-hook command.
2650 19. Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing
2652 Usage: fcc-hook [!]pattern mailbox
2654 This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than record.
2655 Mutt-ng searches the initial list of message recipients for the first
2656 matching regexp and uses mailbox as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match
2657 is found the message will be saved to record mailbox.
2659 See pattern-hook for information on the exact format of pattern.
2661 Example: fcc-hook [@.]aol\\.com$ +spammers
2663 The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to
2664 the `+spammers' mailbox by default. Also see the fcc-save-hook command.
2666 20. Specify default save filename and default Fcc: mailbox at once
2668 Usage: fcc-save-hook [!]pattern mailbox
2670 This command is a shortcut, equivalent to doing both a fcc-hook and a
2671 save-hook with its arguments.
2673 21. Change settings based upon message recipients
2675 Usage: reply-hook [!]pattern command Usage: send-hook [!]pattern command
2676 Usage: send2-hook [!]pattern command
2678 These commands can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
2679 based upon recipients of the message. pattern is a regular expression
2680 matching the desired address. command is executed when regexp matches
2681 recipients of the message.
2683 reply-hook is matched against the message you are replying to, instead of
2684 the message you are sending .send-hook is matched against all messages,
2685 both new and replies .Note: reply-hooks are matched before the send-hook
2686 ,regardless of the order specified in the users's configuration file.
2688 send2-hook is matched every time a message is changed, either by editing
2689 it, or by using the compose menu to change its recipients or subject.
2690 send2-hook is executed after send-hook ,and can, e.g., be used to set
2691 parameters such as the sendmail variable depending on the message's sender
2694 For each type of send-hook or reply-hook, when multiple matches occur,
2695 commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc (for
2698 See pattern-hook for information on the exact format of pattern.
2700 Example: send-hook mutt "set mime_forward signature=''"
2702 Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the
2703 attribution, signature and locale variables in order to change the
2704 language of the attributions and signatures based upon the recipients.
2706 Note: the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial
2707 list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the
2708 message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. Also note that my_hdr
2709 commands which modify recipient headers, or the message's subject, don't
2710 have any effect on the current message when executed from a send-hook.
2712 22. Change settings before formatting a message
2714 Usage: message-hook [!]pattern command
2716 This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands
2717 before viewing or formatting a message based upon information about the
2718 message. command is executed if the pattern matches the message to be
2719 displayed. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order
2720 they are specified in the muttrc.
2722 See pattern-hook for information on the exact format of pattern.
2726 message-hook ~A 'set pager=builtin'
2727 message-hook '~f freshmeat-news' 'set pager="less \"+/^ subject:.*\""'
2729 23. Choosing the cryptographic key of the recipient
2731 Usage: crypt-hook pattern keyid
2733 When encrypting messages with PGP or OpenSSL, you may want to associate a
2734 certain key with a given e-mail address automatically, either because the
2735 recipient's public key can't be deduced from the destination address, or
2736 because, for some reasons, you need to override the key Mutt-ng
2737 wouldnormally use. The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you
2738 can specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages
2739 to a certain recipient.
2741 The meaning of "key id" is to be taken broadly in this context: You can
2742 either put a numerical key ID here, an e-mail address, or even just a real
2745 24. Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer
2749 This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. The string may
2750 contain control characters, key names and function names like the sequence
2751 string in the macro command. You may use it to automatically run a
2752 sequence of commands at startup, or when entering certain folders.
2754 25. Executing functions
2756 Usage: exec function [ function ... ]
2758 This command can be used to execute any function. Functions are listed in
2759 the functions. ``exec function'' is equivalent to ``push <function>''.
2763 Usage: score pattern value Usage: unscore pattern [ pattern ... ]
2765 In situations where you have to cope with a lot of emails, e.g. when you
2766 read many different mailing lists, and take part in discussions, it is
2767 always useful to have the important messages marked and the annoying
2768 messages or the ones that you aren't interested in deleted. For this
2769 purpose, mutt-ng features a mechanism called ``scoring''.
2771 When you use scoring, every message has a base score of 0. You can then
2772 use the score command to define patterns and a positive or negative value
2773 associated with it. When a pattern matches a message, the message's score
2774 will be raised or lowered by the amount of the value associated with the
2777 score "~f nion@muttng\.org" 50
2778 score "~f @sco\.com" -100
2780 If the pattern matches, it is also possible to set the score value of the
2781 current message to a certain value and then stop evaluation:
2783 score "~f santaclaus@northpole\.int" =666
2785 What is important to note is that negative score values will be rounded up
2788 To make scoring actually useful, the score must be applied in some way.
2789 That's what the score thresholds are for. Currently, there are three score
2792 o flag threshold: when a message has a score value equal or higher than
2793 the flag threshold, it will be flagged.
2795 o read threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower than
2796 the read threshold, it will be marked as read.
2798 o delete threshold: when a message has a score value equal or lower than
2799 the delete threshold, it will be marked as deleted.
2801 These three thresholds can be set via the variables score-threshold-flag
2802 ,score-threshold-read, score-threshold-delete and. By default,
2803 score-threshold-read and score-threshold-delete are set to -1, which means
2804 that in the default threshold configuration no message will ever get
2805 marked as read or deleted.
2807 Scoring gets especially interesting when combined with the color command
2810 color index black yellow "~n 10-"
2811 color index red yellow "~n 100-"
2813 The rules above mark all messages with a score between 10 and 99 with
2814 black and yellow, and messages with a score greater or equal 100 with red
2815 and yellow. This might be unusual to you if you're used to e.g. slrn's
2816 scoring mechanism, but it is more flexible, as it visually marks different
2821 Usage: spam pattern format Usage: nospam pattern
2823 Mutt-ng has generalized support for external spam-scoring filters. By
2824 defining your spam patterns with the spam and nospam commands, you can
2825 limit, search, and sort your mail based on its spam attributes, as
2826 determined by the external filter. You also can display the spam
2827 attributes in your index display using the %H selector in the index-format
2828 variable. (Tip: try %?H?[%H] ? to display spam tags only when they are
2829 defined for a given message.)
2831 Your first step is to define your external filter's spam patterns using
2832 the spam command. pattern should be a regular expression that matches a
2833 header in a mail message. If any message in the mailbox matches this
2834 regular expression, it will receive a ``spam tag'' or ``spam attribute''
2835 (unless it also matches a nospam pattern -- see below.) The appearance of
2836 this attribute is entirely up to you, and is governed by the format
2837 parameter. format can be any static text, but it also can include
2838 back-references from the pattern expression. (A regular expression
2839 ``back-reference'' refers to a sub-expression contained within
2840 parentheses.) %1 is replaced with the first back-reference in the regex,
2841 %2 with the second, etc.
2843 If you're using multiple spam filters, a message can have more than one
2844 spam-related header. You can define spam patterns for each filter you use.
2845 If a message matches two or more of these patterns, and the
2846 $spam_separator variable is set to a string, then the message's spam tag
2847 will consist of all the format strings joined together, with the value of
2848 $spam_separator separating them.
2850 For example, suppose I use DCC, SpamAssassin, and PureMessage. I might
2851 define these spam settings:
2853 spam "X-DCC-.*-Metrics:.*(....)=many" "90+/DCC-%1"
2854 spam "X-Spam-Status: Yes" "90+/SA"
2855 spam "X-PerlMX-Spam: .*Probability=([0-9]+)%" "%1/PM"
2856 set spam_separator=", "
2858 If I then received a message that DCC registered with ``many'' hits under
2859 the ``Fuz2'' checksum, and that PureMessage registered with a 97%
2860 probability of being spam, that message's spam tag would read90+/DCC-Fuz2,
2861 97/PM. (The four characters before ``=many'' in a DCC report indicate the
2862 checksum used -- in this case, ``Fuz2''.)
2864 If the $spam_separator variable is unset, then each spam pattern match
2865 supersedes the previous one. Instead of getting joined format strings,
2866 you'll get only the last one to match.
2868 The spam tag is what will be displayed in the index when you use %H in the
2869 $index_format variable. It's also the string that the ˜H pattern-matching
2870 expression matches against for search and limit functions. And it's what
2871 sorting by spam attribute will use as a sort key.
2873 That's a pretty complicated example, and most people's actual environments
2874 will have only one spam filter. The simpler your configuration, the more
2875 effective mutt can be, especially when it comes to sorting.
2877 Generally, when you sort by spam tag, mutt will sort lexically -- that is,
2878 by ordering strings alphnumerically. However, if a spam tag begins with a
2879 number, mutt will sort numerically first, and lexically only when two
2880 numbers are equal in value. (This is like UNIX's sort -n.) A message with
2881 no spam attributes at all -- that is, one that didn't match any of your
2882 spam patterns -- is sorted at lowest priority. Numbers are sorted next,
2883 beginning with 0 and ranging upward. Finally, non-numeric strings are
2884 sorted, with ``a'' taking lowerpriority than ``z''. Clearly, in general,
2885 sorting by spam tags is most effective when you can coerce your filter to
2886 give you a raw number. But in case you can't, mutt can still do something
2889 The nospam command can be used to write exceptions to spam patterns. If a
2890 header pattern matches something in a spam command, but you nonetheless do
2891 not want it to receive a spam tag, you can list amore precise pattern
2892 under a nospam command.
2894 If the pattern given to nospam is exactly the same as the pattern on an
2895 existing spam list entry, the effect will be to remove the entry from the
2896 spam list, instead of adding an exception. Likewise, if the pattern for a
2897 spam command matches an entry on the nospam list, that nospam entry will
2898 be removed. If the pattern for nospam is ``*'', all entries on both lists
2899 will be removed. This might be the default action if you use spam and
2900 nospam in conjunction with a folder-hook .
2902 You can have as many spam or nospam commands as you like. You can even do
2903 your own primitive spam detection within mutt -- for example, if you
2904 consider all mail from MAILER-DAEMON to be spam, you can use a spam
2907 spam "^From: .*MAILER-DAEMON" "999"
2909 28. Setting variables
2911 Usage: set [no|inv]variable [=value] [ variable ... ] Usage: toggle
2912 variable [variable ... ] Usage: unset variable [variable ... ] Usage:
2913 reset variable [variable ... ]
2915 This command is used to set (and unset) variables .There are four basic
2916 types of variables: boolean, number, string and quadoption. boolean
2917 variables can be set (true) or unset (false). number variables can be
2918 assigned a positive integer value.
2920 string variables consist of any number of printable characters. strings
2921 must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You may also
2922 use the ``C'' escape sequences \n and \t for newline and tab,
2925 quadoption variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted for
2926 certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of yes will cause
2927 the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to
2928 the question. Similarly, a value of no will cause the the action to be
2929 carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of ask-yes will cause a
2930 prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and ask-no will provide a default
2933 Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: set noaskbcc .
2935 For boolean variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with
2936 inv to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing macros.
2937 Example: set invsmart_wrap.
2939 The toggle command automatically prepends the inv prefix to all specified
2942 The unset command automatically prepends the no prefix to all specified
2945 Using the enter-command function in the index menu, you can query the
2946 value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question
2951 The question mark is actually only required for boolean and quadoption
2954 The reset command resets all given variables to the compile time defaults
2955 (hopefully mentioned in this manual). If you use the command set and
2956 prefix the variable with ``&'' this has the same behavior as the reset
2959 With the reset command there exists the special variable ``all'', which
2960 allows you to reset all variables to their system defaults.
2962 29. Reading initialization commands from another file
2964 Usage: source filename [ filename ... ]
2966 This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands from other
2967 files. For example, I place all of my aliases in ˜/.mail_aliases so that
2968 I can make my ˜/.muttrc readable and keep my aliases private.
2970 If the filename begins with a tilde (``˜''), it will be expanded to the
2971 path of your home directory.
2973 If the filename ends with a vertical bar (|), then filename is considered
2974 to be an executable program from which to read input (eg. source
2979 Usage: unhook [ * | hook-type ]
2981 This command permits you to flush hooks you have previously defined. You
2982 can either remove all hooks by giving the ``*'' character as an argument,
2983 or you can remove all hooks of a specific type by saying something like
2988 31.1. Character Sets
2990 As users may run mutt-ng on different systems, the configuration must be
2991 maintained because it's likely that people want to use the setup
2992 everywhere they use mutt-ng. And mutt-ng tries to help where it can.
2994 To not produce conflicts with different character sets, mutt-ng allows
2995 users to specify in which character set their configuration files are
2996 encoded. Please note that while reading the configuration files, this is
2997 only respected after the corresponding declaration appears. It's advised
2998 to put the following at the very beginning of a users muttngrc:
3000 set config_charset = "..."
3002 and replacing the dots with the actual character set. To avoid problems
3003 while maintaining the setup, vim user's may want to use modelines as show
3006 # vim:fileencoding=...:
3008 while, again, replacing the dots with the appropriate name. This tells vim
3009 as which character set to read and save the file.
3011 31.2. Modularization
3013 ``Modularization'' means to divide the setup into several files while
3014 sorting the options or commands by topic. Especially for longer setups
3015 (e.g. with many hooks), this helps maintaining it and solving trouble.
3017 When using separation, setups may be, as a whole or in fractions, shared
3018 over different systems.
3020 31.3. Conditional parts
3022 When using a configuration on different systems, the user may not always
3023 have influence on how mutt-ng is installed and which features it includes.
3025 To solve this, mutt-ng contain a feature based on the ``ifdef'' patch
3026 written for mutt. Its basic syntax is:
3028 ifdef <item> <command>
3029 ifndef <item> <command>
3031 ...whereby <item> can be one of:
3041 All available functions, variables and menus are documented elsewhere in
3042 this manual but ``features'' is specific to these two commands. To test
3043 for one, prefix one of the following keywords with feature_: ncurses,
3044 slang, iconv, idn, dotlock, standalone, pop, nntp, imap, ssl, gnutls,
3045 sasl, sasl2, libesmtp, compressed, color, classic_pgp, classic_smime,
3048 As an example, one can use the following in ˜/.muttngrc:
3050 ifdef feature_imap 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-imap'
3051 ifdef feature_pop 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-pop'
3052 ifdef feature_nntp 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp'
3054 ...to only source ˜/.mutt-ng/setup-imap if IMAP support is built in, only
3055 source ˜/.mutt-ng/setup-pop if POP support is built in and only source
3056 ˜/.mutt-ng/setup-nntp if NNTP support is built in.
3058 An example for testing for variable names can be used if users use
3059 different revisions of mutt-ng whereby the older one may not have a
3060 certain variable. To test for the availability of imap-mail-check , use:
3062 ifdef imap_mail_check 'set imap_mail_check = 300'
3064 Provided for completeness is the test for menu names. To set
3065 pager-index-lines only if the pager menu is available, use:
3067 ifdef pager 'set pager_index_lines = 10'
3069 For completeness, too, the opposite of ifdef is provided: ifndef which
3070 only executes the command if the test fails. For example, the following
3071 two examples are equivalent:
3073 ifdef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'
3074 ifndef feature_ncurses 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'
3078 ifdef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-slang'
3079 ifndef feature_slang 'source ~/.mutt-ng/setup-ncurses'
3081 32. Obsolete Variables
3083 In the process of ensuring and creating more consistency, many variables
3084 have been renamed and some of the old names were already removed. Please
3085 see sect-obsolete for a complete list.
3087 Chapter 4. Advanced Usage
3091 1. Regular Expressions
3095 2.1. Complex Patterns
3097 2.2. Patterns and Dates
3103 3.2. Conditional Expansion
3105 3.3. Modifications and Padding
3111 5.1. Message Matching in Hooks
3113 6. Using the sidebar
3115 7. External Address Queries
3119 9. Mailbox Shortcuts
3121 10. Handling Mailing Lists
3125 11.1. Linking threads
3127 11.2. Breaking threads
3129 12. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support
3131 13. POP3 Support (OPTIONAL)
3133 14. IMAP Support (OPTIONAL)
3135 14.1. The Folder Browser
3137 14.2. Authentication
3139 15. NNTP Support (OPTIONAL)
3141 15.1. Again: Scoring
3143 16. SMTP Support (OPTIONAL)
3145 17. Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL)
3147 18. Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)
3149 19. Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL)
3151 19.1. Open a compressed mailbox for reading
3153 19.2. Write a compressed mailbox
3155 19.3. Append a message to a compressed mailbox
3157 19.4. Encrypted folders
3159 1. Regular Expressions
3161 All string patterns in Mutt-ng including those in more complex patterns
3162 must be specified using regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX
3163 extended'' syntax (which is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU
3164 awk). For your convenience, we have included below a brief description of
3167 The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper
3168 case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\'' must be
3169 quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization command:
3172 A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings. Regular
3173 expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic expressions, by
3174 using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
3176 Note that the regular expression can be enclosed/delimited by either " or
3177 ' which is useful if the regular expression includes a white-space
3178 character. See muttrc-syntax for more information on " and ' delimiter
3179 processing. To match a literal " or ' you must preface it with \
3182 The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match a
3183 single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits, are
3184 regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with special
3185 meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
3187 The period ``.'' matches any single character. The caret ``^'' andthe
3188 dollar sign ``$'' are metacharacters that respectively match the empty
3189 string at the beginning and end of a line.
3191 A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``]'' matches any single
3192 character in that list; if the first character of the list is a caret
3193 ``^'' then it matches any character not in the list. For example, the
3194 regular expression [0123456789] matches any single digit. A range of ASCII
3195 characters may be specified by giving the first and last characters,
3196 separated by a hyphen ``-''. Most metacharacters lose their special
3197 meaning inside lists. To include a literal ``]'' place it first in the
3198 list. Similarly, to include a literal ``^'' place it anywhere but first.
3199 Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``-'' place it last.
3201 Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes
3202 consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''. The following
3203 classes are defined by the POSIX standard:
3207 Alphanumeric characters.
3211 Alphabetic characters.
3215 Space or tab characters.
3227 Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is
3228 printable, but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.)
3232 Lower-case alphabetic characters.
3236 Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.)
3240 Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits,
3241 control characters, or space characters).
3245 Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few).
3249 Upper-case alphabetic characters.
3253 Characters that are hexadecimal digits.
3255 A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the
3256 brackets of a character list. Note that the brackets in these class names
3257 are part of the symbolic names, and must be included in addition to the
3258 brackets delimiting the bracket list. For example, [[:digit:]] is
3259 equivalent to [0-9].
3261 Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These
3262 apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols
3263 (calledcollating elements) that are represented with more than one
3264 character, as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating
3265 or sorting purposes:
3269 A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed
3270 in ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating
3271 element, then [[.ch.]] is a regexp that matches this collating
3272 element, while [ch] is a regexp that matches either ``c'' or
3277 An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of
3278 characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in ``[='' and
3279 ``=]''. For example, the name ``e'' might be used to represent all
3280 of ``è'' ``é'' and ``e''. In this case, [[=e=]] is a regexp that
3281 matches any of ``è'', ``é'' and ``e''.
3283 A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one of
3284 several repetition operators:
3288 The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
3292 The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
3296 The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
3300 The preceding item is matched exactly n times.
3304 The preceding item is matched n or more times.
3308 The preceding item is matched at most m times.
3312 The preceding item is matched at least n times, but no more than m
3315 Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular
3316 expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings that
3317 respectively match the concatenated subexpressions.
3319 Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator ``|''; the
3320 resulting regular expression matches any string matching either
3323 Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes
3324 precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in
3325 parentheses to override these precedence rules.
3327 Note: If you compile Mutt-ng with the GNU rx package, the following
3328 operators may also be used in regular expressions:
3332 Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a
3337 Matches the empty string within a word.
3341 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word.
3345 Matches the empty string at the end of a word.
3349 Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or
3354 Matches any character that is not word-constituent.
3358 Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string).
3362 Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer.
3364 Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so they
3365 may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems.
3369 Mutt-ng's pattern language provides a simple yet effective way to set up
3370 rules to match messages, e.g. for operations like tagging and scoring. A
3371 pattern consists of one or more sub-pattern, which can be logically
3372 grouped, ORed, and negated. For a complete listing of these patterns,
3373 please refer to table patterns in the Reference chapter.
3375 It must be noted that in this table, EXPR is a regular expression. For
3376 ranges, the forms <[MAX], >>[MIN], [MIN]- and -[MAX] are also possible.
3378 2.1. Complex Patterns
3380 It is possible to combine several sub-patterns to a more complex pattern.
3381 The most simple possibility is to logically AND several patterns by
3382 stringing them together:
3386 The pattern above matches all messages that contain ``SPAM'' in the
3387 subject and are unread.
3389 To logical OR patterns, simply use the | operator. This one especially
3390 useful when using local groups:
3392 ~f ("nion@muttng\.org"|"ak@muttng\.org"|"pdmef@muttng\.org")
3393 (~b mutt-ng|~s Mutt-ng)
3396 The first pattern matches all messages that were sent by one of the
3397 mutt-ng maintainers, while the seconds pattern matches all messages that
3398 contain ``mutt-ng'' in the message body or ``Mutt-ng'' in the subject. The
3399 third pattern matches all messages that do not contain ``@synflood\.at''
3400 in the References: header, i.e. messages that are not an (indirect) reply
3401 to one of my messages. A pattern can be logicall negated using the !
3404 2.2. Patterns and Dates
3406 When using dates in patterns, the dates must be specified in a special
3407 format, i.e. DD/MM/YYYY. If you don't specify month or year, they default
3408 to the current month or year. When using date ranges, and you specify only
3409 the minimum or the maximum, the specified date will be excluded, e.g.
3410 01/06/2005- matches against all messages after Juni 1st, 2005.
3412 It is also possible to use so-called ``error margins'' when specifying
3413 date ranges. You simply specify a date, and then the error margin. This
3414 margin needs to contain the information whether it goes ``forth'' or
3415 ``back'' in time, by using + and -. Then follows a number and a unit, i.e.
3416 y for years, m for months, w for weeks and d for days. If you use the
3417 special * sign, it means that the error margin goes to both``directions''
3424 The first pattern matches all dates between January 1st, 2005 and January
3425 1st 2006. The second pattern matches all dates between October 18th, 2004
3426 and October 4th 2004 (2 weeks before 18/10/2004), while the third pattern
3427 matches all dates 1 day around December 28th, 2004 (i.e. Dec 27th, 28th
3430 Relative dates are also very important, as they make it possible to
3431 specify date ranges between a fixed number of units and the current date.
3432 How this works can be seen in the following example:
3434 ~d >2w # messages older than two weeks
3435 ~d <3d # messages newer than 3 days
3436 ~d =1m # messages that are exactly one month old
3442 The so called Format Strings offer great flexibility when configuring
3443 mutt-ng. In short, they describe what items to print out how in menus and
3446 Basically, they work as this: for different menus and bars, there's a
3447 variable specifying the layout. For every item available, there is a so
3450 For example, when running mutt-ng on different machines or different
3451 versions for testing purposes, it may be interesting to have the following
3452 information always printed on screen when one is in the index:
3454 o the current hostname
3456 o the current mutt-ng version number
3458 The setting for the status bar of the index is controlled via the
3459 status-format variable. For the hostname and version string, there's an
3460 expando for $status_format: %h expands to the hostname and %v to the
3461 version string. When just configuring:
3463 set status_format = "%v on %h: ..."
3465 mutt-ng will replace the sequence %v with the version string and %h with
3466 the host's name. When you are, for example, running mutt-ng version 1.5.9i
3467 on host mailhost, you'll see the following when you're in the index:
3469 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: ...
3471 In the index, there're more useful information one could want to see:
3473 o which mailbox is open
3475 o how man new, flagged or postponed messages
3479 To include the mailbox' name is as easy as:
3481 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: ...
3483 When the currently opened mailbox is Inbox, this will be expanded to:
3485 Mutt-ng 1.5.9i on mailhost: Inbox: ...
3487 For the number of certain types of messages, one more feature of the
3488 format strings is extremely useful. If there aren't messages of a certain
3489 type, it may not be desired to print just that there aren't any but
3490 instead only print something if there are any.
3492 3.2. Conditional Expansion
3494 To only print the number of messages if there are new messages in the
3495 current mailbox, further extend $status_format to:
3497 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B %?n?%n new? ...
3499 This feature is called nonzero-printing and works as this: some expandos
3500 may be optionally printed nonzero, i.e. a portion of the format string is
3501 only evaluated if the value of the expando is different from zero. The
3504 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>?
3506 which tells mutt-ng to only look at <string if nonzero> if the value of
3507 the %<item%gt; expando is different from zero. In our example, we used n
3508 as the expando to check for and %n new as the optional nonzero string.
3510 But this is not all: this feature only offers one alternative: ``print
3511 something if not zero.'' Mutt-ng does, as you might guess, also provide a
3512 logically complete version: ``if zero, print something and else print
3513 something else.'' This is achieved by the following syntax for those
3514 expandos which may be printed nonzero:
3516 %?<item>?<string if nonzero>&<string if zero>?
3518 Using this we can make mutt-ng to do the following:
3520 o make it print ``n new messages'' whereby n is the count but only if
3523 o and make it print ``no new messages'' if there aren't any
3525 The corresponding configuration is:
3527 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n new messages&no new messages? ...
3529 This doubles the use of the ``new messages'' string because it'll get
3530 always printed. Thus, it can be shortened to:
3532 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages ...
3534 As you might see from this rather simple example, one can create very
3535 complex but fancy status messages. Please see the reference chapter for
3536 expandos and those which may be printed nonzero.
3538 3.3. Modifications and Padding
3540 Besides the information given so far, there're even more features of
3543 o When specifying %_<item> instead of just %<item>, mutt-ng will convert
3544 all characters in the expansion of <item> to lowercase.
3546 o When specifying %:<item> instead of just %<item>, mutt-ng will convert
3547 all dots in the expansion of <item> to underscores (_).
3549 Also, there's a feature called Padding supplied by the following two
3550 expandos: %|X and %>X .
3554 When this occurs, mutt-ng will fill the rest of the line with the
3555 character X. In our example, filling the rest of the line with
3556 dashes is done by setting:
3558 set status_format = "%v on %h: %B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %|-"
3562 Since the previous expando stops at the end of line, there must be
3563 a way to fill the gap between two items via the %>X expando: it
3564 puts as many characters X in between two items so that the rest of
3565 the line will be right-justified. For example, to not put the
3566 version string and hostname of our example on the left but on the
3567 right and fill the gap with spaces, one might use (note the space
3570 set status_format = "%B: %?n?%n&no? new messages %> (%v on %h)"
3574 Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of messages
3575 all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be to save
3576 messages to a mailing list to a separate folder, or to delete all messages
3577 with a given subject. To tag all messages matching a pattern, use the
3578 tag-pattern function, which is bound to ``shift-T'' by default. Or you can
3579 select individual messages by hand using the ``tag-message'' function,
3580 which is bound to ``t'' by default. See patterns for Mutt-ng's pattern
3583 Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the ``tag-prefix''
3584 operator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default. When the
3585 ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the next operation will be applied to all
3586 tagged messages if that operation can be used in that manner. If the
3587 auto-tag variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged
3588 messages automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''.
3590 In macro or push commands, you can use the ``tag-prefix-cond'' operator.
3591 If there are no tagged messages, mutt will "eat" the rest of the macro to
3592 abort it's execution.Mutt-ng will stop "eating" the macro when it
3593 encounters the ``end-cond'' operator; after this operator the rest of the
3594 macro will be executed asnormal.
3598 A hook is a concept borrowed from the EMACS editor which allows you to
3599 execute arbitrary commands before performing some operation. For example,
3600 you may wish to tailor your configuration based upon which mailbox you are
3601 reading, or to whom you are sending mail. In the Mutt-ng world, a hook
3602 consists of a regexp or patterns along with a configuration
3619 for specific details on each type of hook available.
3621 Note: if a hook changes configuration settings, these changes remain
3622 effective until the end of the current mutt session. As this is generally
3623 not desired, a default hook needs to be added before all other hooks to
3624 restore configuration defaults. Here is an example with send-hook and the
3627 send-hook . 'unmy_hdr From:'
3628 send-hook ~C'^b@b\.b$' my_hdr from: c@c.c
3630 5.1. Message Matching in Hooks
3632 Hooks that act upon messages (send-hook, save-hook, fcc-hook,message-hook
3633 )are evaluated in a slightly different manner. For the other types of
3634 hooks, a regexp is sufficient. But in dealing with messages a finer grain
3635 of control is needed for matching since for different purposes you want to
3636 match different criteria.
3638 Mutt-ng allows the use of the patterns language for matching messages in
3639 hook commands. This works in exactly the same way as it would when
3640 limiting orsearching the mailbox, except that you are restricted to those
3641 operators which match information mutt extracts from the header of the
3642 message (i.e. from, to, cc, date, subject, etc.).
3644 For example, if you wanted to set your return address based upon sending
3645 mail to a specific address, you could do something like:
3647 send-hook '~t ^me@cs\.hmc\.edu$' 'my_hdr From: Mutt-ng User <user@host>'
3649 which would execute the given command when sending mail to me@cs.hmc.edu.
3651 However, it is not required that you write the pattern to match using the
3652 full searching language. You can still specify a simple regular expression
3653 like the other hooks, in which case Mutt-ng will translate your pattern
3654 into the full language, using the translation specified by the
3655 default-hook variable. The pattern is translated at the time the hook is
3656 declared, so the value of default-hook that is in effect at that time will
3659 6. Using the sidebar
3661 The sidebar, a feature specific to Mutt-ng, allows you to use a mailbox
3662 listing which looks very similar to the ones you probably know from GUI
3663 mail clients. The sidebar lists all specified mailboxes, shows the number
3664 in each and highlights the ones with new email Use the following
3665 configuration commands:
3667 set sidebar_visible="yes"
3668 set sidebar_width=25
3670 If you want to specify the mailboxes you can do so with:
3678 You can also specify the colors for mailboxes with new mails by using:
3680 color sidebar_new red black
3681 color sidebar white black
3683 The available functions are:
3685 Table 4.1. Default Sidebar Function Bindings
3687 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
3688 | Key | Function | Description |
3689 |------+---------------------+-------------------------------------------|
3690 | none | sidebar-scroll-up | Scrolls the mailbox list up 1 page |
3691 |------+---------------------+-------------------------------------------|
3692 | none | sidebar-scroll-down | Scrolls the mailbox list down 1 page |
3693 |------+---------------------+-------------------------------------------|
3694 | none | sidebar-next | Highlights the next mailbox |
3695 |------+---------------------+-------------------------------------------|
3696 | none | sidebar-next-new | Highlights the next mailbox with new mail |
3697 |------+---------------------+-------------------------------------------|
3698 | none | sidebar-previous | Highlights the previous mailbox |
3699 |------+---------------------+-------------------------------------------|
3700 | none | sidebar-open | Opens the currently highlighted mailbox |
3701 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
3703 Reasonable key bindings look e.g. like this:
3705 bind index \Cp sidebar-prev
3706 bind index \Cn sidebar-next
3707 bind index \Cb sidebar-open
3708 bind pager \Cp sidebar-prev
3709 bind pager \Cn sidebar-next
3710 bind pager \Cb sidebar-open
3712 macro index B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
3713 macro pager B ':toggle sidebar_visible^M'
3715 You can then go up and down by pressing Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N, and switch on
3716 and off the sidebar simply by pressing 'B'.
3718 7. External Address Queries
3720 Mutt-ng supports connecting to external directory databases such as LDAP,
3721 ph/qi, bbdb, or NIS through a wrapper script which connects to mutt using
3722 a simple interface. Using the query-command variable, you specify the
3723 wrapper command to use. For example:
3725 set query_command = "mutt_ldap_query.pl '%s'"
3727 The wrapper script should accept the query on the command-line. It should
3728 return a one line message, then each matching response on a single line,
3729 each line containing a tab separated address then name thensome other
3730 optional information. On error, or if there are no matching addresses,
3731 return a non-zero exit code and a one line error message.
3733 An example multiple response output:
3735 Searching database ... 20 entries ... 3 matching:
3736 me@cs.hmc.edu Michael Elkins mutt dude
3737 blong@fiction.net Brandon Long mutt and more
3738 roessler@guug.de Thomas Roessler mutt pgp
3740 There are two mechanisms for accessing the query function of mutt. One is
3741 to do a query from the index menu using the query function (default: Q).
3742 This will prompt for a query, then bring up the query menu which will list
3743 the matching responses. From the query menu, you can select addresses to
3744 create aliases, or to mail. You can tag multiple addressesto mail, start a
3745 new query, or have a new query appended to the current responses.
3747 The other mechanism for accessing the query function is for address
3748 completion, similar to the alias completion. In any prompt for address
3749 entry, you can use the complete-query function (default: ^T) to run a
3750 query based on the current address you have typed. Like aliases, mutt will
3751 look for what you have typed back to the last space or comma. If there is
3752 a single response for that query, mutt will expand the address in place.
3753 If there are multiple responses, mutt will activate the querymenu. At the
3754 query menu, you can select one or more addresses to be added to the
3759 Mutt-ng supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats:
3760 mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there is
3761 no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating
3762 newmailboxes, Mutt-ng uses the default specified with the mbox-type
3765 mbox. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All messages
3766 are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the form:
3768 From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST
3770 to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the
3773 MMDF. This is a variant of the mbox format. Each message is surrounded by
3774 lines containing ``^A^A^A^A'' (four control-A's).
3776 MH. A radical departure from mbox and MMDF, a mailbox consists of a
3777 directory and each message is stored in a separate file. The filename
3778 indicates the message number (however, this is may not correspond to the
3779 message number Mutt-ng displays). Deleted messages arerenamed with a comma
3780 (,) prepended to the filename. Note: Mutt detects this type of mailbox by
3781 looking for either .mh_sequences or .xmhcache (needed to distinguish
3782 normal directories from MH mailboxes).
3784 Maildir. The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a
3785 replacement for sendmail). Similar to MH, except that it adds three
3786 subdirectories of the mailbox: tmp, new and cur .Filenames for the
3787 messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when twoprograms
3788 are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking is
3791 9. Mailbox Shortcuts
3793 There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific
3794 mailboxes. These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a
3795 file or mailbox path.
3797 o ! -- refers to your spoolfile (incoming) mailbox
3799 o > -- refers to your mbox file
3801 o < -- refers to your record file
3803 o ^ -- refers to the current mailbox
3805 o - or !! -- refers to the file you've last visited
3807 o ˜ -- refers to your home directory
3809 o = or + -- refers to your folder directory
3811 o @alias -- refers to the save-hook as determined by the address of the
3814 10. Handling Mailing Lists
3816 Mutt-ng has a few configuration options that make dealing with large
3817 amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt know
3818 what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically this does not
3819 have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most often used for),
3820 and what lists you are subscribed to. This is accomplished through the use
3821 of the lists commands in your muttrc.
3823 Now that Mutt-ng knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several
3824 things, the first of which is the ability to show the name of a list
3825 through which you received a message (i.e., of a subscribed list) in the
3826 index menu display. This is useful to distinguish between personal and
3827 list mail in the same mailbox. In the index-format variable, the escape
3828 ``%L'' will return the string ``To <list>'' when ``list'' appears in the
3829 ``To'' field, and ``Cc <list>'' when it appears in the ``Cc'' field
3830 (otherwise it returns the name of the author).
3832 Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages tend to
3833 get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the author of the
3834 message they are reply to from the list, resulting in two or more copies
3835 being sent to that person. The ``list-reply'' function, which by default
3836 is bound to ``L'' in the index menu and pager, helps reduce the clutter by
3837 only replying to the known mailing list addresses instead of all
3838 recipients (except as specified by Mail-Followup-To, see below).
3840 Mutt-ng also supports the Mail-Followup-To header. When you send a message
3841 to a list of recipients which includes one or several subscribed mailing
3842 lists, and if the followup-to option is set, mutt will generate a
3843 Mail-Followup-To header which contains all the recipients to whom you send
3844 this message, but not your address. This indicates that group-replies or
3845 list-replies (also known as ``followups'') to this message should only be
3846 sent to the original recipients of the message, and not separately to you
3847 - you'll receive your copy through one of the mailing lists you are
3850 Conversely, when group-replying or list-replying to a message which has a
3851 Mail-Followup-To header, mutt will respect this header if the
3852 honor-followup-to configuration variable is set. Using list-reply will in
3853 this case also make sure that the reply goes to the mailing list, even if
3854 it's not specified in the list of recipients in the Mail-Followup-To.
3856 Note that, when header editing is enabled, you can create a
3857 Mail-Followup-To header manually. Mutt-ng will only auto-generate this
3858 header if it doesn't exist when you send the message.
3860 The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a
3861 ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather
3862 than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying to
3863 reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients will
3864 automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To'' field.
3865 Mutt-ng uses the reply-to variable to help decide which address to use. If
3866 set to ask-yes or ask-no, you will be prompted as to whether or not you
3867 would like to use the address given inthe ``Reply-To'' field, or reply
3868 directly to the address given in the ``From'' field. When set to yes, the
3869 ``Reply-To'' field will be used when present.
3871 The ``X-Label:'' header field can be used to further identify mailing
3872 lists or list subject matter (or just to annotate messages individually).
3873 The index-format variable's ``%y'' and ``%Y'' escapes can be used to
3874 expand ``X-Label:'' fields in the index, and Mutt-ng's pattern-matcher can
3875 match regular expressions to ``X-Label:'' fields with the ``˜y''
3876 selector. ``X-Label:'' is not a standard message header field, but it can
3877 easily be inserted by procmailand other mail filtering agents.
3879 Lastly, Mutt-ng has the ability to sort the mailbox into threads. A thread
3880 is a group of messages which all relate to the same subject. This is
3881 usually organized into a tree-like structure where a message and all of
3882 its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever used a threaded
3883 news client, this is the same concept. It makes dealingwith large volume
3884 mailing lists easier because you can easily delete uninteresting threads
3885 and quickly find topics of value.
3889 Mutt-ng has the ability to dynamically restructure threads that are broken
3890 either by misconfigured software or bad behavior from some correspondents.
3891 This allows to clean your mailboxes formats) from these annoyances which
3892 make it hard to follow a discussion.
3894 11.1. Linking threads
3896 Some mailers tend to "forget" to correctly set the "In-Reply-To:" and
3897 "References:" headers when replying to a message. This results in broken
3898 discussions because Mutt-ng has not enough information to guess the
3899 correct threading. You can fix this by tagging the reply, then moving to
3900 the parent message and using the ``link-threads'' function (bound to & by
3901 default). The reply will then be connected to this "parent" message.
3903 You can also connect multiple children at once, tagging them and using the
3904 tag-prefix command (';') or the auto_tag option.
3906 11.2. Breaking threads
3908 On mailing lists, some people are in the bad habit of starting a new
3909 discussion by hitting "reply" to any message from the list and changing
3910 the subject to a totally unrelated one. You can fix such threads by using
3911 the ``break-thread'' function (boundby default to #), which will turn the
3912 subthread starting from the current message into a whole different thread.
3914 12. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support
3916 RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information about
3917 the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as
3918 ``return receipts.''
3920 Users can make use of it in one of the following two ways:
3922 o Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command line options in
3923 which the mail client can make requests as to what type of status
3924 messages should be returned.
3926 o The SMTP support via libESMTP supports it, too.
3928 To support this, there are two variables:
3930 o dsn-notify is used to request receipts for different results (such as
3931 failed message,message delivered, etc.).
3933 o dsn-return requests how much of your message should be returned with
3934 the receipt (headers or full message).
3936 Please see the reference chapter for possible values.
3938 13. POP3 Support (OPTIONAL)
3940 If Mutt-ng was compiled with POP3 support (by running the configure script
3941 with the --enable-pop flag), it has the ability to work with mailboxes
3942 located on a remote POP3 server and fetch mail for local browsing.
3944 You can access the remote POP3 mailbox by selecting the folder
3947 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
3948 pop://popserver:port/.
3950 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
3951 pop://username@popserver[:port]/.
3953 Polling for new mail is more expensive over POP3 than locally. For this
3954 reason the frequency at which Mutt-ng will check for mail remotely can be
3955 controlled by the pop-mail-check variable, which defaults to every 60
3958 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the configure script
3959 with the --with-ssl flag), connections to POP3 servers can be encrypted.
3960 This naturally requires that the server supports SSL encrypted
3961 connections. To access a folder with POP3/SSL, you should use pops:
3962 prefix, ie: pops://[username@]popserver[:port]/.
3964 Another way to access your POP3 mail is the fetch-mail function (default:
3965 G). It allows to connect to pop-host ,fetch all your new mail and place it
3966 in the local spoolfile. After this point, Mutt-ng runs exactly as if the
3967 mail had always been local.
3969 Note: If you only need to fetch all messages to local mailbox you should
3970 consider using a specialized program, such as fetchmail
3972 14. IMAP Support (OPTIONAL)
3974 If Mutt-ng was compiled with IMAP support (by running the configure script
3975 with the --enable-imap flag), it has the ability to work with folders
3976 located on a remote IMAP server.
3978 You can access the remote inbox by selecting the folder
3979 imap://imapserver/INBOX, where imapserver is the name of the IMAP server
3980 and INBOX is the special name for your spool mailbox on the IMAP server.
3981 If you want to access another mail folder at the IMAP server, you should
3982 use imap://imapserver/path/to/folder where path/to/folder is the path of
3983 the folder you want to access.
3985 You can select an alternative port by specifying it with the server, i.e.:
3986 imap://imapserver:port/INBOX.
3988 You can also specify different username for each folder, i.e.:
3989 imap://username@imapserver[:port]/INBOX.
3991 If Mutt-ng was compiled with SSL support (by running the configure script
3992 with the --with-ssl flag), connections to IMAP servers can be encrypted.
3993 This naturally requires that the server supports SSL encrypted
3994 connections. To access a folder with IMAP/SSL, you should use
3995 imaps://[username@]imapserver[:port]/path/to/folder as your folder path.
3997 Pine-compatible notation is also supported, i.e.
3998 {[username@]imapserver[:port][/ssl]}path/to/folder
4000 Note that not all servers use / as the hierarchy separator. Mutt-ng should
4001 correctly notice which separator is being used by the server and
4002 convertpaths accordingly.
4004 When browsing folders on an IMAP server, you can toggle whether to look at
4005 only the folders you are subscribed to, or all folders with the
4006 toggle-subscribed command. See also the imap-list-subscribed variable.
4008 Polling for new mail on an IMAP server can cause noticeable delays. So,
4009 you'll want to carefully tune the imap-mail-check and timeout variables.
4011 Note that if you are using mbox as the mail store on UW servers prior
4012 tov12.250, the server has been reported to disconnect a client if another
4013 client selects the same folder.
4015 14.1. The Folder Browser
4017 As of version 1.2, mutt supports browsing mailboxes on an IMAP server.
4018 This is mostly the same as the local file browser, with the following
4021 o Instead of file permissions, mutt displays the string "IMAP", possibly
4022 followed by the symbol "+", indicating that the entry contains both
4023 messages and subfolders. On Cyrus-like servers folders will often
4024 contain both messages and subfolders.
4026 o For the case where an entry can contain both messages and subfolders,
4027 the selection key (bound to enter by default) will choose to descend
4028 into the subfolder view. If you wish to view the messages in that
4029 folder, you must use view-file instead (bound to space by default).
4031 o You can create, delete and rename mailboxes with the create-mailbox,
4032 delete-mailbox, and rename-mailbox commands (default bindings: C , d
4033 and r, respectively). You may also subscribe and unsubscribe to
4034 mailboxes (normally these are bound to s and u, respectively).
4036 14.2. Authentication
4038 Mutt-ng supports four authentication methods with IMAP servers: SASL,
4039 GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, and LOGIN (there is a patch by Grant Edwards to add NTLM
4040 authentication for you poor exchange users out there, but it has yet to be
4041 integrated into the main tree). There is also support for the
4042 pseudo-protocol ANONYMOUS, which allows you to log in to a public IMAP
4043 server without having an account. To use ANONYMOUS, simply make your
4044 username blank or "anonymous".
4046 SASL is a special super-authenticator, which selects among several
4047 protocols (including GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, ANONYMOUS, and DIGEST-MD5) the most
4048 secure method available on your host and the server. Using some of these
4049 methods (including DIGEST-MD5 and possibly GSSAPI), your entire session
4050 will be encrypted and invisible to those teeming network snoops. It is the
4051 best option if you have it. To use it, you must have the Cyrus SASL
4052 libraryinstalled on your system and compile mutt with the --with-sasl
4055 Mutt-ng will try whichever methods are compiled in and available on the
4056 server, in the following order: SASL, ANONYMOUS, GSSAPI, CRAM-MD5, LOGIN.
4058 There are a few variables which control authentication:
4060 o imap-user - controls the username under which you request
4061 authentication on the IMAP server, for all authenticators. This is
4062 overridden by an explicit username in the mailbox path (i.e. by using
4063 a mailbox name of the form {user@host}).
4065 o imap-pass - a password which you may preset, used by all
4066 authentication methods where a password is needed.
4068 o imap-authenticators - a colon-delimited list of IMAP authentication
4069 methods to try, in the order you wish to try them. If specified, this
4070 overrides mutt's default (attempt everything, in the order listed
4073 15. NNTP Support (OPTIONAL)
4075 If compiled with ``--enable-nntp'' option, Mutt-ng can read news from a
4076 newsserver via NNTP. You can open a newsgroup with the
4077 ``change-newsgroup'' function from the index/pager which is by default
4080 The Default newsserver can be obtained from the $NNTPSERVER environment
4081 variable. Like other news readers, info about subscribed newsgroups is
4082 saved in a file as specified by the nntp-newsrc variable. Article headers
4083 are cached and can be loaded from a file when a newsgroup is entered
4084 instead loading from newsserver; currently, this caching mechanism still
4085 is different from the header caching for maildir/IMAP.
4087 15.1. Again: Scoring
4089 Especially for Usenet, people often ask for advanced filtering and scoring
4090 functionality. Of course, mutt-ng has scoring and allows a killfile, too.
4091 How to use a killfile has been discussed in score-command.
4093 What has not been discusses in detail is mutt-ng's built-in realname
4094 filter. For may newsreaders including those for ``advanced users'' like
4095 slrn or tin, there are frequent request for such functionality. The
4096 solutions offered often are complicated regular expressions.
4098 In mutt-ng this is as easy as
4102 This tells mutt-ng to apply a score of 42 to all messages whose sender
4103 specified a valid realname and a valid email address. Using
4107 on the contrary applies a score of 42 to all messages not matching those
4108 criteria which are very strict:
4110 o Email addresses must be valid according to RFC 2822, see
4111 <ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2822.txt>
4113 o the name must consist of at least 2 fields whereby a field must not
4114 end in a dot. This means that ``Joe User'' and ``Joe A.User'' are
4115 valid while ``J. User'' and ``J. A. User'' aren't.
4117 o it's assumed that users are interested in reading their own mail and
4118 mail from people who they have defined an alias forso that those 2
4119 groups of messages are excluded from the strict rules.
4121 16. SMTP Support (OPTIONAL)
4123 Mutt-ng can be built using a library called ``libESMTP'' which provides
4124 SMTP functionality. When configure was called with --with-libesmtp or the
4125 output muttng -v contains +USE_LIBESMTP, this will be or is the case
4126 already. The SMTP support includes support for Delivery Status
4127 Notification (see dsn section) as well as handling the 8BITMIME flag
4128 controlled via use-8bitmime .
4130 To enable sending mail directly via SMTP without an MTA such as Postfix or
4131 SSMTP and the like, simply set the smtp-host variable pointing to your
4134 Authentication mechanisms are available via the smtp-user and smtp-pass
4137 Transport Encryption via the StartTLS command is also available. For this
4138 to work, first of all Mutt-ng must be built with SSL or GNUTLS. Secondly,
4139 the smtp-use-tls variable must be either set to ``enabled'' or
4140 ``required.'' In both cases, StartTLS will be used if the server supports
4141 it: for the second case, the connection will fail ifit doesn't while
4142 switching back to unencrypted communication for the first one.
4144 Some mail providers require user's to set a particular envelope sender,
4145 i.e. they allow for only one value which may not be what the user wants to
4146 send as the From: header. In this case, the variable smtp-envelope may be
4147 used to set the envelope different from the From: header.
4149 17. Managing multiple IMAP/POP/NNTP accounts (OPTIONAL)
4151 If you happen to have accounts on multiple IMAP and/or POP servers, you
4152 may find managing all the authentication settings inconvenient and
4153 error-prone. The account-hook command may help. This hook works like
4154 folder-hook but is invoked whenever you access a remote mailbox (including
4155 inside the folder browser), not just when you open the mailbox.
4159 account-hook . 'unset imap_user; unset imap_pass; unset tunnel'
4160 account-hook imap://host1/ 'set imap_user=me1 imap_pass=foo'
4161 account-hook imap://host2/ 'set tunnel="ssh host2 /usr/libexec/imapd"'
4163 18. Start a WWW Browser on URLs (EXTERNAL)
4165 If a message contains URLs (unified resource locator = address in the WWW
4166 space like http://www.mutt.org/), it is efficient to get a menu with all
4167 the URLs and start a WWW browser on one of them. This functionality is
4168 provided by the external urlview program which can be retrieved at
4169 ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/contrib/ > and the configuration commands:
4171 macro index \cb |urlview\n
4172 macro pager \cb |urlview\n
4174 19. Compressed folders Support (OPTIONAL)
4176 If Mutt-ng was compiled with compressed folders support (by running the
4177 configure script with the --enable-compressed flag), Mutt can open folders
4178 stored in an arbitrary format, provided that the user has a script to
4179 convert from/to this format to one of the accepted.
4181 The most common use is to open compressed archived folders e.g. with gzip.
4183 In addition, the user can provide a script that gets a folder in an
4184 accepted format and appends its context to the folder in the user-defined
4185 format, which may be faster than converting the entire folder to the
4186 accepted format, appending to it and converting back to the user-defined
4189 There are three hooks defined (open-hook, close-hook and append-hook
4190 )which define commands to uncompress and compress a folder and to append
4191 messages to an existing compressed folder respectively.
4195 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
4196 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
4197 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
4199 You do not have to specify all of the commands. If you omit append-hook
4200 ,the folder will be open and closed again each time you will add to it. If
4201 you omit close-hook (or give empty command) , the folder will be open in
4202 the mode. If you specify append-hook though you'll be able to append to
4205 Note that Mutt-ng will only try to use hooks if the file is not in one of
4206 the accepted formats. In particular, if the file is empty, mutt supposes
4207 it is not compressed. This is important because it allows the use of
4208 programs that do not have well defined extensions. Just use "." as a
4209 regexp. But this may be surprising if your compressing script produces
4210 empty files. In this situation, unset save-empty ,so that the compressed
4211 file will be removed if you delete all of the messages.
4213 19.1. Open a compressed mailbox for reading
4215 Usage: open-hook regexp "command"
4217 The command is the command that can be used for opening the folders whose
4220 The command string is the printf-like format string, and it should accept
4221 two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the (compressed) folder name,
4222 and %t which is replaced with the name of the temporary folder to which to
4225 %f and %t can be repeated any number of times in the command string, and
4226 all of the entries are replaced with the appropriate folder name. In
4227 addition, %% is replaced by %, as in printf, and any other %anything is
4230 The command should not remove the original compressed file. The command
4231 should return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt knows something's
4236 open-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -cd %f > %t"
4238 If the command is empty, this operation is disabled for this file type.
4240 19.2. Write a compressed mailbox
4242 Usage: close-hook regexp "command"
4244 This is used to close the folder that was open with the open-hook command
4245 after some changes were made to it.
4247 The command string is the command that can be used for closing the folders
4248 whose names match regexp. It has the same format as in the open-hook
4249 command. Temporary folder in this case is the folder previously produced
4250 by the < open-hook command.
4252 The command should not remove the decompressed file. The command should
4253 return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt knows something's wrong.
4257 close-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t > %f"
4259 If the command is empty, this operation is disabled for this file type,
4260 and the file can only be open in the readonly mode.
4262 close-hook is not called when you exit from the folder if the folder was
4265 19.3. Append a message to a compressed mailbox
4267 Usage: append-hook regexp "command"
4269 This command is used for saving to an existing compressed folder. The
4270 command is the command that can be used for appending to the folders whose
4271 names match regexp. It has the same format as in the open-hook command.
4272 The temporary folder in this case contains the messages that are
4275 The command should not remove the decompressed file. The command should
4276 return non-zero exit status if it fails, so mutt knows something's wrong.
4280 append-hook \\.gz$ "gzip -c %t >> %f"
4282 When append-hook is used, the folder is not opened, which saves time, but
4283 this means that we can not find out what the folder type is. Thus the
4284 default ( mbox-type )type is always supposed (i.e. this is the format used
4285 for the temporary folder).
4287 If the file does not exist when you save to it, close-hook is called, and
4288 not append-hook. append-hook is only for appending to existing folders.
4290 If the command is empty, this operation is disabled for this file type. In
4291 this case, the folder will be open and closed again (using open-hook and
4292 close-hook respectively) each time you will add to it.
4294 19.4. Encrypted folders
4296 The compressed folders support can also be used to handle encrypted
4297 folders. If you want to encrypt a folder with PGP, you may want to usethe
4300 open-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -f < %f > %t"
4301 close-hook \\.pgp$ "pgp -fe YourPgpUserIdOrKeyId < %t > %f"
4303 Please note, that PGP does not support appending to an encrypted folder,
4304 so there is no append-hook defined.
4306 Note: the folder is temporary stored decrypted in the /tmp directory,
4307 where it can be read by your system administrator. So thinkabout the
4308 security aspects of this.
4310 Chapter 5. Mutt-ng's MIME Support
4314 1. Using MIME in Mutt
4316 1.1. Viewing MIME messages in the pager
4318 1.2. The Attachment Menu
4320 1.3. The Compose Menu
4322 2. MIME Type configuration with mime.types
4324 3. MIME Viewer configuration with mailcap
4326 3.1. The Basics of the mailcap file
4328 3.2. Secure use of mailcap
4330 3.3. Advanced mailcap Usage
4332 3.4. Example mailcap files
4336 5. MIME Multipart/Alternative
4340 Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt-ng the premier text-mode
4341 MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that the
4342 discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
4343 wherever possible. When configuring Mutt-ng for MIME, there are two
4344 extratypes of configuration files which Mutt-ng uses. One is the
4345 mime.types file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to IANA
4346 MIME types. The other is the mailcap file, which specifies the external
4347 commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
4349 1. Using MIME in Mutt
4351 There are three areas/menus in Mutt-ng which deal with MIME, they are the
4352 pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose menu.
4354 1.1. Viewing MIME messages in the pager
4356 When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt
4357 decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt-ng internally supports
4358 a number of MIME types, including text/plain, text/enriched,
4359 message/rfc822, and message/news .In addition, the export controlled
4360 version of Mutt-ng recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types, including
4361 PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
4363 Mutt-ng will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them. These
4364 lines are of the form:
4366 [-- Attachment #1: Description --]
4367 [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --]
4369 Where the Description is the description or filename given for the
4370 attachment, and the Encoding is one of
4371 7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary.
4373 If Mutt-ng cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
4375 [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
4377 1.2. The Attachment Menu
4379 The default binding for view-attachments is `v', which displays the
4380 attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list ofthe
4381 attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can save, print,
4382 pipe, delete, and view attachments. You can apply these operations to a
4383 group of attachments at once, by tagging the attachments and by using the
4384 ``tag-prefix'' operator. You can also reply to the current message from
4385 this menu, and only the current attachment (or the attachments tagged)
4386 will be quoted in your reply. You can view attachments as text, or view
4387 them using the mailcap viewer definition.
4389 Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like
4390 resend-message, and the reply and forward functions) to attachments of
4391 type message/rfc822.
4393 See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
4395 1.3. The Compose Menu
4397 The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It allows
4398 you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects of your
4399 message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your message,
4400 including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy, filter,
4401 pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a list of tagged
4402 attachments. You can also modifying the attachment information, notably
4403 the type, encoding and description.
4405 Attachments appear as follows:
4407 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description>
4408 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description>
4410 The '-' denotes that Mutt-ng will delete the file after sending (or
4411 postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the
4412 toggle-unlink command (default: u). The next field is the MIME
4413 content-type, and can be changed with the edit-type command (default: ^T).
4414 The next field is the encoding for the attachment, which allows a binary
4415 message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit links. It can be changed
4416 with the edit-encoding command (default: ^E). The next field is the size
4417 of the attachment, rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is
4418 the filename, which can be changed with the rename-file command (default:
4419 R). The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
4420 changed with the edit-description command (default: d).
4422 2. MIME Type configuration with mime.types
4424 When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt-ng searches your
4425 personal mime.types file at ${HOME}/.mime.types ,and then the system
4426 mime.types file at /usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types or /etc/mime.types
4428 The mime.types file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space
4429 separated list of extensions. For example:
4431 application/postscript ps eps
4433 audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff
4435 A sample mime.types file comes with the Mutt-ng distribution, and should
4436 contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
4438 If Mutt-ng can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file
4439 you attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
4440 information, Mutt-ng will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
4441 as text/plain. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt-ng will
4442 mark it as application/octet-stream. You can change the MIME type that
4443 Mutt-ng assigns to an attachment by using the edit-type command from the
4444 compose menu (default: ^T). The MIME type is actually a major mime type
4445 followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major types: application,
4446 text, image, video, audio, and model have been approved after various
4447 internet discussions. Mutt-ng recognises all of these if the appropriate
4448 entry is found in the mime.types file. It also recognises other major mime
4449 types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the molecular
4450 modelling community to pass molecular data in various forms to various
4451 molecular viewers. Non-recognised mime types should only be used if the
4452 recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments.
4454 3. MIME Viewer configuration with mailcap
4456 Mutt-ng supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
4457 specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format is
4458 commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant programs
4459 utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling for all MIME
4460 types in one place for all programs. Programs known to use this format
4461 include Netscape, XMosaic, lynx and metamail.
4463 In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt-ng can not handle
4464 internally, Mutt-ng parses a series of external configuration files to
4465 find an external handler. The default search string for these files is a
4466 colon delimited list set to
4468 ${HOME}/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mutt/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap
4470 where $HOME is your home directory.
4472 In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file,
4473 usually as /usr/local/etc/mailcap, which contains some baseline entries.
4475 3.1. The Basics of the mailcap file
4477 A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank, or
4480 A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want.
4482 A blank line is blank.
4484 A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any
4485 number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is dividedby a
4486 semicolon ';' character.
4488 The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype method.
4489 For example, text/plain, text/html, image/gif, etc. In addition, the
4490 mailcap format includes two formats for wildcards, one using the special
4491 '*' subtype, the other is the implicit wild, where you only include the
4492 major type. For example, image/* ,or video, will match all image types and
4493 video types, respectively.
4495 The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There
4496 are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send the
4497 body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change this
4498 behavior by using %s as a parameter to your view command. This will cause
4499 Mutt-ng to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary file, and then
4500 call the view command with the %s replaced by the name of the temporary
4501 file. In both cases, Mutt-ng will turn over the terminal to the view
4502 program until the program quits, at which time Mutt will remove the
4503 temporary file if it exists.
4505 So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the
4506 external pager more on stdin:
4510 Or, you could send the message as a file:
4514 Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html
4519 In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you must
4520 use the %s syntax. Note: Some older versions of lynx contain a bug where
4521 they will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will
4522 find the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to
4523 continuously spawn itself to view the object.
4525 On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, youjust
4526 want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can use:
4528 text/html; lynx -dump %s | more
4530 Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on all
4531 other text formats, then you would use the following:
4536 This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
4538 3.2. Secure use of mailcap
4540 The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
4541 can lead to security problems in general. Mutt-ng tries to quote
4542 parameters in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky
4543 characters by substituting them, see the mailcap-sanitize variable.
4545 Although mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be
4546 safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care
4547 of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
4549 Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting. Don't quote them with single
4550 or double quotes. Mutt-ng does this for you, the right way, as should any
4551 other program which interprets mailcap. Don't put them into backtick
4552 expansions. Be highly careful with eval statements, and avoid them if
4553 possible at all. Trying to fix broken behaviour with quotes introduces new
4554 leaks - there is no alternative to correct quoting in the first place.
4556 If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you need
4557 quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable and
4558 reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following example
4559 (using $charset inside the backtick expansion is safe, since it is not
4560 itself subject to any further expansion):
4562 text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \
4563 && test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1
4565 3.3. Advanced mailcap Usage
4567 3.3.1. Optional Fields
4569 In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you can
4570 add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options.
4571 Mutt-ng recognizes the following optional fields:
4575 This flag tells Mutt-ng that the command passes possibly large
4576 amounts of text on stdout. This causes Mutt-ng to invoke a pager
4577 (either the internal pager or the external pager defined by the
4578 pager variable) on the output of the view command. Without this
4579 flag, Mutt-ng assumes that the command is interactive. One could
4580 use this to replace the pipe to more in the lynx -dump example in
4583 text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput
4585 This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain
4586 and Mutt-ng will use your standard pager to display the results.
4590 Mutt-ng uses this flag when viewing attachments with auto-view ,in
4591 order to decide whether it should honor the setting of the
4592 wait-key variable or not. When an attachment is viewed using an
4593 interactive program, and the corresponding mailcap entry has a
4594 needsterminal flag, Mutt-ng will use wait-key and the exit
4595 statusof the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key
4596 after the external program has exited. In all other situations it
4597 will not prompt you for a key.
4601 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment
4602 of a specific MIME type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose
4605 composetyped=<command>
4607 This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment
4608 of a specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose
4609 command in that mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the
4610 data. This can be used to specify parameters, filename,
4611 description, etc. for a new attachment. Mutt-ng supports this from
4616 This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME
4617 type. Mutt-ng supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
4621 This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME
4622 type. Mutt-ng supports this from the compose menu, and also uses
4623 it to compose new attachments. Mutt-ng will default to the defined
4624 editor for text attachments.
4626 nametemplate=<template>
4628 This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the
4629 command fields. Certain programs will require a certain file
4630 extension, for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance,
4631 lynx will only interpret a file as text/html if the file ends in
4632 .html. So, you would specify lynx as a text/html viewer with a
4633 line in the mailcap file like:
4635 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
4639 This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap
4640 entry should be used. The command is defined with the command
4641 expansion rules defined in the next section. If the command
4642 returns 0, then the test passed, and Mutt-ng uses this entry. If
4643 the command returns non-zero, then the test failed, and Mutt-ng
4644 continues searching for the right entry. Note: the content-type
4645 must match before Mutt-ng performs the test. For example:
4647 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
4650 In this example, Mutt-ng will run the program RunningX which will
4651 return 0 if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it
4652 isn't. If RunningX returns 0, then Mutt-ng will call netscape to
4653 display the text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then
4654 Mutt-ng will go on to the next entry and use lynx to display the
4659 When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng will search for
4660 the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are attempting
4661 to print an image/gif, and you have the following entries in your mailcap
4662 file, Mutt-ng will search for an entry with the print command:
4665 image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
4668 Mutt-ng will skip the image/* entry and use the image/gif entry with the
4671 In addition, you can use this with auto-view to denote two commands for
4672 viewing an attachment, one to be viewed automatically, the other to be
4673 viewed interactively from the attachment menu. In addition, you can then
4674 use the test feature to determine which viewer to use interactively
4675 depending on your environment.
4677 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
4678 text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
4679 text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
4681 For auto-view, Mutt-ng will choose the third entry because of the
4682 copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt will run the program
4683 RunningX to determine if it should use the first entry. If the program
4684 returns non-zero, Mutt-ng will use the second entry for interactive
4687 3.3.3. Command Expansion
4689 The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
4690 /bin/sh shell using the system() function. Before the command is passed to
4691 /bin/sh -c, it is parsed to expand various special parameters with
4692 information from Mutt-ng. The keywords Mutt-ng expands are:
4696 As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded to
4697 a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains
4698 the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing
4699 program should place the results of composition. In addition, the
4700 use of this keyword causes Mutt-ng to not pass the body of the
4701 message to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
4705 Mutt-ng will expand %t to the text representation of the content
4706 type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the
4707 mailcap definition line, ie text/html or image/gif.
4711 Mutt-ng will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
4712 from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if
4713 Your mail message contains:
4715 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4717 then Mutt-ng will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default
4718 metamail mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to
4719 spawn an xterm using the right charset to view the message.
4723 This will be replaced by a %
4725 Mutt-ng does not currently support the %F and %n keywords specified in RFC
4726 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for multipart messages,
4727 which is handled internally by Mutt-ng.
4729 3.4. Example mailcap files
4731 This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
4734 # I'm always running X :)
4735 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
4736 image/*; xv %s > /dev/null
4738 # I'm always running netscape (if my computer had more memory, maybe)
4739 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'
4741 This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples:
4743 # Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup,
4744 # send that to /dev/null so I don't see it
4745 video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
4747 # Send html to a running netscape by remote
4748 text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningNetscape
4749 # If I'm not running netscape but I am running X, start netscape on the
4751 text/html; netscape %s; test=RunningX
4753 # Else use lynx to view it as text
4756 # This version would convert the text/html to text/plain
4757 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput
4759 # I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page
4760 text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s
4762 # Netscape adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally
4763 image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal
4765 # Use xv to view images if I'm running X
4766 # In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor
4768 image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; edit=xpaint %s
4770 # Convert images to text using the netpbm tools
4771 image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm |
4772 pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput
4774 # Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box
4775 application/ms-excel; open.pl %s
4779 In addition to explicitly telling Mutt-ng to view an attachment with
4780 theMIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt-ng has support for
4781 automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
4783 To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
4784 copiousoutput option to denote that it is non-interactive. Usually, you
4785 also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text representation
4786 which you can view in the pager.
4788 You then use the auto_view muttrc command to list the content-types that
4789 you wish to view automatically.
4791 For instance, if you set auto_view to:
4793 auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip application/postscript
4794 image/gif application/x-tar-gz
4796 Mutt-ng could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
4797 attachments of these types.
4799 text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
4800 image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput
4801 application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput
4802 application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput
4803 application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput
4805 ``unauto_view'' can be used to remove previous entries from the autoview
4806 list. This can be used with message-hook to autoview messages based on
4807 size, etc. ``unauto_view *'' will remove all previous entries.
4809 5. MIME Multipart/Alternative
4811 Mutt-ng has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
4812 multipart/alternative type to display. First, mutt will check the
4813 alternative_order list to determine if one of the available typesis
4814 preferred. The alternative_order list consists of a number of MIME types
4815 in order, including support for implicit and explicit wildcards, for
4818 alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text
4819 application/postscript image/*
4821 Next, mutt will check if any of the types have a defined auto-view, and
4822 use that. Failing that, Mutt-ng will look for any text type. As a last
4823 attempt, mutt willlook for any type it knows how to handle.
4825 To remove a MIME type from the alternative_order list, use the
4826 unalternative_order command.
4830 Mutt-ng's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
4831 be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed
4832 todeal with binary types such as application/octet-stream. When an
4833 attachment's mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the
4834 filename will be compared to the list of extensions in the mime.types
4835 file. The mime-type associated with this extension will then be used to
4836 process the attachment according to the rules in the mailcap file and
4837 according to any other configuration options (such as auto_view)
4838 specified. Common usage would be:
4840 mime_lookup application/octet-stream application/X-Lotus-Manuscript
4842 In addition, the unmime_lookup command may be used to disable this feature
4843 for any particular mime-type if it had been set, for example, in a global
4846 Chapter 6. Security Considerations
4854 3. Information Leaks
4856 3.1. Message-ID: headers
4858 3.2. mailto:-style links
4860 4. External applications
4866 First of all, mutt-ng contains no security holes included by intention but
4867 may contain unknown security holes. As a consequence, please run mutt-ng
4868 only with as few permissions as possible.
4870 Please do not run mutt-ng as the super user.
4872 When configuring mutt-ng, there're some points to note about secure
4875 In practice, mutt-ng can be easily made as vulnerable as even the most
4876 insecure mail user agents (in their default configuration) just by
4877 changing mutt-ng's configuration files: it then can execute arbitrary
4878 programs and scripts attached to messages, send out private data on its
4879 own, etc. Although this is not believed to the common type of setup,
4880 please read this chapter carefully.
4884 Although mutt-ng can be told the various passwords for accounts, please
4885 never store passwords in configuration files. Besides the fact that the
4886 system's operator can always read them, you could forget to replace the
4887 actual password with asterisks when reporting a bug or asking for help
4888 via, for example, a mailing list so that your mail including your password
4889 could be archived by internet search engines, etc. Please never store
4894 Mutt-ng uses many temporary files for viewing messages, verifying digital
4895 signatures, etc. The umask variable can be used to change the default
4896 permissions of these files. Please only change it if you really know what
4897 you are doing. Also, a different location for these files may be desired
4898 which can be changed via the tmpdir variable.
4900 3. Information Leaks
4902 3.1. Message-ID: headers
4904 In the default configuration, mutt-ng will leak some information to the
4905 outside world when sending messages: the generation of Message-ID: headers
4906 includes a step counter which is increased (and rotated) with every
4907 message sent. If you'd like to hide this information probably telling
4908 others how many mail you sent in which time, you at least need to remove
4909 the %P expando from the default setting of the msgid-format variable.
4910 Please make sure that you really know how local parts of these Message-ID:
4911 headers are composed.
4913 3.2. mailto:-style links
4915 As mutt-ng be can be set up to be the mail client to handle mailto: style
4916 links in websites, there're security considerations, too. To keep the old
4917 behavior by default, mutt-ng will be strict in interpreting them which
4918 means that arbitrary header fields can be embedded in these links which
4919 could override existing header fields or attach arbitrary files. This may
4920 be problematic if the edit-headers variable is unset, i.e. the user
4921 doesn't want to see header fields while editing the message.
4923 For example, following a link like
4925 mailto:joe@host?Attach=~/.gnupg/secring.gpg
4927 will send out the user's private gnupg keyring to joe@host if the user
4928 doesn't follow the information on screen carefully enough.
4930 When unsetting the strict-mailto variable, mutt-ng will
4932 o be less strict when interpreting these links by prepending a X-Mailto-
4933 string to all header fields embedded in such a link and
4935 o turn on the edit-headers variable by force to let the user see all the
4936 headers (because they still may leak information.)
4938 4. External applications
4940 Mutt-ng in many places has to rely on external applications or for
4941 convenience supports mechanisms involving external applications.
4945 One of these is the mailcap mechanism as defined by RfC 1524. Mutt-ng can
4946 be set up to automatically execute any given utility as listed in one of
4947 the mailcap files (see the mailcap-path variable for details.)
4949 These utilities may have a variety of security vulnerabilities, including
4950 overwriting of arbitrary files, information leaks or other exploitable
4951 bugs. These vulnerabilities may go unnoticed by the user, especially when
4952 they are called automatically (and without interactive prompting) from the
4953 mailcap file(s). When using mutt-ng's autoview mechanism in combination
4954 with mailcap files, please be sure to...
4956 o manually select trustworth applications with a reasonable calling
4959 o periodically check the contents of mailcap files, especially after
4960 software installations or upgrades
4962 o keep the software packages referenced in the mailcap file up to date
4964 o leave the mailcap-sanitize variable in its default state to restrict
4965 mailcap expandos to a safe set of characters
4969 Besides the mailcap mechanism, mutt-ng uses a number of other external
4970 utilities for operation.
4972 The same security considerations apply for these as for tools involved via
4973 mailcap (for example, mutt-ng is vulnerable to Denial of Service Attacks
4974 with compressed folders support if the uncompressed mailbox is too large
4975 for the disk it is saved to.)
4977 As already noted, most of these problems are not built in but caused by
4978 wrong configuration, so please check your configuration.
4980 Chapter 7. Reference
4984 1. Command line options
4988 3. Configuration Commands
4990 4. Configuration variables
5016 1. Command line options
5018 Running mutt with no arguments will make Mutt-ng attempt to read your
5019 spool mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and to send
5020 messages from the command line as well.
5022 Table 7.1. Mutt-NG Command Line Options
5024 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
5025 | Option | Description |
5026 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5027 | -A | expand an alias |
5028 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5029 | -a | attach a file to a message |
5030 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5031 | -b | specify a blind carbon-copy (BCC) address |
5032 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5033 | -c | specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address |
5034 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5035 | -e | specify a config command to be run after initialization files |
5037 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5038 | -f | specify a mailbox to load |
5039 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5040 | -F | specify an alternate file to read initialization commands |
5041 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5042 | -h | print help on command line options |
5043 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5044 | -H | specify a draft file from which to read a header and body |
5045 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5046 | -i | specify a file to include in a message composition |
5047 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5048 | -m | specify a default mailbox type |
5049 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5050 | -n | do not read the system Muttngrc |
5051 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5052 | -p | recall a postponed message |
5053 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5054 | -Q | query a configuration variable |
5055 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5056 | -R | open mailbox in read-only mode |
5057 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5058 | -s | specify a subject (enclose in quotes if it contains spaces) |
5059 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5060 | -t | dump the value of all variables to stdout |
5061 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5062 | -T | dump the value of all changed variables to stdout |
5063 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5064 | -v | show version number and compile-time definitions |
5065 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5066 | -x | simulate the mailx(1) compose mode |
5067 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5068 | -y | show a menu containing the files specified by the mailboxes |
5070 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5071 | -z | exit immediately if there are no messages in the mailbox |
5072 |--------+---------------------------------------------------------------|
5073 | -Z | open the first folder with new message,exit immediately if |
5075 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
5077 To read messages in a mailbox
5079 mutt [ -nz ] [ -F muttrc ] [ -m type ] [ -f mailbox ]
5081 To compose a new message
5083 mutt [ -n ] [ -F muttrc ] [ -a file ] [ -c address ] [ -i filename ] [ -s
5084 subject ] address [ address ... ]
5086 Mutt-ng also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply
5087 redirect input from the file you wish to send. For example,
5089 mutt -s "data set for run #2" professor@bigschool.edu < ˜/run2.dat
5091 This command will send a message to ``professor@bigschool.edu'' with a
5092 subject of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the
5093 contents of the file ``˜/run2.dat''.
5099 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
5100 | Pattern Modifier | Argument | Description |
5101 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5102 | ~A | | all messages |
5103 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5104 | ~b | EXPR | messages which contain EXPR in the |
5105 | | | message body |
5106 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5107 | ~B | EXPR | messages which contain EXPR in the |
5108 | | | whole message |
5109 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5110 | ~c | EXPR | messages carbon-copied to EXPR |
5111 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5112 | ~C | EXPR | message is either to: or cc: EXPR |
5113 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5114 | ~D | | deleted messages |
5115 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5116 | ~d | [MIN]-[MAX] | messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date |
5118 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5119 | ~E | | expired messages |
5120 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5121 | ~e | EXPR | message which contains EXPR in the |
5122 | | | ``Sender'' field |
5123 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5124 | ~F | | flagged messages |
5125 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5126 | ~f | EXPR | messages originating from EXPR |
5127 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5128 | ~g | | cryptographically signed messages |
5129 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5130 | ~G | | cryptographically encrypted messages |
5131 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5132 | ~H | EXPR | messages with a spam attribute |
5133 | | | matching EXPR |
5134 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5135 | ~h | EXPR | messages which contain EXPR in the |
5136 | | | message header |
5137 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5138 | ~k | | message contains PGP key material |
5139 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5140 | ~i | EXPR | message which match ID in the |
5141 | | | ``Message-ID'' field |
5142 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5143 | ~L | EXPR | message is either originated or |
5144 | | | received by EXPR |
5145 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5146 | ~l | | message is addressed to a known |
5147 | | | mailing list |
5148 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5149 | ~m | [MIN]-[MAX] | message in the range MIN to MAX *) |
5150 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5151 | ~M | | multipart messages |
5152 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5153 | ~n | [MIN]-[MAX] | messages with a score in the range |
5154 | | | MIN to MAX *) |
5155 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5156 | ~N | | new messages |
5157 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5158 | ~O | | old messages |
5159 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5160 | ~p | | message is addressed to you (consults |
5162 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5163 | ~P | | message is from you (consults |
5165 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5166 | ~Q | | messages which have been replied to |
5167 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5168 | ~R | | read messages |
5169 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5170 | ~r | [MIN]-[MAX] | messages with ``date-received'' in a |
5172 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5173 | ~S | | superseded messages |
5174 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5175 | ~s | EXPR | messages having EXPR in the |
5176 | | | ``Subject'' field. |
5177 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5178 | ~T | | tagged messages |
5179 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5180 | ~t | EXPR | messages addressed to EXPR |
5181 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5182 | ~U | | unread messages |
5183 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5184 | ~u | | message is addressed to a subscribed |
5185 | | | mailing list |
5186 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5187 | ~v | | message is part of a collapsed |
5189 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5190 | ~V | | cryptographically verified messages |
5191 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5192 | | | messages which contain EXPR in the |
5193 | ~w | EXPR | `Newsgroups' field (if compiled with |
5194 | | | NNTP support) |
5195 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5196 | ~x | EXPR | messages which contain EXPR in the |
5197 | | | `References' field |
5198 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5199 | ~y | EXPR | messages which contain EXPR in the |
5200 | | | `X-Label' field |
5201 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5202 | ~z | [MIN]-[MAX] | messages with a size in the range MIN |
5204 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5205 | ~= | | duplicated messages (see |
5206 | | | $duplicate_threads) |
5207 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5208 | ~$ | | unreferenced messages (requires |
5209 | | | threaded view) |
5210 |------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------|
5211 | | | ``From'' contains realname and |
5212 | ~* | | (syntactically) valid address |
5213 | | | (excluded are addresses matching |
5214 | | | against alternates or any alias) |
5215 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
5217 Where EXPR are regexp. Special attention has to be made when using regular
5218 expressions inside of patterns. Specifically, Mutt-ng's parser for these
5219 patterns will strip one level of backslash (\), which is normally used for
5220 quoting. If it is your intention to use a backslash in the regular
5221 expression, you will need to use two backslashes instead (\\).
5223 *) The forms <[MAX], >[MIN] , [MIN]- and -[MAX] are allowed, too.
5225 3. Configuration Commands
5227 The following are the commands understood by mutt.
5229 o account-hook pattern command
5231 o alias key address [ , address ,... ]
5233 o alias [ * | key ... ]
5235 o alternates regexp [ regexp ... ]
5237 o alternates [ * | regexp ... ]
5239 o alternative-order mimetype [ mimetype ... ]
5241 o alternative-order mimetype [ mimetype ... ]
5243 o append-hook regexp command
5245 o auto-view mimetype [ mimetype ... ]
5247 o auto-view mimetype [ mimetype ... ]
5249 o bind map key function
5251 o charset-hook alias charset
5253 o close-hook regexp command
5255 o color object foreground background [ regexp ]
5257 o color index pattern [ pattern ... ]
5259 o exec function [ function ... ]
5261 o fcc-hook pattern mailbox
5263 o fcc-save-hook pattern mailbox
5265 o folder-hook pattern command
5267 o hdr-order header [ header ... ]
5269 o hdr-order header [ header ... ]
5271 o charset-hook charset local-charset
5273 o ignore pattern [ pattern ... ]
5275 o ignore pattern [ pattern ... ]
5277 o lists regexp [ regexp ... ]
5279 o lists regexp [ regexp ... ]
5281 o macro menu key sequence [ description ]
5283 o mailboxes filename [ filename ... ]
5285 o mbox-hook pattern mailbox
5287 o message-hook pattern command
5289 o mime-lookup mimetype [ mimetype ... ]
5291 o mime-lookup mimetype [ mimetype ... ]
5293 o color object attribute [ regexp ]
5295 o color index pattern [ pattern ... ]
5299 o my-hdr field [ field ... ]
5301 o open-hook regexp command
5303 o crypt-hook pattern key-id
5307 o set variable [variable ... ]
5309 o save-hook regexp filename
5311 o score-command pattern value
5313 o score-command pattern [ pattern ... ]
5315 o send-hook regexp command
5317 o reply-hook regexp command
5319 o set [no|inv]variable[=value ] [ variable ... ]
5321 o set variable [variable ... ]
5325 o spam pattern format
5329 o lists regexp [ regexp ... ]
5331 o lists regexp [ regexp ... ]
5333 o set variable [variable ... ]
5337 4. Configuration variables
5339 The following list contains all variables which, in the process of
5340 providing more consistency, have been renamed and are partially even
5341 removed already. The left column contains the old synonym variables, the
5342 right column the full/new name:
5344 Table 7.3. Obsolete Variables
5346 +----------------------------------------------------+
5347 | Old Name | New Name |
5348 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5349 | edit_hdrs | edit_headers |
5350 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5351 | forw_decode | forward_decode |
5352 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5353 | forw_format | forward_format |
5354 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5355 | forw_quote | forward_quote |
5356 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5357 | hdr_format | index_format |
5358 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5359 | indent_str | indent_string |
5360 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5361 | mime_fwd | mime_forward |
5362 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5363 | msg_format | message_format |
5364 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5365 | pgp_autosign | crypt_autosign |
5366 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5367 | pgp_autoencrypt | crypt_autoencrypt |
5368 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5369 | pgp_replyencrypt | crypt_replyencrypt |
5370 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5371 | pgp_replysign | crypt_replysign |
5372 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5373 | pgp_replysignencrypted | crypt_replysignencrypted |
5374 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5375 | pgp_verify_sig | crypt_verify_sig |
5376 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5377 | pgp_create_traditional | pgp_autoinline |
5378 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5379 | pgp_auto_traditional | pgp_replyinline |
5380 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5381 | forw_decrypt | forward_decrypt |
5382 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5383 | smime_sign_as | smime_default_key |
5384 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5385 | post_indent_str | post_indent_string |
5386 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5387 | print_cmd | print_command |
5388 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5389 | shorten_hierarchy | sidebar_shorten_hierarchy |
5390 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5391 | ask_followup_to | nntp_ask_followup_to |
5392 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5393 | ask_x_comment_to | nntp_ask_x_comment_to |
5394 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5395 | catchup_newsgroup | nntp_catchup |
5396 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5397 | followup_to_poster | nntp_followup_to_poster |
5398 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5399 | group_index_format | nntp_group_index_format |
5400 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5401 | inews | nntp_inews |
5402 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5403 | mime_subject | nntp_mime_subject |
5404 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5405 | news_cache_dir | nntp_cache_dir |
5406 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5407 | news_server | nntp_host |
5408 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5409 | newsrc | nntp_newsrc |
5410 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5411 | nntp_poll | nntp_mail_check |
5412 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5413 | pop_checkinterval | pop_mail_check |
5414 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5415 | post_moderated | nntp_post_moderated |
5416 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5417 | save_unsubscribed | nntp_save_unsubscribed |
5418 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5419 | show_new_news | nntp_show_new_news |
5420 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5421 | show_only_unread | nntp_show_only_unread |
5422 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5423 | x_comment_to | nntp_x_comment_to |
5424 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5425 | smtp_auth_username | smtp_user |
5426 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5427 | smtp_auth_password | smtp_pass |
5428 |------------------------+---------------------------|
5429 | user_agent | agent_string |
5430 +----------------------------------------------------+
5432 The contrib subdirectory contains a script named update-config.pl which
5435 A complete list of current variables follows.
5443 This variable specifies whether to abort sending if no attachment was made
5444 but the content references them, i.e. the content matches the regular
5445 expression given in $attach_remind_regexp. If a match was found and this
5446 variable is set to yes, message sending will be aborted but the mail will
5447 be send nevertheless if set to no.
5449 This variable and $attach_remind_regexp are intended to remind the user to
5450 attach files if the message's text references them.
5452 See also the $attach_remind_regexp variable.
5460 If set to yes, when composing messages and no subject is given at the
5461 subject prompt, composition will be aborted. If set to no, composing
5462 messages with no subject given at the subject prompt will never be
5471 If set to yes, composition will automatically abort after editing the
5472 message body if no changes are made to the file (this check only happens
5473 after the first edit of the file). When set to no, composition will never
5482 When set, Mutt-ng will add a ``User-Agent:'' header to outgoing messages,
5483 indicating which version of Mutt-ng was used for composing them.
5489 Default: "˜/.muttngrc"
5491 The default file in which to save aliases created by the ``create-alias''
5494 Note: Mutt-ng will not automatically source this file; you must explicitly
5495 use the `` source'' command for it to be executed.
5501 Default: "%4n %2f %t %-10a %r"
5503 Specifies the format of the data displayed for the ``alias'' menu. The
5504 following printf(3)-style sequences are available:
5512 flags - currently, a "d" for an alias marked for deletion
5520 address which alias expands to
5524 character which indicates if the alias is tagged for inclusion
5532 Controls whether 8-bit data is converted to 7-bit using either
5533 quoted-printable or base64 encoding when sending mail.
5541 Controls whether ANSI color codes in messages (and color tags in rich text
5542 messages) are to be interpreted. Messages containing these codes are rare,
5543 but if this option is set, their text will be colored accordingly. Note
5544 that this may override your color choices, and even present a security
5545 problem, since a message could include a line like ``[-- PGP output
5546 follows ..." and give it the same color as your attachment color.
5554 When set, an arrow (``->'') will be used to indicate the current entry in
5555 menus instead of highlighting the whole line. On slow network or modem
5556 links this will make response faster because there is less that has to be
5557 redrawn on the screen when moving to the next or previous entries in the
5566 If set, Mutt-ng will use plain ASCII characters when displaying thread and
5567 attachment trees, instead of the default ACS characters.
5575 If set, Mutt-ng will prompt you for blind-carbon-copy (Bcc) recipients
5576 before editing an outgoing message.
5584 If set, Mutt-ng will prompt you for carbon-copy (Cc) recipients before
5585 editing the body of an outgoing message.
5593 This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding schemes for
5594 messages without character encoding indication. Header field values and
5595 message body content without character encoding indication would be
5596 assumed that they are written in one of this list. By default, all the
5597 header fields and message body without any charset indication are assumed
5600 For example, Japanese users might prefer this:
5602 set assumed_charset="iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8"
5604 However, only the first content is valid for the message body. This
5605 variable is valid only if $strict_mime is unset.
5611 Default: "%u%D%I %t%4n %T%.40d%> [%.7m/%.10M, %.6e%?C?, %C?, %s] "
5613 This variable describes the format of the ``attachment'' menu. The
5614 following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
5622 requires charset conversion (n or c)
5634 MIME Content-Transfer-Encoding: header field
5642 MIME Content-Disposition: header field (I=inline, A=attachment)
5666 graphic tree characters
5670 unlink (=to delete) flag
5674 right justify the rest of the string and pad with character "X"
5678 pad to the end of the line with character "X"
5680 15. attach_remind_regexp
5682 Type: regular expression
5686 If this variable is non-empty, muttng will scan a message's contents
5687 before sending for this regular expression. If it is found, it will ask
5688 for what to do depending on the setting of $abort_noattach.
5690 This variable and $abort_noattach are intended to remind the user to
5691 attach files if the message's text references them.
5699 The separator to add between attachments when operating (saving, printing,
5700 piping, etc) on a list of tagged attachments.
5708 If this variable is unset, when operating (saving, printing, piping, etc)
5709 on a list of tagged attachments, Mutt-ng will concatenate the attachments
5710 and will operate on them as a single attachment. The ``$attach_sep''
5711 separator is added after each attachment. When set, Mutt-ng will operate
5712 on the attachments one by one.
5718 Default: "On %d, %n wrote:"
5720 This is the string that will precede a message which has been included in
5721 a reply. For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the
5722 section on ``$index_format''.
5730 When set, functions in the index menu which affect a message will be
5731 applied to all tagged messages (if there are any). When unset, you must
5732 first use the ``tag-prefix'' function (default: ";") to make the next
5733 function apply to all tagged messages.
5741 When set along with ``$edit_headers'', Mutt-ng will skip the initial
5742 send-menu and allow you to immediately begin editing the body of your
5743 message. The send-menu may still be accessed once you have finished
5744 editing the body of your message.
5746 Also see ``$fast_reply''.
5754 When this variable is set, Mutt-ng will beep when an error occurs.
5762 When this variable is set, Mutt-ng will beep whenever it prints a message
5763 notifying you of new mail. This is independent of the setting of the
5772 Controls whether you will be asked to confirm bouncing messages. If set to
5773 yes you don't get asked if you want to bounce a message. Setting this
5774 variable to no is not generally useful, and thus not recommended, because
5775 you are unable to bounce messages.
5777 24. bounce_delivered
5783 When this variable is set, Mutt-ng will include Delivered-To: header
5784 fields when bouncing messages. Postfix users may wish to unset this
5787 25. braille_friendly
5793 When this variable is set, mutt will place the cursor at the beginning of
5794 the current line in menus, even when the arrow_cursor variable is unset,
5795 making it easier for blind persons using Braille displays to follow these
5796 menus. The option is disabled by default because many visual terminals
5797 don't permit making the cursor invisible.
5799 26. certificate_file
5803 Default: "˜/.mutt_certificates"
5805 Availability: SSL or GNUTLS
5807 This variable specifies the file where the certificates you trust are
5808 saved. When an unknown certificate is encountered, you are asked if you
5809 accept it or not. If you accept it, the certificate can also be saved in
5810 this file and further connections are automatically accepted.
5812 You can also manually add CA certificates in this file. Any server
5813 certificate that is signed with one of these CA certificates are also
5814 automatically accepted.
5816 Example: set certificate_file=˜/.muttng/certificates
5824 Character set your terminal uses to display and enter textual data.
5832 Note: this option only affects maildir and MH style mailboxes.
5834 When set, Mutt-ng will check for new mail delivered while the mailbox is
5835 open. Especially with MH mailboxes, this operation can take quite some
5836 time since it involves scanning the directory and checking each file to
5837 see if it has already been looked at. If it's unset, no check for new mail
5838 is performed while the mailbox is open.
5846 When unset, Mutt-ng will not collapse a thread if it contains any unread
5853 Default: "-- Mutt-ng: Compose [Approx. msg size: %l Atts: %a]%>-"
5855 Controls the format of the status line displayed in the ``compose'' menu.
5856 This string is similar to ``$status_format'', but has its own set of
5857 printf(3)-like sequences:
5861 total number of attachments
5869 approximate size (in bytes) of the current message
5873 Mutt-ng version string
5875 See the text describing the ``$status_format'' option for more information
5876 on how to set ``$compose_format''.
5884 When defined, Mutt-ng will recode commands in rc files from this encoding.
5892 When set, Mutt-ng will prompt for confirmation when appending messages to
5893 an existing mailbox.
5901 When set, Mutt-ng will prompt for confirmation when saving messages to a
5902 mailbox which does not yet exist before creating it.
5910 Causes Mutt-ng to timeout a network connection (for IMAP or POP) after
5911 this many seconds if the connection is not able to be established. A
5912 negative value causes Mutt-ng to wait indefinitely for the connection to
5919 Default: "text/plain"
5921 Sets the default Content-Type: header field for the body of newly composed
5930 This variable controls whether or not copies of your outgoing messages
5931 will be saved for later references. Also see ``$record'', ``$save_name'',
5932 ``$force_name'' and ``fcc-hook''.
5934 37. crypt_autoencrypt
5940 Setting this variable will cause Mutt-ng to always attempt to PGP encrypt
5941 outgoing messages. This is probably only useful in connection to the
5942 send-hook command. It can be overridden by use of the pgp-menu, when
5943 encryption is not required or signing is requested as well. If
5944 ``$smime_is_default'' is set, then OpenSSL is used instead to create
5945 S/MIME messages and settings can be overridden by use of the smime-menu.
5954 This variable controls whether or not Mutt-ng may automatically enable PGP
5955 encryption/signing for messages. See also ``$crypt_autoencrypt'',
5956 ``$crypt_replyencrypt'', ``$crypt_autosign'', ``$crypt_replysign'' and
5957 ``$smime_is_default''.
5965 Setting this variable will cause Mutt-ng to always attempt to
5966 cryptographically sign outgoing messages. This can be overridden by use of
5967 the pgp-menu, when signing is not required or encryption is requested as
5968 well. If ``$smime_is_default'' is set, then OpenSSL is used instead to
5969 create S/MIME messages and settings can be overridden by use of the
5970 smime-menu. (Crypto only)
5978 This variable controls whether or not Mutt-ng may automatically enable
5979 S/MIME encryption/signing for messages. See also ``$crypt_autoencrypt'',
5980 ``$crypt_replyencrypt'', ``$crypt_autosign'', ``$crypt_replysign'' and
5981 ``$smime_is_default''.
5983 41. crypt_replyencrypt
5989 If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL encrypt replies to messages which are
5990 encrypted. (Crypto only)
5998 If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages which are
6001 Note: this does not work on messages that are encrypted and signed!
6004 43. crypt_replysignencrypted
6010 If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages which are
6011 encrypted. This makes sense in combination with ``$crypt_replyencrypt'',
6012 because it allows you to sign all messages which are automatically
6013 encrypted. This works around the problem noted in ``$crypt_replysign'',
6014 that Mutt-ng is not able to find out whether an encrypted message is also
6015 signed. (Crypto only)
6023 If set, Mutt-ng will include a time stamp in the lines surrounding PGP or
6024 S/MIME output, so spoofing such lines is more difficult. If you are using
6025 colors to mark these lines, and rely on these, you may unset this setting.
6034 This variable controls the use the GPGME enabled crypto backends. If it is
6035 set and Mutt-ng was build with gpgme support, the gpgme code for S/MIME
6036 and PGP will be used instead of the classic code.
6038 Note: You need to use this option in your .muttngrc configuration file as
6039 it won't have any effect when used interactively.
6041 46. crypt_verify_sig
6047 If ``yes'', always attempt to verify PGP or S/MIME signatures. If ``ask'',
6048 ask whether or not to verify the signature. If ``no'', never attempt to
6049 verify cryptographic signatures. (Crypto only)
6055 Default: "!%a, %b %d, %Y at %I:%M:%S%p %Z"
6057 This variable controls the format of the date printed by the ``%d''
6058 sequence in ``$index_format''. This is passed to strftime(3) to process
6061 Unless the first character in the string is a bang (``!''), the month and
6062 week day names are expanded according to the locale specified in the
6063 variable ``$locale''. If the first character in the string is a bang, the
6064 bang is discarded, and the month and week day names in the rest of the
6065 string are expanded in the C locale (that is in US English).
6075 This variable specifies the current debug level and may be used to
6076 increase or decrease the verbosity level during runtime. It overrides the
6077 level given with the -d command line option.
6079 Currently, this number must be >= 0 and <= 5 and muttng must be started
6080 with -d to enable debugging at all; enabling at runtime is not possible.
6086 Default: "˜f %s !˜P | (˜P ˜C %s)"
6088 This variable controls how send-hooks, message-hooks, save-hooks, and
6089 fcc-hooks will be interpreted if they are specified with only a simple
6090 regexp, instead of a matching pattern. The hooks are expanded when they
6091 are declared, so a hook will be interpreted according to the value of this
6092 variable at the time the hook is declared. The default value matches if
6093 the message is either from a user matching the regular expression given,
6094 or if it is from you (if the from address matches ``alternates'') and is
6095 to or cc'ed to a user matching the given regular expression.
6103 Controls whether or not messages are really deleted when closing or
6104 synchronizing a mailbox. If set to yes, messages marked for deleting will
6105 automatically be purged without prompting. If set to no, messages marked
6106 for deletion will be kept in the mailbox.
6114 When sending messages with format=flowed by setting the $text_flowed
6115 variable, this variable specifies whether to also set the DelSp parameter
6116 to yes. If this is unset, no additional parameter will be send as a value
6117 of no already is the default behavior.
6119 Note: this variable only has an effect on outgoing messages (if
6120 $text_flowed is set) but not on incomming.
6128 If this option is set, Mutt-ng will untag messages when marking them for
6129 deletion. This applies when you either explicitly delete a message, or
6130 when you save it to another folder.
6138 If this option is set, Mutt-ng's received-attachments menu will not show
6139 the subparts of individual messages in a multipart/digest. To see these
6140 subparts, press 'v' on that menu.
6148 When set, specifies a command used to filter messages. When a message is
6149 viewed it is passed as standard input to $display_filter, and the filtered
6150 message is read from the standard output.
6156 Default: "$muttng_bindir/muttng_dotlock"
6158 Availability: Standalone and Dotlock
6160 Contains the path of the muttng_dotlock(1) binary to be used by Mutt-ng.
6168 Note: you should not enable this unless you are using Sendmail 8.8.x or
6169 greater or in connection with the SMTP support via libESMTP.
6171 This variable sets the request for when notification is returned. The
6172 string consists of a comma separated list (no spaces!) of one or more of
6173 the following: never, to never request notification, failure, to request
6174 notification on transmission failure, delay, to be notified of message
6175 delays, success, to be notified of successful transmission.
6177 Example: set dsn_notify="failure,delay"
6185 Note: you should not enable this unless you are using Sendmail 8.8.x or
6186 greater or in connection with the SMTP support via libESMTP.
6188 This variable controls how much of your message is returned in DSN
6189 messages. It may be set to either hdrs to return just the message header,
6190 or full to return the full message.
6192 Example: set dsn_return=hdrs
6194 58. duplicate_threads
6200 This variable controls whether Mutt-ng, when sorting by threads, threads
6201 messages with the same Message-Id: header field together. If it is set, it
6202 will indicate that it thinks they are duplicates of each other with an
6203 equals sign in the thread diagram.
6211 This option allows you to edit the header of your outgoing messages along
6212 with the body of your message.
6214 Which empty header fields to show is controlled by the $editor_headers
6223 This variable specifies which editor is used by Mutt-ng. It defaults to
6224 the value of the $VISUAL, or $EDITOR, environment variable, or to the
6225 string "vi" if neither of those are set.
6231 Default: "From: To: Cc: Bcc: Subject: Reply-To: Newsgroups: Followup-To:
6234 If $edit_headers is set, this space-separated list specifies which
6235 non-empty header fields to edit in addition to user-defined headers.
6237 Note: if $edit_headers had to be turned on by force because $strict_mailto
6238 is unset, this option has no effect.
6246 When set, Mutt-ng will quoted-printable encode messages when they contain
6247 the string ``From '' (note the trailing space) in the beginning of a line.
6248 Useful to avoid the tampering certain mail delivery and transport agents
6249 tend to do with messages.
6251 Note: as mutt-ng currently violates RfC3676 defining format=flowed, it's
6252 <em/strongly/ advised to set this option although discouraged by the
6253 standard. Alternatively, you must take care of space-stuffing <tt/From /
6254 lines (with a trailing space) yourself.
6264 The file which includes random data that is used to initialize SSL library
6273 When set, Mutt-ng will try to derive the message's envelope sender from
6274 the ``From:'' header field. Note that this information is passed to the
6275 sendmail command using the ``-f" command line switch, so don't set this
6276 option if you are using that switch in $sendmail yourself, or if the
6277 sendmail on your machine doesn't support that command line switch.
6285 Escape character to use for functions in the builtin editor.
6293 When set, the initial prompt for recipients and subject are skipped when
6294 replying to messages, and the initial prompt for subject is skipped when
6295 forwarding messages.
6297 Note: this variable has no effect when the ``$autoedit'' variable is set.
6305 This variable controls whether or not attachments on outgoing messages are
6306 saved along with the main body of your message.
6314 When this variable is set, FCCs will be stored unencrypted and unsigned,
6315 even when the actual message is encrypted and/or signed. (PGP only)
6323 This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding schemes for
6324 text file attatchments. If unset, $charset value will be used instead. For
6325 example, the following configuration would work for Japanese text
6328 set file_charset="iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8"
6330 Note: ``iso-2022-*'' must be put at the head of the value as shown above
6339 Specifies the default location of your mailboxes. A ``+'' or ``='' at the
6340 beginning of a pathname will be expanded to the value of this variable.
6341 Note that if you change this variable from the default value you need to
6342 make sure that the assignment occurs before you use ``+'' or ``='' for any
6343 other variables since expansion takes place during the ``set'' command.
6349 Default: "%2C %t %N %F %2l %-8.8u %-8.8g %8s %d %f"
6351 This variable allows you to customize the file browser display to your
6352 personal taste. This string is similar to ``$index_format'', but has its
6353 own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
6361 date/time folder was last modified
6373 group name (or numeric gid, if missing)
6377 number of hard links
6381 N if folder has new mail, blank otherwise
6389 * if the file is tagged, blank otherwise
6393 owner name (or numeric uid, if missing)
6397 right justify the rest of the string and pad with character "X"
6401 pad to the end of the line with character "X"
6409 Controls whether or not the Mail-Followup-To: header field is generated
6410 when sending mail. When set, Mutt-ng will generate this field when you are
6411 replying to a known mailing list, specified with the ``subscribe'' or
6412 ``lists'' commands or detected by common mailing list headers.
6414 This field has two purposes. First, preventing you from receiving
6415 duplicate copies of replies to messages which you send to mailing lists.
6416 Second, ensuring that you do get a reply separately for any messages sent
6417 to known lists to which you are not subscribed. The header will contain
6418 only the list's address for subscribed lists, and both the list address
6419 and your own email address for unsubscribed lists. Without this header, a
6420 group reply to your message sent to a subscribed list will be sent to both
6421 the list and your address, resulting in two copies of the same email for
6424 73. force_buffy_check
6430 When set, it causes Mutt-ng to check for new mail when the buffy-list
6431 command is invoked. When unset, buffy_list will just list all mailboxes
6432 which are already known to have new mail.
6434 Also see the following variables: ``$timeout'', ``$mail_check'' and
6435 ``$imap_mail_check''.
6443 This variable is similar to ``$save_name'', except that Mutt-ng will store
6444 a copy of your outgoing message by the username of the address you are
6445 sending to even if that mailbox does not exist.
6447 Also see the ``$record'' variable.
6455 Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into text/plain when
6456 forwarding a message. The message header is also RFC2047 decoded. This
6457 variable is only used, if ``$mime_forward'' is unset, otherwise
6458 ``$mime_forward_decode'' is used instead.
6466 Controls the handling of encrypted messages when forwarding a message.
6467 When set, the outer layer of encryption is stripped off. This variable is
6468 only used if ``$mime_forward'' is set and ``$mime_forward_decode'' is
6477 This quadoption controls whether or not the user is automatically placed
6478 in the editor when forwarding messages. For those who always want to
6479 forward with no modification, use a setting of no.
6487 This variable controls the default subject when forwarding a message. It
6488 uses the same format sequences as the ``$index_format'' variable.
6496 When set forwarded messages included in the main body of the message (when
6497 ``$mime_forward'' is unset) will be quoted using ``$indent_string''.
6501 Type: e-mail address
6505 This variable contains a default from address. It can be overridden using
6506 my_hdr (including from send-hooks) and ``$reverse_name''. This variable is
6507 ignored if ``$use_from'' is unset.
6509 E.g. you can use send-hook Mutt-ng-devel@lists.berlios.de 'my_hdr From:
6510 Foo Bar <foo@bar.fb>' when replying to the mutt-ng developer's mailing
6511 list and Mutt-ng takes this email address.
6513 Defaults to the contents of the environment variable $EMAIL.
6517 Type: regular expression
6521 A regular expression used by Mutt-ng to parse the GECOS field of a
6522 password entry when expanding the alias. By default the regular expression
6523 is set to ``^[^,]*'' which will return the string up to the first ``,''
6524 encountered. If the GECOS field contains a string like "lastname,
6525 firstname" then you should do: set gecos_mask=".*".
6527 This can be useful if you see the following behavior: you address a e-mail
6528 to user ID stevef whose full name is Steve Franklin. If Mutt-ng expands
6529 stevef to ``Franklin'' stevef@foo.bar then you should set the gecos_mask
6530 to a regular expression that will match the whole name so Mutt-ng will
6531 expand ``Franklin'' to ``Franklin, Steve''.
6539 When unset, the header fields normally added by the ``my_hdr'' command are
6540 not created. This variable must be unset before composing a new message or
6541 replying in order to take effect. If set, the user defined header fields
6542 are added to every new message.
6550 When set, this variable causes Mutt-ng to include the header of the
6551 message you are replying to into the edit buffer. The ``$weed'' setting
6560 Availability: Header Cache
6562 The $header_cache variable points to the header cache database.
6564 If $header_cache points to a directory it will contain a header cache
6565 database per folder. If $header_cache points to a file that file will be a
6566 single global header cache. By default it is unset so no header caching
6569 85. header_cache_compress
6575 If enabled the header cache will be compressed. So only one fifth of the
6576 usual diskspace is used, but the uncompression can result in a slower open
6577 of the cached folder.
6585 When set, help lines describing the bindings for the major functions
6586 provided by each menu are displayed on the first line of the screen.
6588 Note: The binding will not be displayed correctly if the function is bound
6589 to a sequence rather than a single keystroke. Also, the help line may not
6590 be updated if a binding is changed while Mutt-ng is running. Since this
6591 variable is primarily aimed at new users, neither of these should present
6600 When set, Mutt-ng will skip the host name part of ``$hostname'' variable
6601 when adding the domain part to addresses. This variable does not affect
6602 the generation of Message-ID: header fields, and it will not lead to the
6603 cut-off of first-level domains.
6611 When set, Mutt-ng will not show the presence of messages that are hidden
6612 by limiting, in the thread tree.
6620 When set, Mutt-ng will not show the presence of missing messages in the
6623 90. hide_thread_subject
6629 When set, Mutt-ng will not show the subject of messages in the thread tree
6630 that have the same subject as their parent or closest previously displayed
6633 91. hide_top_limited
6639 When set, Mutt-ng will not show the presence of messages that are hidden
6640 by limiting, at the top of threads in the thread tree. Note that when
6641 $hide_missing is set, this option will have no effect.
6643 92. hide_top_missing
6649 When set, Mutt-ng will not show the presence of missing messages at the
6650 top of threads in the thread tree. Note that when $hide_limited is set,
6651 this option will have no effect.
6659 This variable controls the size (in number of strings remembered) of the
6660 string history buffer. The buffer is cleared each time the variable is
6663 94. honor_followup_to
6669 This variable controls whether or not a Mail-Followup-To: header field is
6670 honored when group-replying to a message.
6678 Specifies the hostname to use after the ``@'' in local e-mail addresses
6679 and during generation of Message-Id: headers.
6681 Please be sure to really know what you are doing when changing this
6682 variable to configure a custom domain part of Message-IDs.
6684 96. ignore_list_reply_to
6690 Affects the behaviour of the reply function when replying to messages from
6691 mailing lists. When set, if the ``Reply-To:'' header field is set to the
6692 same value as the ``To:'' header field, Mutt-ng assumes that the
6693 ``Reply-To:'' header field was set by the mailing list to automate
6694 responses to the list, and will ignore this field. To direct a response to
6695 the mailing list when this option is set, use the list-reply function;
6696 group-reply will reply to both the sender and the list.
6698 97. imap_authenticators
6706 This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods Mutt-ng may
6707 attempt to use to log in to an IMAP server, in the order Mutt-ng should
6708 try them. Authentication methods are either ``login'' or the right side of
6709 an IMAP ``AUTH='' capability string, e.g. ``digest-md5'', ``gssapi'' or
6710 ``cram-md5''. This parameter is case-insensitive.
6712 If this parameter is unset (the default) Mutt-ng will try all available
6713 methods, in order from most-secure to least-secure.
6715 Example: set imap_authenticators="gssapi:cram-md5:login"
6717 Note: Mutt-ng will only fall back to other authentication methods if the
6718 previous methods are unavailable. If a method is available but
6719 authentication fails, Mutt-ng will not connect to the IMAP server.
6721 98. imap_check_subscribed
6727 When set, mutt will fetch the set of subscribed folders from your server
6728 on connection, and add them to the set of mailboxes it polls for new mail.
6729 See also the ``mailboxes'' command.
6731 99. imap_delim_chars
6739 This contains the list of characters which you would like to treat as
6740 folder separators for displaying IMAP paths. In particular it helps in
6741 using the '=' shortcut for your $folder variable.
6751 Mutt-ng requests these header fields in addition to the default headers
6752 (``DATE FROM SUBJECT TO CC MESSAGE-ID REFERENCES CONTENT-TYPE
6753 CONTENT-DESCRIPTION IN-REPLY-TO REPLY-TO LINES X-LABEL'') from IMAP
6754 servers before displaying the ``index'' menu. You may want to add more
6755 headers for spam detection.
6757 Note: This is a space separated list.
6759 101. imap_home_namespace
6767 You normally want to see your personal folders alongside your INBOX in the
6768 IMAP browser. If you see something else, you may set this variable to the
6769 IMAP path to your folders.
6779 This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in seconds that Mutt-ng
6780 will wait before polling open IMAP connections, to prevent the server from
6781 closing them before Mutt-ng has finished with them.
6783 The default is well within the RFC-specified minimum amount of time (30
6784 minutes) before a server is allowed to do this, but in practice the RFC
6785 does get violated every now and then.
6787 Reduce this number if you find yourself getting disconnected from your
6788 IMAP server due to inactivity.
6790 103. imap_list_subscribed
6798 This variable configures whether IMAP folder browsing will look for only
6799 subscribed folders or all folders. This can be toggled in the IMAP browser
6800 with the toggle-subscribed function.
6810 Your login name on the IMAP server.
6812 This variable defaults to the value of ``$imap_user.''
6814 105. imap_mail_check
6820 This variable configures how often (in seconds) Mutt-ng should look for
6821 new mail in IMAP folders. This is split from the ``mail_check'' variable
6822 to generate less traffic and get more accurate information for local
6833 Specifies the password for your IMAP account. If unset, Mutt-ng will
6834 prompt you for your password when you invoke the fetch-mail function.
6836 Warning: you should only use this option when you are on a fairly secure
6837 machine, because the superuser can read your configuration even if you are
6838 the only one who can read the file.
6848 When set, Mutt-ng will not open new IMAP connections to check for new
6849 mail. Mutt-ng will only check for new mail over existing IMAP connections.
6850 This is useful if you don't want to be prompted to user/password pairs on
6851 Mutt-ng invocation, or if opening the connection is slow.
6861 If set, Mutt-ng will avoid implicitly marking your mail as read whenever
6862 you fetch a message from the server. This is generally a good thing, but
6863 can make closing an IMAP folder somewhat slower. This option exists to
6864 appease speed freaks.
6874 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng will try to reconnect to IMAP server when
6875 the connection is lost.
6877 110. imap_servernoise
6885 When set, Mutt-ng will display warning messages from the IMAP server as
6886 error messages. Since these messages are often harmless, or generated due
6887 to configuration problems on the server which are out of the users' hands,
6888 you may wish to suppress them at some point.
6898 The name of the user whose mail you intend to access on the IMAP server.
6900 This variable defaults to your user name on the local machine.
6902 112. implicit_autoview
6908 If set, Mutt-ng will look for a mailcap entry with the ``copiousoutput''
6909 flag set for every MIME attachment it doesn't have an internal viewer
6910 defined for. If such an entry is found, Mutt-ng will use the viewer
6911 defined in that entry to convert the body part to text form.
6919 Controls whether or not a copy of the message(s) you are replying to is
6920 included in your reply.
6922 114. include_onlyfirst
6928 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng includes only the first attachment of the
6929 message you are replying.
6937 Specifies the string to prepend to each line of text quoted in a message
6938 to which you are replying. You are strongly encouraged not to change this
6939 value, as it tends to agitate the more fanatical netizens.
6945 Default: "%4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15L (%?l?%4l&%4c?) %s"
6947 This variable allows you to customize the message index display to your
6950 ``Format strings'' are similar to the strings used in the ``C'' function
6951 printf(3) to format output (see the man page for more detail). The
6952 following sequences are defined in Mutt-ng:
6956 address of the author
6960 reply-to address (if present; otherwise: address of author)
6964 filename of the original message folder (think mailBox)
6968 the list to which the letter was sent, or else the folder name
6973 number of characters (bytes) in the message
6977 current message number
6981 date and time of the message in the format specified by
6982 ``date_format'' converted to sender's time zone
6986 date and time of the message in the format specified by
6987 ``date_format'' converted to the local time zone
6991 current message number in thread
6995 number of messages in current thread
6999 entire From: line (address + real name)
7003 author name, or recipient name if the message is from you
7007 spam attribute(s) of this message
7011 newsgroup name (if compiled with nntp support)
7015 message-id of the current message
7019 number of lines in the message (does not work with maildir, mh,
7020 and possibly IMAP folders)
7024 If an address in the To or CC header field matches an address
7025 defined by the users ``subscribe'' command, this displays "To
7026 <list-name>", otherwise the same as %F.
7030 total number of message in the mailbox
7034 number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.
7042 author's real name (or address if missing)
7046 (_O_riginal save folder) Where Mutt-ng would formerly have stashed
7047 the message: list name or recipient name if no list
7051 subject of the message
7055 status of the message (N/D/d/!/r/*)
7059 `to:' field (recipients)
7063 the appropriate character from the $to_chars string
7067 user (login) name of the author
7071 first name of the author, or the recipient if the message is from
7076 name of organization of author (`organization:' field)
7080 `x-label:' field, if present
7084 `x-label' field, if present, and (1) not at part of a thread tree,
7085 (2) at the top of a thread, or (3) `x-label' is different from
7086 preceding message's `x-label'.
7090 message status flags
7094 the date and time of the message is converted to sender's time
7095 zone, and ``fmt'' is expanded by the library function
7096 ``strftime''; a leading bang disables locales
7100 the date and time of the message is converted to the local time
7101 zone, and ``fmt'' is expanded by the library function
7102 ``strftime''; a leading bang disables locales
7106 the local date and time when the message was received. ``fmt'' is
7107 expanded by the library function ``strftime''; a leading bang
7112 the current local time. ``fmt'' is expanded by the library
7113 function ``strftime''; a leading bang disables locales.
7117 right justify the rest of the string and pad with character "X"
7121 pad to the end of the line with character "X"
7123 See also: ``$to_chars''.
7131 How to invoke ispell (GNU's spell-checking software).
7139 If set, read messages marked as flagged will not be moved from your spool
7140 mailbox to your ``$mbox'' mailbox, or as a result of a ``mbox-hook''
7149 When set, address replies to the mailing list the original message came
7150 from (instead to the author only). Setting this option to ``ask-yes'' or
7151 ``ask-no'' will ask if you really intended to reply to the author only.
7159 The locale used by strftime(3) to format dates. Legal values are the
7160 strings your system accepts for the locale variable LC_TIME.
7168 This variable configures how often (in seconds) Mutt-ng should look for
7171 Note: This does not apply to IMAP mailboxes, see $imap_mail_check.
7179 This variable specifies which files to consult when attempting to display
7180 MIME bodies not directly supported by Mutt-ng.
7182 123. mailcap_sanitize
7188 If set, Mutt-ng will restrict possible characters in mailcap % expandos to
7189 a well-defined set of safe characters. This is the safe setting, but we
7190 are not sure it doesn't break some more advanced MIME stuff.
7192 DON'T CHANGE THIS SETTING UNLESS YOU ARE REALLY SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING!
7194 124. maildir_header_cache_verify
7200 Availability: Header Cache
7202 Check for Maildir unaware programs other than Mutt-ng having modified
7203 maildir files when the header cache is in use. This incurs one stat(2) per
7204 message every time the folder is opened.
7212 If set, messages marked as deleted will be saved with the maildir
7213 (T)rashed flag instead of physically deleted.
7215 NOTE: this only applies to maildir-style mailboxes. Setting it will have
7216 no effect on other mailbox types.
7218 It is similiar to the trash option.
7226 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng marks new unread messages as old if you
7227 exit a mailbox without reading them.
7229 With this option set, the next time you start Mutt-ng, the messages will
7230 show up with an "O" next to them in the ``index'' menu, indicating that
7239 Controls the display of wrapped lines in the internal pager. If set, a
7240 ``+'' marker is displayed at the beginning of wrapped lines. Also see the
7241 ``$smart_wrap'' variable.
7245 Type: regular expression
7249 A regular expression used in the file browser, optionally preceded by the
7250 not operator ``!''. Only files whose names match this mask will be shown.
7251 The match is always case-sensitive.
7253 129. max_display_recips
7259 When set non-zero, this specifies the maximum number of recipient header
7260 lines (To:, Cc: and Bcc:) to display in the pager if header weeding is
7261 turned on. In case the number of lines exeeds its value, the last line
7262 will have 3 dots appended.
7264 130. max_line_length
7270 When set, the maximum line length for displaying ``format = flowed''
7271 messages is limited to this length. A value of 0 (which is also the
7272 default) means that the maximum line length is determined by the terminal
7273 width and $wrapmargin.
7281 This specifies the folder into which read mail in your ``$spoolfile''
7282 folder will be appended.
7290 The default mailbox type used when creating new folders. May be any of
7291 mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir.
7299 This variable controls the number of lines of context that are given when
7300 scrolling through menus. (Similar to ``$pager_context''.)
7308 When unset, the bottom entry of menus will never scroll up past the bottom
7309 of the screen, unless there are less entries than lines. When set, the
7310 bottom entry may move off the bottom.
7318 When set, menus will be scrolled up or down one line when you attempt to
7319 move across a screen boundary. If unset, the screen is cleared and the
7320 next or previous page of the menu is displayed (useful for slow links to
7321 avoid many redraws).
7329 This is the string displayed in the ``attachment'' menu for attachments of
7330 type message/rfc822. For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like
7331 sequences see the section on ``$index_format''.
7339 If set, forces Mutt-ng to interpret keystrokes with the high bit (bit 8)
7340 set as if the user had pressed the ESC key and whatever key remains after
7341 having the high bit removed. For example, if the key pressed has an ASCII
7342 value of 0xf4, then this is treated as if the user had pressed ESC then
7343 ``x''. This is because the result of removing the high bit from ``0xf4''
7344 is ``0x74'', which is the ASCII character ``x''.
7352 If unset, Mutt-ng will remove your address (see the ``alternates''
7353 command) from the list of recipients when replying to a message.
7361 When unset, Mutt-ng will mimic mh's behaviour and rename deleted messages
7362 to ,<old file name> in mh folders instead of really deleting them. If the
7363 variable is set, the message files will simply be deleted.
7371 The name of the MH sequence used for flagged messages.
7379 The name of the MH sequence used to tag replied messages.
7387 The name of the MH sequence used for unseen messages.
7395 When set, the message you are forwarding will be attached as a separate
7396 MIME part instead of included in the main body of the message.
7398 This is useful for forwarding MIME messages so the receiver can properly
7399 view the message as it was delivered to you. If you like to switch between
7400 MIME and not MIME from mail to mail, set this variable to ask-no or
7403 Also see ``$forward_decode'' and ``$mime_forward_decode''.
7405 144. mime_forward_decode
7411 Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into text/plain when
7412 forwarding a message while ``$mime_forward'' is set. Otherwise
7413 ``$forward_decode'' is used instead.
7415 145. mime_forward_rest
7421 When forwarding multiple attachments of a MIME message from the recvattach
7422 menu, attachments which cannot be decoded in a reasonable manner will be
7423 attached to the newly composed message if this option is set.
7425 146. mix_entry_format
7429 Default: "%4n %c %-16s %a"
7431 Availability: Mixmaster
7433 This variable describes the format of a remailer line on the mixmaster
7434 chain selection screen. The following printf(3)-like sequences are
7439 The running number on the menu.
7443 Remailer capabilities.
7447 The remailer's short name.
7451 The remailer's e-mail address.
7457 Default: "mixmaster"
7459 Availability: Mixmaster
7461 This variable contains the path to the Mixmaster binary on your system. It
7462 is used with various sets of parameters to gather the list of known
7463 remailers, and to finally send a message through the mixmaster chain.
7471 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng will move read messages from your spool
7472 mailbox to your ``$mbox'' mailbox, or as a result of a ``mbox-hook''
7479 Default: "%Y%m%d%h%M%s.G%P%p"
7481 This is the format for the ``local part'' of the Message-Id: header field
7482 generated by Mutt-ng. If this variable is empty, no Message-Id: headers
7483 will be generated. The '%' character marks that certain data will be added
7484 to the string, similar to printf(3). The following characters are allowed:
7488 the current day of month
7504 the current UNIX timestamp (octal)
7512 the current Message-ID prefix (a character rotating with every
7513 Message-ID being generated)
7517 a random integer value (decimal)
7521 a random integer value (hexadecimal)
7529 the current UNIX timestamp (decimal)
7533 the current UNIX timestamp (hexadecimal)
7537 the current year (Y2K compliant)
7543 Note: Please only change this setting if you know what you are doing. Also
7544 make sure to consult RFC2822 to produce technically valid strings.
7548 Type: system property
7550 Value: /opt/freebsd4/mutt-ng/bin
7552 This is a read-only system property and specifies the directory containing
7557 Type: system property
7559 Value: /opt/freebsd4/mutt-ng/doc/muttng
7561 This is a read-only system property and specifies the directory containing
7562 the muttng documentation.
7564 152. muttng_folder_name
7566 Type: system property
7570 This is a read-only system property and, at runtime, specifies the last
7571 part of the full path or URI of the folder currently open (if any), i.e.
7572 everything after the last ``/''.
7574 153. muttng_folder_path
7576 Type: system property
7580 This is a read-only system property and, at runtime, specifies the full
7581 path or URI of the folder currently open (if any).
7583 154. muttng_hcache_backend
7585 Type: system property
7589 This is a read-only system property and specifies the header chaching's
7594 Type: system property
7598 This is a read-only system property and, at runtime, specifies the current
7599 working directory of the muttng binary.
7601 156. muttng_revision
7603 Type: system property
7607 This is a read-only system property and specifies muttng's subversion
7610 157. muttng_sysconfdir
7612 Type: system property
7614 Value: /opt/freebsd4/mutt-ng/etc
7616 This is a read-only system property and specifies the directory containing
7617 the muttng system-wide configuration.
7621 Type: system property
7625 This is a read-only system property and specifies muttng's version string.
7633 This variable, when set, makes the thread tree narrower, allowing deeper
7634 threads to fit on the screen.
7636 160. nntp_ask_followup_to
7644 If set, Mutt-ng will prompt you for the Followup-To: header field before
7645 editing the body of an outgoing news article.
7647 161. nntp_ask_x_comment_to
7655 If set, Mutt-ng will prompt you for the X-Comment-To: header field before
7656 editing the body of an outgoing news article.
7662 Default: "˜/.muttng"
7666 This variable points to directory where Mutt-ng will cache news article
7667 headers. If unset, headers will not be saved at all and will be reloaded
7668 each time when you enter a newsgroup.
7670 As for the header caching in connection with IMAP and/or Maildir, this
7671 drastically increases speed and lowers traffic.
7681 If this variable is set, Mutt-ng will mark all articles in a newsgroup as
7682 read when you leaving it.
7692 This variable controls how many news articles to cache per newsgroup (if
7693 caching is enabled, see $nntp_cache_dir) and how many news articles to
7694 show in the ``index'' menu.
7696 If there're more articles than defined with $nntp_context, all older ones
7697 will be removed/not shown in the index.
7699 165. nntp_followup_to_poster
7707 If this variable is set and the keyword "poster" is present in the
7708 Followup-To: header field, a follow-up to the newsgroup is not permitted.
7709 The message will be mailed to the submitter of the message via mail.
7711 166. nntp_group_index_format
7715 Default: "%4C %M%N %5s %-45.45f %d"
7719 This variable allows you to customize the newsgroup browser display to
7720 your personal taste. This string is similar to ``index_format'', but has
7721 its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
7723 %C current newsgroup number
7724 %d description of newsgroup (retrieved from server)
7726 %M ``-'' if newsgroup not allowed for direct post (moderated for example)
7727 %N ``N'' if newsgroup is new, ``u'' if unsubscribed, blank otherwise
7728 %n number of new articles in newsgroup
7729 %s number of unread articles in newsgroup
7730 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with character "X"
7731 %|X pad to the end of the line with character "X"
7742 This variable specifies the name (or address) of the NNTP server to be
7745 It defaults to the value specified via the environment variable
7746 $NNTPSERVER or contained in the file /etc/nntpserver.
7748 You can also specify a username and an alternative port for each
7751 [nntp[s]://][username[:password]@]newsserver[:port]
7753 Note: Using a password as shown and stored in a configuration file
7754 presents a security risk since the superuser of your machine may read it
7755 regardless of the file's permissions.
7765 If set, specifies the program and arguments used to deliver news posted by
7766 Mutt-ng. Otherwise, Mutt-ng posts article using current connection. The
7767 following printf(3)-style sequence is understood:
7772 Example: set inews="/usr/local/bin/inews -hS"
7774 169. nntp_load_description
7782 This variable controls whether or not descriptions for newsgroups are to
7783 be loaded when subscribing to a newsgroup.
7785 170. nntp_mail_check
7793 The time in seconds until any operations on a newsgroup except posting a
7794 new article will cause a recheck for new news. If set to 0, Mutt-ng will
7795 recheck on each operation in index (stepping, read article, etc.).
7797 171. nntp_mime_subject
7805 If unset, an 8-bit ``Subject:'' header field in a news article will not be
7806 encoded according to RFC2047.
7808 Note: Only change this setting if you know what you are doing.
7814 Default: "˜/.newsrc"
7818 This file contains information about subscribed newsgroup and articles
7821 To ease the use of multiple news servers, the following printf(3)-style
7822 sequence is understood:
7835 Your password for NNTP account.
7837 Note: Storing passwords in a configuration file presents a security risk
7838 since the superuser of your machine may read it regardless of the file's
7841 174. nntp_post_moderated
7849 If set to yes, Mutt-ng will post articles to newsgroup that have not
7850 permissions to post (e.g. moderated).
7852 Note: if the newsserver does not support posting to that newsgroup or a
7853 group is totally read-only, that posting will not have any effect.
7863 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng will try to reconnect to a newsserver when
7864 the was connection lost.
7866 176. nntp_save_unsubscribed
7874 When set, info about unsubscribed newsgroups will be saved into the
7875 ``newsrc'' file and into the news cache.
7877 177. nntp_show_new_news
7885 If set, the newsserver will be asked for new newsgroups on entering the
7886 browser. Otherwise, it will be done only once for a newsserver. Also
7887 controls whether or not the number of new articles of subscribed
7888 newsgroups will be checked.
7890 178. nntp_show_only_unread
7898 If set, only subscribed newsgroups that contain unread articles will be
7899 displayed in the newsgroup browser.
7909 Your login name on the NNTP server. If unset and the server requires
7910 authentification, Mutt-ng will prompt you for your account name.
7912 180. nntp_x_comment_to
7920 If set, Mutt-ng will add a ``X-Comment-To:'' header field (that contains
7921 full name of the original article author) to articles that you followup
7924 181. operating_system
7930 This specifies the operating system name for the User-Agent: header field.
7931 If this is unset, it will be set to the operating system name that
7932 uname(2) returns. If uname(2) fails, ``UNIX'' will be used.
7934 It may, for example, look as: ``mutt-ng 1.5.9i (Linux)''.
7942 This variable specifies which pager you would like to use to view
7943 messages. ``builtin'' means to use the builtin pager, otherwise this
7944 variable should specify the pathname of the external pager you would like
7947 Using an external pager may have some disadvantages: Additional keystrokes
7948 are necessary because you can't call Mutt-ng functions directly from the
7949 pager, and screen resizes cause lines longer than the screen width to be
7950 badly formatted in the help menu.
7958 This variable controls the number of lines of context that are given when
7959 displaying the next or previous page in the internal pager. By default,
7960 Mutt-ng will display the line after the last one on the screen at the top
7961 of the next page (0 lines of context).
7967 Default: "-%Z- %C/%m: %-20.20n %s"
7969 This variable controls the format of the one-line message ``status''
7970 displayed before each message in either the internal or an external pager.
7971 The valid sequences are listed in the ``$index_format'' section.
7973 185. pager_index_lines
7979 Determines the number of lines of a mini-index which is shown when in the
7980 pager. The current message, unless near the top or bottom of the folder,
7981 will be roughly one third of the way down this mini-index, giving the
7982 reader the context of a few messages before and after the message. This is
7983 useful, for example, to determine how many messages remain to be read in
7984 the current thread. One of the lines is reserved for the status bar from
7985 the index, so a pager_index_lines of 6 will only show 5 lines of the
7986 actual index. A value of 0 results in no index being shown. If the number
7987 of messages in the current folder is less than pager_index_lines, then the
7988 index will only use as many lines as it needs.
7996 When set, the internal-pager will not move to the next message when you
7997 are at the end of a message and invoke the next-page function.
7999 187. pgp_auto_decode
8005 If set, Mutt-ng will automatically attempt to decrypt traditional PGP
8006 messages whenever the user performs an operation which ordinarily would
8007 result in the contents of the message being operated on. For example, if
8008 the user displays a pgp-traditional message which has not been manually
8009 checked with the check-traditional-pgp function, Mutt-ng will
8010 automatically check the message for traditional pgp.
8018 This option controls whether Mutt-ng generates old-style inline
8019 (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages under certain
8020 circumstances. This can be overridden by use of the pgp-menu, when inline
8023 Note that Mutt-ng might automatically use PGP/MIME for messages which
8024 consist of more than a single MIME part. Mutt-ng can be configured to ask
8025 before sending PGP/MIME messages when inline (traditional) would not work.
8026 See also: ``$pgp_mime_auto''.
8028 Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly
8029 deprecated. (PGP only)
8037 If set, Mutt-ng will check the exit code of the PGP subprocess when
8038 signing or encrypting. A non-zero exit code means that the subprocess
8041 190. pgp_clearsign_command
8047 This format is used to create a old-style ``clearsigned'' PGP message.
8049 Note that the use of this format is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
8051 191. pgp_decode_command
8057 This format strings specifies a command which is used to decode
8058 application/pgp attachments.
8060 The PGP command formats have their own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
8064 Expands to PGPPASSFD=0 when a pass phrase is needed, to an empty
8065 string otherwise. Note: This may be used with a %? construct.
8069 Expands to the name of a file containing a message.
8073 Expands to the name of a file containing the signature part of a
8074 multipart/signed attachment when verifying it.
8078 The value of $pgp_sign_as.
8082 One or more key IDs.
8084 For examples on how to configure these formats for the various versions of
8085 PGP which are floating around, see the pgp*.rc and gpg.rc files in the
8086 samples/ subdirectory which has been installed on your system alongside
8087 the documentation. (PGP only)
8089 192. pgp_decrypt_command
8095 This command is used to decrypt a PGP encrypted message. (PGP only)
8097 193. pgp_encrypt_only_command
8103 This command is used to encrypt a body part without signing it. (PGP only)
8105 194. pgp_encrypt_sign_command
8111 This command is used to both sign and encrypt a body part. (PGP only)
8113 195. pgp_entry_format
8117 Default: "%4n %t%f %4l/0x%k %-4a %2c %u"
8119 This variable allows you to customize the PGP key selection menu to your
8120 personal taste. This string is similar to ``$index_format'', but has its
8121 own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
8153 trust/validity of the key-uid association
8157 date of the key where <s> is an strftime(3) expression
8161 196. pgp_export_command
8167 This command is used to export a public key from the user's key ring. (PGP
8170 197. pgp_getkeys_command
8176 This command is invoked whenever Mutt-ng will need public key information.
8177 %r is the only printf(3)-like sequence used with this format. (PGP only)
8181 Type: regular expression
8185 If you assign a text to this variable, then a PGP signature is only
8186 considered verified if the output from $pgp_verify_command contains the
8187 text. Use this variable if the exit code from the command is 0 even for
8188 bad signatures. (PGP only)
8190 199. pgp_ignore_subkeys
8196 Setting this variable will cause Mutt-ng to ignore OpenPGP subkeys.
8197 Instead, the principal key will inherit the subkeys' capabilities. Unset
8198 this if you want to play interesting key selection games. (PGP only)
8200 200. pgp_import_command
8206 This command is used to import a key from a message into the user's public
8207 key ring. (PGP only)
8209 201. pgp_list_pubring_command
8215 This command is used to list the public key ring's contents. The output
8216 format must be analogous to the one used by gpg --list-keys --with-colons.
8218 This format is also generated by the pgpring utility which comes with
8221 202. pgp_list_secring_command
8227 This command is used to list the secret key ring's contents. The output
8228 format must be analogous to the one used by gpg --list-keys --with-colons.
8230 This format is also generated by the pgpring utility which comes with
8239 If set, use 64 bit PGP key IDs. Unset uses the normal 32 bit Key IDs. (PGP
8248 This option controls whether Mutt-ng will prompt you for automatically
8249 sending a (signed/encrypted) message using PGP/MIME when inline
8250 (traditional) fails (for any reason).
8252 Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly
8253 deprecated. (PGP only)
8255 205. pgp_replyinline
8261 Setting this variable will cause Mutt-ng to always attempt to create an
8262 inline (traditional) message when replying to a message which is PGP
8263 encrypted/signed inline. This can be overridden by use of the pgp-menu,
8264 when inline is not required. This option does not automatically detect if
8265 the (replied-to) message is inline; instead it relies on Mutt-ng internals
8266 for previously checked/flagged messages.
8268 Note that Mutt-ng might automatically use PGP/MIME for messages which
8269 consist of more than a single MIME part. Mutt-ng can be configured to ask
8270 before sending PGP/MIME messages when inline (traditional) would not work.
8271 See also: ``$pgp_mime_auto''.
8273 Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly
8274 deprecated. (PGP only)
8276 206. pgp_retainable_sigs
8282 If set, signed and encrypted messages will consist of nested
8283 multipart/signed and multipart/encrypted body parts.
8285 This is useful for applications like encrypted and signed mailing lists,
8286 where the outer layer (multipart/encrypted) can be easily removed, while
8287 the inner multipart/signed part is retained. (PGP only)
8289 207. pgp_show_unusable
8295 If set, Mutt-ng will display non-usable keys on the PGP key selection
8296 menu. This includes keys which have been revoked, have expired, or have
8297 been marked as ``disabled'' by the user. (PGP only)
8305 If you have more than one key pair, this option allows you to specify
8306 which of your private keys to use. It is recommended that you use the
8307 keyid form to specify your key (e.g., ``0x00112233''). (PGP only)
8309 209. pgp_sign_command
8315 This command is used to create the detached PGP signature for a
8316 multipart/signed PGP/MIME body part. (PGP only)
8324 Specifies how the entries in the ``pgp keys'' menu are sorted. The
8325 following are legal values:
8329 sort alphabetically by user id
8333 sort alphabetically by key id
8337 sort by key creation date
8341 sort by the trust of the key
8343 If you prefer reverse order of the above values, prefix it with
8344 ``reverse-''. (PGP only)
8352 If set, Mutt-ng will automatically encode PGP/MIME signed messages as
8353 quoted-printable. Please note that unsetting this variable may lead to
8354 problems with non-verifyable PGP signatures, so only change this if you
8355 know what you are doing. (PGP only)
8363 The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase will expire if not
8364 used. Default: 300. (PGP only)
8366 213. pgp_use_gpg_agent
8372 If set, Mutt-ng will use a possibly-running gpg-agent process. (PGP only)
8374 214. pgp_verify_command
8380 This command is used to verify PGP signatures. (PGP only)
8382 215. pgp_verify_key_command
8388 This command is used to verify key information from the key selection
8397 Used in connection with the pipe-message command. When unset, Mutt-ng will
8398 pipe the messages without any preprocessing. When set, Mutt-ng will weed
8399 headers and will attempt to PGP/MIME decode the messages first.
8407 The separator to add between messages when piping a list of tagged
8408 messages to an external Unix command.
8416 Used in connection with the pipe-message command and the ``tag- prefix''
8417 or ``tag-prefix-cond'' operators. If this variable is unset, when piping a
8418 list of tagged messages Mutt-ng will concatenate the messages and will
8419 pipe them as a single folder. When set, Mutt-ng will pipe the messages one
8420 by one. In both cases the messages are piped in the current sorted order,
8421 and the ``$pipe_sep'' separator is added after each message.
8423 219. pop_auth_try_all
8431 If set, Mutt-ng will try all available methods. When unset, Mutt-ng will
8432 only fall back to other authentication methods if the previous methods are
8433 unavailable. If a method is available but authentication fails, Mutt-ng
8434 will not connect to the POP server.
8436 220. pop_authenticators
8444 This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods Mutt-ng may
8445 attempt to use to log in to an POP server, in the order Mutt-ng should try
8446 them. Authentication methods are either ``user'', ``apop'' or any SASL
8447 mechanism, eg ``digest-md5'', ``gssapi'' or ``cram-md5''.
8449 This parameter is case-insensitive. If this parameter is unset (the
8450 default) Mutt-ng will try all available methods, in order from most-secure
8453 Example: set pop_authenticators="digest-md5:apop:user"
8463 If set, Mutt-ng will delete successfully downloaded messages from the POP
8464 server when using the ``fetch-mail'' function. When unset, Mutt-ng will
8465 download messages but also leave them on the POP server.
8475 The name of your POP server for the ``fetch-mail'' function. You can also
8476 specify an alternative port, username and password, i.e.:
8478 [pop[s]://][username[:password]@]popserver[:port]
8480 Note: Storing passwords in a configuration file presents a security risk
8481 since the superuser of your machine may read it regardless of the file's
8492 If this variable is set, Mutt-ng will try to use the ``LAST'' POP command
8493 for retrieving only unread messages from the POP server when using the
8494 ``fetch-mail'' function.
8504 This variable configures how often (in seconds) POP should look for new
8515 Specifies the password for your POP account. If unset, Mutt-ng will prompt
8516 you for your password when you open POP mailbox.
8518 Note: Storing passwords in a configuration file presents a security risk
8519 since the superuser of your machine may read it regardless of the file's
8530 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng will try to reconnect to a POP server when
8531 the connection is lost.
8541 Your login name on the POP server.
8543 This variable defaults to your user name on the local machine.
8545 228. post_indent_string
8551 Similar to the ``$attribution'' variable, Mutt-ng will append this string
8552 after the inclusion of a message which is being replied to.
8560 Controls whether or not messages are saved in the ``$postponed'' mailbox
8561 when you elect not to send immediately.
8567 Default: "˜/postponed"
8569 Mutt-ng allows you to indefinitely ``postpone sending a message'' which
8570 you are editing. When you choose to postpone a message, Mutt-ng saves it
8571 in the mailbox specified by this variable. Also see the ``$postpone''
8580 If set, a shell command to be executed if Mutt-ng fails to establish a
8581 connection to the server. This is useful for setting up secure
8582 connections, e.g. with ssh(1). If the command returns a nonzero status,
8583 Mutt-ng gives up opening the server. Example:
8585 preconnect="ssh -f -q -L 1234:mailhost.net:143 mailhost.net sleep 20 <
8586 /dev/null > /dev/null"
8588 Mailbox ``foo'' on mailhost.net can now be reached as
8589 ``{localhost:1234}foo''.
8591 Note: For this example to work, you must be able to log in to the remote
8592 machine without having to enter a password.
8600 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng really prints messages. This is set to
8601 ask-no by default, because some people accidentally hit ``p'' often.
8609 This specifies the command pipe that should be used to print messages.
8617 Used in connection with the print-message command. If this option is set,
8618 the message is decoded before it is passed to the external command
8619 specified by $print_command. If this option is unset, no processing will
8620 be applied to the message when printing it. The latter setting may be
8621 useful if you are using some advanced printer filter which is able to
8622 properly format e-mail messages for printing.
8630 Used in connection with the print-message command. If this option is set,
8631 the command specified by $print_command is executed once for each message
8632 which is to be printed. If this option is unset, the command specified by
8633 $print_command is executed only once, and all the messages are
8634 concatenated, with a form feed as the message separator.
8636 Those who use the enscript(1) program's mail-printing mode will most
8637 likely want to set this option.
8645 If you use an external ``$pager'', setting this variable will cause
8646 Mutt-ng to prompt you for a command when the pager exits rather than
8647 returning to the index menu. If unset, Mutt-ng will return to the index
8648 menu when the external pager exits.
8656 This specifies the command that Mutt-ng will use to make external address
8657 queries. The string should contain a %s, which will be substituted with
8658 the query string the user types. See ``query'' for more information.
8666 This variable controls whether ``quit'' and ``exit'' actually quit from
8667 Mutt-ng. If it set to yes, they do quit, if it is set to no, they have no
8668 effect, and if it is set to ask-yes or ask-no, you are prompted for
8669 confirmation when you try to quit.
8677 Controls whether or not empty lines will be quoted using
8686 Controls how quoted lines will be quoted. If set, one quote character will
8687 be added to the end of existing prefix. Otherwise, quoted lines will be
8688 prepended by ``indent_string''.
8692 Type: regular expression
8694 Default: "^([ \t]*[|>:}#])+"
8696 A regular expression used in the internal-pager to determine quoted
8697 sections of text in the body of a message.
8699 Note: In order to use the quotedx patterns in the internal pager, you need
8700 to set this to a regular expression that matches exactly the quote
8701 characters at the beginning of quoted lines.
8709 If set to a value greater than 0, Mutt-ng will display which message it is
8710 currently on when reading a mailbox. The message is printed after read_inc
8711 messages have been read (e.g., if set to 25, Mutt-ng will print a message
8712 when it reads message 25, and then again when it gets to message 50). This
8713 variable is meant to indicate progress when reading large mailboxes which
8714 may take some time. When set to 0, only a single message will appear
8715 before the reading the mailbox.
8717 Also see the ``$write_inc'' variable.
8725 If set, all folders are opened in read-only mode.
8733 This variable specifies what ``real'' or ``personal'' name should be used
8734 when sending messages.
8736 By default, this is the GECOS field from /etc/passwd.
8738 Note: This variable will not be used when the user has set a real name in
8747 Controls whether or not Mutt-ng recalls postponed messages when composing
8748 a new message. Also see ``$postponed''.
8750 Setting this variable to yes is not generally useful, and thus not
8759 This specifies the file into which your outgoing messages should be
8760 appended. (This is meant as the primary method for saving a copy of your
8761 messages, but another way to do this is using the ``my_hdr'' command to
8762 create a Bcc: header field with your email address in it.)
8764 The value of $record is overridden by the ``$force_name'' and
8765 ``$save_name'' variables, and the ``fcc-hook'' command.
8769 Type: regular expression
8771 Default: "^(re([\[0-9\]+])*|aw):[ \t]*"
8773 A regular expression used to recognize reply messages when threading and
8774 replying. The default value corresponds to the English ``Re:'' and the
8783 If unset and you are replying to a message sent by you, Mutt-ng will
8784 assume that you want to reply to the recipients of that message rather
8793 If set, when replying to a message, Mutt-ng will use the address listed in
8794 the ``Reply-To:'' header field as the recipient of the reply. If unset, it
8795 will use the address in the ``From:'' header field instead.
8797 This option is useful for reading a mailing list that sets the
8798 ``Reply-To:'' header field to the list address and you want to send a
8799 private message to the author of a message.
8807 When set, the cursor will be automatically advanced to the next (possibly
8808 undeleted) message whenever a command that modifies the current message is
8817 This variable controls whether or not Mutt-ng will display the
8818 ``personal'' name from your aliases in the index menu if it finds an alias
8819 that matches the message's sender. For example, if you have the following
8822 alias juser abd30425@somewhere.net (Joe User)
8824 and then you receive mail which contains the following header:
8826 From: abd30425@somewhere.net
8828 It would be displayed in the index menu as ``Joe User'' instead of
8829 ``abd30425@somewhere.net.'' This is useful when the person's e-mail
8830 address is not human friendly (like CompuServe addresses).
8838 It may sometimes arrive that you receive mail to a certain machine, move
8839 the messages to another machine, and reply to some the messages from
8840 there. If this variable is set, the default From: line of the reply
8841 messages is built using the address where you received the messages you
8842 are replying to if that address matches your alternates. If the variable
8843 is unset, or the address that would be used doesn't match your alternates,
8844 the From: line will use your address on the current machine.
8846 253. reverse_realname
8852 This variable fine-tunes the behaviour of the reverse_name feature. When
8853 it is set, Mutt-ng will use the address from incoming messages as-is,
8854 possibly including eventual real names. When it is unset, Mutt-ng will
8855 override any such real names with the setting of the realname variable.
8857 254. rfc2047_parameters
8863 When this variable is set, Mutt-ng will decode RFC-2047-encoded MIME
8864 parameters. You want to set this variable when Mutt-ng suggests you to
8865 save attachments to files named like this:
8867 =?iso-8859-1?Q?file=5F=E4=5F991116=2Ezip?=
8869 When this variable is set interactively, the change doesn't have the
8870 desired effect before you have changed folders.
8872 Note that this use of RFC 2047's encoding is explicitly, prohibited by the
8873 standard, but nevertheless encountered in the wild.
8875 Also note that setting this parameter will not have the effect that
8876 Mutt-ng generates this kind of encoding. Instead, Mutt-ng will
8877 unconditionally use the encoding specified in RFC 2231.
8885 If set, Mutt-ng will take the sender's full address when choosing a
8886 default folder for saving a mail. If ``$save_name'' or ``$force_name'' is
8887 set too, the selection of the fcc folder will be changed as well.
8895 When unset, mailboxes which contain no saved messages will be removed when
8896 closed (the exception is ``$spoolfile'' which is never removed). If set,
8897 mailboxes are never removed.
8899 Note: This only applies to mbox and MMDF folders, Mutt-ng does not delete
8900 MH and Maildir directories.
8908 This variable controls how copies of outgoing messages are saved. When
8909 set, a check is made to see if a mailbox specified by the recipient
8910 address exists (this is done by searching for a mailbox in the ``$folder''
8911 directory with the username part of the recipient address). If the mailbox
8912 exists, the outgoing message will be saved to that mailbox, otherwise the
8913 message is saved to the ``$record'' mailbox.
8915 Also see the ``$force_name'' variable.
8923 When this variable is unset, scoring is turned off. This can be useful to
8924 selectively disable scoring for certain folders when the
8925 ``$score_threshold_delete'' variable and friends are used.
8927 259. score_threshold_delete
8933 Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or lower than the value
8934 of this variable are automatically marked for deletion by Mutt-ng. Since
8935 Mutt-ng scores are always greater than or equal to zero, the default
8936 setting of this variable will never mark a message for deletion.
8938 260. score_threshold_flag
8944 Messages which have been assigned a score greater than or equal to this
8945 variable's value are automatically marked ``flagged''.
8947 261. score_threshold_read
8953 Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or lower than the value
8954 of this variable are automatically marked as read by Mutt-ng. Since
8955 Mutt-ng scores are always greater than or equal to zero, the default
8956 setting of this variable will never mark a message read.
8962 Default: "us-ascii:iso-8859-1:utf-8"
8964 A list of character sets for outgoing messages. Mutt-ng will use the first
8965 character set into which the text can be converted exactly. If your
8966 ``$charset'' is not iso-8859-1 and recipients may not understand UTF-8, it
8967 is advisable to include in the list an appropriate widely used standard
8968 character set (such as iso-8859-2, koi8-r or iso-2022-jp) either instead
8969 of or after iso-8859-1.
8975 Default: "/usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -oi"
8977 Specifies the program and arguments used to deliver mail sent by Mutt-ng.
8978 Mutt-ng expects that the specified program interprets additional arguments
8979 as recipient addresses.
8987 Specifies the number of seconds to wait for the ``$sendmail'' process to
8988 finish before giving up and putting delivery in the background.
8990 Mutt-ng interprets the value of this variable as follows:
8994 number of seconds to wait for sendmail to finish before continuing
8998 wait forever for sendmail to finish
9002 always put sendmail in the background without waiting
9004 Note that if you specify a value other than 0, the output of the child
9005 process will be put in a temporary file. If there is some error, you will
9006 be informed as to where to find the output.
9014 Command to use when spawning a subshell. By default, the user's login
9015 shell from /etc/passwd is used.
9017 266. sidebar_boundary
9023 When the sidebar is displayed and $sidebar_shorten_hierarchy is set, this
9024 variable specifies the characters at which to split a folder name into
9025 ``hierarchy items.''
9033 This specifies the delimiter between the sidebar (if visible) and other
9036 268. sidebar_newmail_only
9042 If set, only folders with new mail will be shown in the sidebar.
9044 269. sidebar_number_format
9048 Default: "%m%?n?(%n)?%?f?[%f]?"
9050 This variable controls how message counts are printed when the sidebar is
9051 enabled. If this variable is empty (and only if), no numbers will be
9052 printed and mutt-ng won't frequently count mail (which may be a great
9053 speedup esp. with mbox-style mailboxes.)
9055 The following printf(3)-like sequences are supported all of which may be
9060 Number of deleted messages. 1)
9064 Number of flagged messages.
9068 Total number of messages.
9072 Total number of messages shown, i.e. not hidden by a limit. 1)
9076 Number of new messages.
9080 Number of tagged messages. 1)
9082 1) These expandos only have a non-zero value for the current mailbox and
9083 will always be zero otherwise.
9085 270. sidebar_shorten_hierarchy
9091 When set, the ``hierarchy'' of the sidebar entries will be shortened only
9092 if they cannot be printed in full length (because ``$sidebar_width'' is
9093 set to a too low value). For example, if the newsgroup name
9094 ``de.alt.sysadmin.recovery'' doesn't fit on the screen, it'll get
9095 shortened ``d.a.s.recovery'' while ``de.alt.d0'' still would and thus will
9098 At which characters this compression is done is controled via the
9099 $sidebar_boundary variable.
9101 271. sidebar_visible
9107 This specifies whether or not to show the sidebar (a list of folders
9108 specified with the ``mailboxes'' command).
9116 The width of the sidebar.
9124 If set, a line containing ``-- '' (dash, dash, space) will be inserted
9125 before your ``$signature''. It is strongly recommended that you not unset
9126 this variable unless your ``signature'' contains just your name. The
9127 reason for this is because many software packages use ``-- \n'' to detect
9130 For example, Mutt-ng has the ability to highlight the signature in a
9131 different color in the builtin pager.
9139 If set, the signature will be included before any quoted or forwarded
9140 text. It is strongly recommended that you do not set this variable unless
9141 you really know what you are doing, and are prepared to take some heat
9142 from netiquette guardians.
9148 Default: "˜/.signature"
9150 Specifies the filename of your signature, which is appended to all
9151 outgoing messages. If the filename ends with a pipe (``|''), it is assumed
9152 that filename is a shell command and input should be read from its stdout.
9160 If set, this string will be inserted before the signature. This is useful
9161 for people that want to sign off every message they send with their name.
9163 If you want to insert your website's URL, additional contact information
9164 or witty quotes into your mails, better use a signature file instead of
9171 Default: "˜f %s | ˜s %s"
9173 Specifies how Mutt-ng should expand a simple search into a real search
9174 pattern. A simple search is one that does not contain any of the ˜
9175 operators. See ``patterns'' for more information on search patterns.
9177 For example, if you simply type ``joe'' at a search or limit prompt,
9178 Mutt-ng will automatically expand it to the value specified by this
9179 variable. For the default value it would be:
9189 Specifies time, in seconds, to pause while displaying certain
9190 informational messages, while moving from folder to folder and after
9191 expunging messages from the current folder. The default is to pause one
9192 second, so a value of zero for this option suppresses the pause.
9200 Controls the display of lines longer than the screen width in the internal
9201 pager. If set, long lines are wrapped at a word boundary. If unset, lines
9202 are simply wrapped at the screen edge. Also see the ``$markers'' variable.
9206 Type: regular expression
9208 Default: "(>From )|(:[-^]?[][)(><}{|/DP])"
9210 The pager uses this variable to catch some common false positives of
9211 ``$quote_regexp'', most notably smileys in the beginning of a line
9213 281. smime_ask_cert_label
9219 This flag controls whether you want to be asked to enter a label for a
9220 certificate about to be added to the database or not. It is set by
9221 default. (S/MIME only)
9223 282. smime_ca_location
9229 This variable contains the name of either a directory, or a file which
9230 contains trusted certificates for use with OpenSSL. (S/MIME only)
9232 283. smime_certificates
9238 Since there is no pubring/secring as with PGP, Mutt-ng has to handle
9239 storage and retrieval of keys by itself. This is very basic right now, and
9240 keys and certificates are stored in two different directories, both named
9241 as the hash-value retrieved from OpenSSL. There is an index file which
9242 contains mailbox-address keyid pairs, and which can be manually edited.
9243 This one points to the location of the certificates. (S/MIME only)
9245 284. smime_decrypt_command
9251 This format string specifies a command which is used to decrypt
9252 application/x-pkcs7-mime attachments.
9254 The OpenSSL command formats have their own set of printf(3)-like sequences
9259 Expands to the name of a file containing a message.
9263 Expands to the name of a file containing the signature part of a
9264 multipart/signed attachment when verifying it.
9268 The key-pair specified with $smime_default_key
9272 One or more certificate IDs.
9276 The algorithm used for encryption.
9280 CA location: Depending on whether $smime_ca_location points to a
9281 directory or file, this expands to "-CApath $smime_ca_location" or
9282 "-CAfile $smime_ca_location".
9284 For examples on how to configure these formats, see the smime.rc in the
9285 samples/ subdirectory which has been installed on your system alongside
9286 the documentation. (S/MIME only)
9288 285. smime_decrypt_use_default_key
9294 If set (default) this tells Mutt-ng to use the default key for decryption.
9295 Otherwise, if manage multiple certificate-key-pairs, Mutt-ng will try to
9296 use the mailbox-address to determine the key to use. It will ask you to
9297 supply a key, if it can't find one. (S/MIME only)
9299 286. smime_default_key
9305 This is the default key-pair to use for signing. This must be set to the
9306 keyid (the hash-value that OpenSSL generates) to work properly (S/MIME
9309 287. smime_encrypt_command
9315 This command is used to create encrypted S/MIME messages. (S/MIME only)
9317 288. smime_encrypt_with
9323 This sets the algorithm that should be used for encryption. Valid choices
9324 are ``des'', ``des3'', ``rc2-40'', ``rc2-64'', ``\frc2-128''.
9326 If unset ``3des'' (TripleDES) is used. (S/MIME only)
9328 289. smime_get_cert_command
9334 This command is used to extract X509 certificates from a PKCS7 structure.
9337 290. smime_get_cert_email_command
9343 This command is used to extract the mail address(es) used for storing X509
9344 certificates, and for verification purposes (to check whether the
9345 certificate was issued for the sender's mailbox). (S/MIME only)
9347 291. smime_get_signer_cert_command
9353 This command is used to extract only the signers X509 certificate from a
9354 S/MIME signature, so that the certificate's owner may get compared to the
9355 email's ``From:'' header field. (S/MIME only)
9357 292. smime_import_cert_command
9363 This command is used to import a certificate via smime_keysng. (S/MIME
9366 293. smime_is_default
9372 The default behaviour of Mutt-ng is to use PGP on all auto-sign/encryption
9373 operations. To override and to use OpenSSL instead this must be set.
9375 However, this has no effect while replying, since Mutt-ng will
9376 automatically select the same application that was used to sign/encrypt
9377 the original message.
9379 (Note that this variable can be overridden by unsetting $crypt_autosmime.)
9388 Since there is no pubring/secring as with PGP, Mutt-ng has to handle
9389 storage ad retrieval of keys/certs by itself. This is very basic right
9390 now, and stores keys and certificates in two different directories, both
9391 named as the hash-value retrieved from OpenSSL. There is an index file
9392 which contains mailbox-address keyid pair, and which can be manually
9393 edited. This one points to the location of the private keys. (S/MIME only)
9395 295. smime_pk7out_command
9401 This command is used to extract PKCS7 structures of S/MIME signatures, in
9402 order to extract the public X509 certificate(s). (S/MIME only)
9404 296. smime_sign_command
9410 This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of type
9411 multipart/signed, which can be read by all mail clients. (S/MIME only)
9413 297. smime_sign_opaque_command
9419 This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of type
9420 application/x-pkcs7-signature, which can only be handled by mail clients
9421 supporting the S/MIME extension. (S/MIME only)
9429 The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase will expire if not
9432 299. smime_verify_command
9438 This command is used to verify S/MIME signatures of type multipart/signed.
9441 300. smime_verify_opaque_command
9447 This command is used to verify S/MIME signatures of type
9448 application/x-pkcs7-mime. (S/MIME only)
9458 If this variable is non-empty, it'll be used as the envelope sender. If
9459 it's empty (the default), the value of the regular From: header will be
9462 This may be necessary as some providers don't allow for arbitrary values
9463 as the envelope sender but only a particular one which may not be the same
9464 as the user's desired From: header.
9474 Defines the SMTP host which will be used to deliver mail, as opposed to
9475 invoking the sendmail binary. Setting this variable overrides the value of
9476 ``$sendmail'', and any associated variables.
9486 Defines the password to use with SMTP AUTH. If ``$smtp_user'' is set, but
9487 this variable is not, you will be prompted for a password when sending.
9489 Note: Storing passwords in a configuration file presents a security risk
9490 since the superuser of your machine may read it regardless of the file's
9501 Defines the port that the SMTP host is listening on for mail delivery.
9502 Must be specified as a number.
9504 Defaults to 25, the standard SMTP port, but RFC 2476-compliant SMTP
9505 servers will probably desire 587, the mail submission port.
9513 Availability: SMTP (and SSL)
9515 Defines wether to use STARTTLS. If this option is set to ``required'' and
9516 the server does not support STARTTLS or there is an error in the TLS
9517 Handshake, the connection will fail. Setting this to ``enabled'' will try
9518 to start TLS and continue without TLS in case of an error. Muttng still
9519 needs to have SSL support enabled in order to use it.
9529 Defines the username to use with SMTP AUTH. Setting this variable will
9530 cause Mutt-ng to attempt to use SMTP AUTH when sending.
9538 Specifies how to sort messages in the index menu. Valid values are:
9543 mailbox-order (unsorted)
9552 You may optionally use the ``reverse-'' prefix to specify reverse sorting
9553 order (example: set sort=reverse-date-sent).
9561 Specifies how the entries in the ``alias'' menu are sorted. The following
9564 address (sort alphabetically by email address)
9565 alias (sort alphabetically by alias name)
9566 unsorted (leave in order specified in .muttrc)
9575 When sorting by threads, this variable controls how threads are sorted in
9576 relation to other threads, and how the branches of the thread trees are
9577 sorted. This can be set to any value that ``$sort'' can, except threads
9578 (in that case, Mutt-ng will just use date-sent). You can also specify the
9579 ``last-'' prefix in addition to ``reverse-'' prefix, but last- must come
9580 after reverse-. The last- prefix causes messages to be sorted against its
9581 siblings by which has the last descendant, using the rest of sort_aux as
9584 For instance, set sort_aux=last-date-received would mean that if a new
9585 message is received in a thread, that thread becomes the last one
9586 displayed (or the first, if you have set sort=reverse-threads.)
9588 Note: For reversed ``$sort'' order $sort_aux is reversed again (which is
9589 not the right thing to do, but kept to not break any existing
9590 configuration setting).
9598 Specifies how to sort entries in the file browser. By default, the entries
9599 are sorted alphabetically. Valid values:
9601 alpha (alphabetically)
9607 You may optionally use the ``reverse-'' prefix to specify reverse sorting
9608 order (example: set sort_browser=reverse-date).
9616 This variable is only useful when sorting by threads with
9617 ``$strict_threads'' unset. In that case, it changes the heuristic Mutt-ng
9618 uses to thread messages by subject. With $sort_re set, Mutt-ng will only
9619 attach a message as the child of another message by subject if the subject
9620 of the child message starts with a substring matching the setting of
9621 ``$reply_regexp''. With $sort_re unset, Mutt-ng will attach the message
9622 whether or not this is the case, as long as the non-``$reply_regexp''
9623 parts of both messages are identical.
9631 ``spam_separator'' controls what happens when multiple spam headers are
9632 matched: if unset, each successive header will overwrite any previous
9633 matches value for the spam label. If set, each successive match will
9634 append to the previous, using ``spam_separator'' as a separator.
9642 If your spool mailbox is in a non-default place where Mutt-ng cannot find
9643 it, you can specify its location with this variable. Mutt-ng will
9644 automatically set this variable to the value of the environment variable
9645 $MAIL if it is not set.
9647 314. ssl_ca_certificates_file
9653 This variable specifies a file containing trusted CA certificates. Any
9654 server certificate that is signed with one of these CA certificates are
9655 also automatically accepted.
9657 Example: set ssl_ca_certificates_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
9659 315. ssl_client_cert
9667 The file containing a client certificate and its associated private key.
9675 If this variable is set, mutt-ng will require that all connections to
9676 remote servers be encrypted. Furthermore it will attempt to negotiate TLS
9677 even if the server does not advertise the capability, since it would
9678 otherwise have to abort the connection anyway. This option supersedes
9681 317. ssl_min_dh_prime_bits
9687 Availability: GNUTLS
9689 This variable specifies the minimum acceptable prime size (in bits) for
9690 use in any Diffie-Hellman key exchange. A value of 0 will use the default
9691 from the GNUTLS library.
9699 Availability: SSL or GNUTLS
9701 If set (the default), Mutt-ng will attempt to use STARTTLS on servers
9702 advertising the capability. When unset, Mutt-ng will not attempt to use
9703 STARTTLS regardless of the server's capabilities.
9713 This variables specifies whether to attempt to use SSLv2 in the SSL
9714 authentication process.
9722 Availability: SSL or GNUTLS
9724 This variables specifies whether to attempt to use SSLv3 in the SSL
9725 authentication process.
9733 Availability: SSL or GNUTLS
9735 This variables specifies whether to attempt to use TLSv1 in the SSL
9736 authentication process.
9738 322. ssl_usesystemcerts
9746 If set to yes, Mutt-ng will use CA certificates in the system-wide
9747 certificate store when checking if server certificate is signed by a
9756 Controls the characters used by the ``%r'' indicator in
9757 ``$status_format''. The first character is used when the mailbox is
9758 unchanged. The second is used when the mailbox has been changed, and it
9759 needs to be resynchronized. The third is used if the mailbox is in
9760 read-only mode, or if the mailbox will not be written when exiting that
9761 mailbox (You can toggle whether to write changes to a mailbox with the
9762 toggle-write operation, bound by default to ``%''). The fourth is used to
9763 indicate that the current folder has been opened in attach-message mode
9764 (Certain operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc.
9765 are not permitted in this mode).
9771 Default: "-%r-Mutt-ng: %f [Msgs:%?M?%M/?%m%?n? New:%n?%?o? Old:%o?%?d?
9772 Del:%d?%?F? Flag:%F?%?t? Tag:%t?%?p? Post:%p?%?b? Inc:%b?%?l?
9773 %l?]---(%s/%S)-%>-(%P)---"
9775 Controls the format of the status line displayed in the index menu. This
9776 string is similar to ``$index_format'', but has its own set of
9777 printf(3)-like sequences:
9781 number of mailboxes with new mail *
9785 the short pathname of the current mailbox
9789 number of deleted messages *
9793 the full pathname of the current mailbox
9797 number of flagged messages *
9805 size (in bytes) of the current mailbox *
9809 size (in bytes) of the messages shown (i.e., which match the
9814 the number of messages in the mailbox *
9818 the number of messages shown (i.e., which match the current limit)
9823 number of new messages in the mailbox *
9827 number of old unread messages *
9831 number of postponed messages *
9835 percentage of the way through the index
9839 modified/read-only/won't-write/attach-message indicator, according
9844 current sorting mode ($sort)
9848 current aux sorting method ($sort_aux)
9852 number of tagged messages *
9856 number of unread messages *
9860 Mutt-ng version string
9864 currently active limit pattern, if any *
9868 right justify the rest of the string and pad with "X"
9872 pad to the end of the line with "X"
9874 * = can be optionally printed if nonzero
9876 Some of the above sequences can be used to optionally print a string if
9877 their value is nonzero. For example, you may only want to see the number
9878 of flagged messages if such messages exist, since zero is not particularly
9879 meaningful. To optionally print a string based upon one of the above
9880 sequences, the following construct is used
9882 %?<sequence_char>?<optional_string>?
9884 where sequence_char is a character from the table above, and
9885 optional_string is the string you would like printed if sequence_char is
9886 nonzero. optional_string may contain other sequences as well as normal
9887 text, but you may not nest optional strings.
9889 Here is an example illustrating how to optionally print the number of new
9890 messages in a mailbox:
9892 %?n?%n new messages.?
9894 Additionally you can switch between two strings, the first one, if a value
9895 is zero, the second one, if the value is nonzero, by using the following
9898 %?<sequence_char>?<if_string>&<else_string>?
9900 You can additionally force the result of any printf(3)-like sequence to be
9901 lowercase by prefixing the sequence character with an underscore (_) sign.
9902 For example, if you want to display the local hostname in lowercase, you
9907 If you prefix the sequence character with a colon (:) character, Mutt-ng
9908 will replace any dots in the expansion by underscores. This might be
9909 helpful with IMAP folders that don't like dots in folder names.
9917 Setting this variable causes the ``status bar'' to be displayed on the
9918 first line of the screen rather than near the bottom.
9926 With mailto: style links, a body as well as arbitrary header information
9927 may be embedded. This may lead to (user) headers being overwriten without
9928 note if ``$edit_headers'' is unset.
9930 If this variable is set, mutt-ng is strict and allows anything to be
9931 changed. If it's unset, all headers given will be prefixed with
9932 ``X-Mailto-'' and the message including headers will be shown in the
9933 editor regardless of what ``$edit_headers'' is set to.
9941 When unset, non MIME-compliant messages that doesn't have any charset
9942 indication in the ``Content-Type:'' header field can be displayed (non
9943 MIME-compliant messages are often generated by old mailers or buggy
9944 mailers like MS Outlook Express). See also $assumed_charset.
9946 This option also replaces linear-white-space between encoded-word and
9947 *text to a single space to prevent the display of MIME-encoded
9948 ``Subject:'' header field from being devided into multiple lines.
9956 If set, threading will only make use of the ``In-Reply-To:'' and
9957 ``References:'' header fields when you ``$sort'' by message threads. By
9958 default, messages with the same subject are grouped together in ``pseudo
9959 threads.'' This may not always be desirable, such as in a personal mailbox
9960 where you might have several unrelated messages with the subject ``hi''
9961 which will get grouped together.
9969 When set, mutt-ng will remove the trailing part of the ``Subject:'' line
9970 which matches $strip_was_regex when replying. This is useful to properly
9971 react on subject changes and reduce ``subject noise.'' (esp. in Usenet)
9973 330. strip_was_regex
9975 Type: regular expression
9977 Default: "\([Ww][Aa][RrSs]: .*\)[ ]*$"
9979 When non-empty and $strip_was is set, mutt-ng will remove this trailing
9980 part of the ``Subject'' line when replying if it won't be empty
9989 If set, attachments with flowed format will have their quoting
9990 ``stuffed'', i.e. a space will be inserted between the quote characters
9991 and the actual text.
9999 When unset, Mutt-ng won't stop when the user presses the terminal's susp
10000 key, usually CTRL+Z. This is useful if you run Mutt-ng inside an xterm
10001 using a command like ``xterm -e muttng.''
10009 When set, Mutt-ng will generate text/plain; format=flowed attachments.
10010 This format is easier to handle for some mailing software, and generally
10011 just looks like ordinary text. To actually make use of this format's
10012 features, you'll need support in your editor.
10014 Note that $indent_string is ignored when this option is set.
10016 334. thorough_search
10022 Affects the ˜b and ˜h search operations described in section
10023 ``patterns'' above. If set, the headers and attachments of messages to be
10024 searched are decoded before searching. If unset, messages are searched as
10025 they appear in the folder.
10027 335. thread_received
10033 When set, Mutt-ng uses the date received rather than the date sent to
10034 thread messages by subject.
10042 When set, the internal-pager will pad blank lines to the bottom of the
10043 screen with a tilde (˜).
10051 This variable controls the number of seconds Mutt-ng will wait for a key
10052 to be pressed in the main menu before timing out and checking for new
10053 mail. A value of zero or less will cause Mutt-ng to never time out.
10061 This variable allows you to specify where Mutt-ng will place its temporary
10062 files needed for displaying and composing messages. If this variable is
10063 not set, the environment variable $TMPDIR is used. If $TMPDIR is not set
10064 then "/tmp" is used.
10072 Controls the character used to indicate mail addressed to you. The first
10073 character is the one used when the mail is NOT addressed to your address
10074 (default: space). The second is used when you are the only recipient of
10075 the message (default: +). The third is when your address appears in the
10076 ``To:'' header field, but you are not the only recipient of the message
10077 (default: T). The fourth character is used when your address is specified
10078 in the ``Cc:'' header field, but you are not the only recipient. The fifth
10079 character is used to indicate mail that was sent by you. The sixth
10080 character is used to indicate when a mail was sent to a mailing-list
10081 you're subscribe to (default: L).
10089 If set, this variable specifies the path of the trash folder where the
10090 mails marked for deletion will be moved, instead of being irremediably
10093 Note: When you delete a message in the trash folder, it is really deleted,
10094 so that there is no way to recover mail.
10102 Setting this variable will cause Mutt-ng to open a pipe to a command
10103 instead of a raw socket. You may be able to use this to set up
10104 preauthenticated connections to your IMAP/POP3 server. Example:
10106 tunnel="ssh -q mailhost.net /usr/local/libexec/imapd"
10108 Note: For this example to work you must be able to log in to the remote
10109 machine without having to enter a password.
10117 This sets the umask that will be used by Mutt-ng when creating all kinds
10118 of files. If unset, the default value is 077.
10120 343. uncollapse_jump
10126 When set, Mutt-ng will jump to the next unread message, if any, when the
10127 current thread is uncollapsed.
10135 Warning: do not set this variable unless you are using a version of
10136 sendmail which supports the -B8BITMIME flag (such as sendmail 8.8.x) or in
10137 connection with the SMTP support via libESMTP. Otherwise you may not be
10140 When set, Mutt-ng will either invoke ``$sendmail'' with the -B8BITMIME
10141 flag when sending 8-bit messages to enable ESMTP negotiation or tell
10150 When set, Mutt-ng will qualify all local addresses (ones without the @host
10151 portion) with the value of ``$hostname''. If unset, no addresses will be
10160 When set, Mutt-ng will generate the ``From:'' header field when sending
10161 messages. If unset, no ``From:'' header field will be generated unless the
10162 user explicitly sets one using the ``my_hdr'' command.
10172 When set, Mutt-ng will show you international domain names decoded.
10174 Note: You can use IDNs for addresses even if this is unset. This variable
10175 only affects decoding.
10183 When set, Mutt-ng will look for IPv6 addresses of hosts it tries to
10184 contact. If this option is unset, Mutt-ng will restrict itself to IPv4
10185 addresses. Normally, the default should work.
10193 Specifies the visual editor to invoke when the ˜v command is given in the
10202 Controls whether Mutt-ng will ask you to press a key after shell- escape,
10203 pipe-message, pipe-entry, print-message, and print-entry commands.
10205 It is also used when viewing attachments with ``auto_view'', provided that
10206 the corresponding mailcap entry has a needsterminal flag, and the external
10207 program is interactive.
10209 When set, Mutt-ng will always ask for a key. When unset, Mutt-ng will wait
10210 for a key only if the external command returned a non-zero status.
10218 When set, Mutt-ng will weed headers when displaying, forwarding, printing,
10219 or replying to messages.
10227 Controls whether searches wrap around the end of the mailbox.
10229 When set, searches will wrap around the first (or last) message. When
10230 unset, searches will not wrap.
10238 Controls the size of the margin remaining at the right side of the
10239 terminal when Mutt-ng's pager does smart wrapping.
10247 Controls whether Mutt-ng writes out the Bcc header when preparing messages
10248 to be sent. Exim users may wish to unset this.
10256 When writing a mailbox, a message will be printed every write_inc messages
10257 to indicate progress. If set to 0, only a single message will be displayed
10258 before writing a mailbox.
10260 Also see the ``$read_inc'' variable.
10266 Default: "M%?n?AIL&ail?"
10268 Controls the format of the X11 icon title, as long as $xterm_set_titles is
10269 set. This string is identical in formatting to the one used by
10270 ``$status_format''.
10278 If $xterm_set_titles is set, this string will be used to set the title
10279 when leaving mutt-ng. For terminal-based programs, there's no easy and
10280 portable way to read the current title so mutt-ng cannot read it upon
10281 startup and restore it when exiting.
10283 Based on the xterm FAQ, the following might work:
10285 set xterm_leave = "`test x$DISPLAY != x && xprop -id $WINDOWID | grep
10286 WM_NAME | cut -d '"' -f 2`"
10288 358. xterm_set_titles
10294 Controls whether Mutt-ng sets the xterm title bar and icon name (as long
10295 as you're in an appropriate terminal). The default must be unset to force
10296 in the validity checking.
10302 Default: "Mutt-ng with %?m?%m messages&no messages?%?n? [%n New]?"
10304 Controls the format of the title bar of the xterm provided that
10305 $xterm_set_titles has been set. This string is identical in formatting to
10306 the one used by ``$status_format''.
10310 The following is the list of available functions listed by the mapping in
10311 which they are available. The default key setting is given, and an
10312 explanation of what the function does. The key bindings of these functions
10313 can be changed with the bind command.
10317 The generic menu is not a real menu, but specifies common functions (such
10318 as movement) available in all menus except for pager and editor. Changing
10319 settings for this menu will affect the default bindings for all menus
10322 bottom-page L move to the bottom of the page
10323 current-bottom not bound move current entry to bottom of page
10324 current-middle not bound move current entry to middle of page
10325 current-top not bound move current entry to top of page
10326 enter-command : enter a muttngrc command
10327 exit q exit this menu
10328 first-entry = move to the first entry
10329 half-down ] scroll down 1/2 page
10330 half-up [ scroll up 1/2 page
10332 jump number jump to an index number
10333 last-entry * move to the last entry
10334 middle-page M move to the middle of the page
10335 next-entry j move to the next entry
10336 next-line > scroll down one line
10337 next-page z move to the next page
10338 previous-entry k move to the previous entry
10339 previous-line < scroll up one line
10340 previous-page Z move to the previous page
10341 refresh ^L clear and redraw the screen
10342 search / search for a regular expression
10343 search-next n search for next match
10344 search-opposite not bound search for next match in opposite
10346 search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular
10348 select-entry RET select the current entry
10349 shell-escape ! run a program in a subshell
10350 tag-entry t toggle the tag on the current entry
10351 tag-prefix ; apply next command to tagged entries
10352 tag-prefix-cond not bound apply next function ONLY to tagged
10354 top-page H move to the top of the page
10355 what-key not bound display the keycode for a key press
10360 bounce-message b remail a message to another user
10361 change-folder c open a different folder
10362 change-folder-readonly ESC c open a different folder in read only
10364 check-traditional-pgp ESC P check for classic pgp
10365 clear-flag W clear a status flag from a message
10366 copy-message C copy a message to a file/mailbox
10367 create-alias a create an alias from a message
10368 senderdecode-copy ESC C decode a message and copy it
10370 decode-save ESC s decode a message and save it to a
10372 delete-message d delete the current entry
10373 delete-pattern D delete messages matching a pattern
10374 delete-subthread ESC d delete all messages in subthread
10375 delete-thread ^D delete all messages in thread
10376 display-address @ display full address of sender
10377 display-toggle-weed h display message and toggle header
10379 display-message RET display a message
10380 edit e edit the current message
10381 edit-type ^E edit the current message's
10383 exit x exit without saving changes
10384 extract-keys ^K extract PGP public keys
10385 fetch-mail G retrieve mail from POP server
10386 flag-message F toggle a message's 'important' flag
10387 forget-passphrase ^F wipe PGP passphrase from memory
10388 forward-message f forward a message with comments
10389 group-reply g reply to all recipients
10390 limit l show only messages matching a
10391 patternlist-reply L reply to specified mailing
10393 mail m compose a new mail message
10394 mail-key ESC k mail a PGP public key
10395 next-new not bound jump to the next new message
10396 next-new-then-unread TAB jump to the next new or unread message
10397 next-subthread ESC n jump to the next subthread
10398 next-thread ^N jump to the next thread
10399 next-undeleted j move to the next undeleted message
10400 next-unread not bound jump to the next unread message
10401 parent-message P jump to parent message in thread
10402 pipe-message | pipe message/attachment to a shell
10404 previous-new not bound jump to the previous new message
10405 previous-new-then-unread
10406 ESC TAB jump to the previous new or unread message
10408 previous-page Z move to the previous page
10409 previous-subthread ESC p jump to previous subthread
10410 previous-thread ^P jump to previous thread
10411 previous-undeleted k move to the last undelete message
10412 previous-unread not bound jump to the previous unread message
10413 print-message p print the current entry
10414 query Q query external program for addresses
10415 quit q save changes to mailbox and quit
10416 read-subthread ESC r mark the current subthread as read
10417 read-thread ^R mark the current thread as read
10418 recall-message R recall a postponed message
10419 reply r reply to a message
10420 resend-message ESC e resend message and preserve MIME
10422 save-message s save message/attachment to a file
10423 set-flag w set a status flag on a message
10424 show-version V show the Mutt-ng version number and
10426 show-limit ESC l show currently active limit pattern,
10428 sort-mailbox o sort messages
10429 sort-reverse O sort messages in reverse order
10430 sync-mailbox $ save changes to mailbox
10431 tag-pattern T tag messages matching a pattern
10432 tag-thread ESC t tag/untag all messages in the
10434 toggle-new N toggle a message's 'new' flag
10435 toggle-write % toggle whether the mailbox will be
10437 undelete-message u undelete the current entry
10438 undelete-pattern U undelete messages matching a pattern
10439 undelete-subthread ESC u undelete all messages in subthread
10440 undelete-thread ^U undelete all messages in thread
10441 untag-pattern ^T untag messages matching a pattern
10442 view-attachments v show MIME attachments
10447 bottom not bound jump to the bottom of the message
10448 bounce-message b remail a message to another user
10449 change-folder c open a different folder
10450 change-folder-readonly ESC c open a different folder in read only
10452 check-traditional-pgp ESC P check for classic pgp
10453 copy-message C copy a message to a file/mailbox
10454 create-alias a create an alias from a message
10455 senderdecode-copy ESC C decode a message and copy it
10457 decode-save ESC s decode a message and save it to a
10459 delete-message d delete the current entry
10460 delete-subthread ESC d delete all messages in subthread
10461 delete-thread ^D delete all messages in thread
10462 display-address @ display full address of sender
10463 display-toggle-weed h display message and toggle header
10465 edit e edit the current message
10466 edit-type ^E edit the current message's
10468 enter-command : enter a muttngrc command
10469 exit i return to the main-menu
10470 extract-keys ^K extract PGP public keys
10471 flag-message F toggle a message's 'important' flag
10472 forget-passphrase ^F wipe PGP passphrase from memory
10473 forward-message f forward a message with comments
10474 group-reply g reply to all recipients
10475 half-up not bound move up one-half page
10476 half-down not bound move down one-half page
10478 list-reply L reply to specified mailing list
10479 mail m compose a new mail message
10480 mail-key ESC k mail a PGP public key
10481 mark-as-new N toggle a message's 'new' flag
10482 next-line RET scroll down one line
10483 next-entry J move to the next entry
10484 next-new not bound jump to the next new message
10485 next-new-then-unread TAB jump to the next new or unread message
10486 next-page move to the next page
10487 next-subthread ESC n jump to the next subthread
10488 next-thread ^N jump to the next thread
10489 next-undeleted j move to the next undeleted message
10490 next-unread not bound jump to the next unread message
10491 parent-message P jump to parent message in thread
10492 pipe-message | pipe message/attachment to a shell
10494 previous-line BackSpace scroll up one line
10495 previous-entry K move to the previous entry
10496 previous-new not bound jump to the previous new message
10497 previous-new-then-unread
10498 not bound jump to the previous new or unread message
10499 previous-page - move to the previous page
10500 previous-subthread ESC p jump to previous subthread
10501 previous-thread ^P jump to previous thread
10502 previous-undeleted k move to the last undelete message
10503 previous-unread not bound jump to the previous unread message
10504 print-message p print the current entry
10505 quit Q save changes to mailbox and quit
10506 read-subthread ESC r mark the current subthread as read
10507 read-thread ^R mark the current thread as read
10508 recall-message R recall a postponed message
10509 redraw-screen ^L clear and redraw the screen
10510 reply r reply to a message
10511 save-message s save message/attachment to a file
10512 search / search for a regular expression
10513 search-next n search for next match
10514 search-opposite not bound search for next match in opposite
10516 search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular
10518 search-toggle \ toggle search pattern coloring
10519 shell-escape ! invoke a command in a subshell
10520 show-version V show the Mutt-ng version number and
10522 skip-quoted S skip beyond quoted text
10523 sync-mailbox $ save changes to mailbox
10524 tag-message t tag a message
10525 toggle-quoted T toggle display of quoted text
10526 top ^ jump to the top of the message
10527 undelete-message u undelete the current entry
10528 undelete-subthread ESC u undelete all messages in subthread
10529 undelete-thread ^U undelete all messages in thread
10530 view-attachments v show MIME attachments
10535 search / search for a regular expression
10536 search-next n search for next match
10537 search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular
10543 create-alias a create an alias from a message
10544 sendermail m compose a new mail message
10545 query Q query external program for addresses
10546 query-append A append new query results to current
10548 search / search for a regular expression
10549 search-next n search for next match
10550 search-opposite not bound search for next match in opposite
10552 search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular
10558 bounce-message b remail a message to another user
10559 collapse-parts v toggle display of subparts
10560 delete-entry d delete the current entry
10561 display-toggle-weed h display message and toggle header
10563 edit-type ^E edit the current entry's
10564 Content-Typeextract-keys ^K extract PGP public keys
10565 forward-message f forward a message with comments
10566 group-reply g reply to all recipients
10567 list-reply L reply to specified mailing list
10568 pipe-entry | pipe message/attachment to a shell
10570 print-entry p print the current entry
10571 reply r reply to a message
10572 resend-message ESC e resend message and preserve MIME
10574 save-entry s save message/attachment to a file
10575 undelete-entry u undelete the current entry
10576 view-attach RET view attachment using mailcap entry
10578 view-mailcap m force viewing of attachment using
10580 view-text T view attachment as text
10585 attach-file a attach a file(s) to this message
10586 attach-message A attach message(s) to this message
10587 attach-key ESC k attach a PGP public key
10588 copy-file C save message/attachment to a file
10589 detach-file D delete the current entry
10590 display-toggle-weed h display message and toggle header
10592 edit-bcc b edit the BCC list
10593 edit-cc c edit the CC list
10594 edit-description d edit attachment description
10595 edit-encoding ^E edit attachment transfer-encoding
10596 edit-fcc f enter a file to save a copy of this
10598 edit-from ESC f edit the from: field
10599 edit-file ^X e edit the file to be attached
10600 edit-headers E edit the message with headers
10601 edit e edit the message
10602 edit-mime m edit attachment using mailcap entry
10603 edit-reply-to r edit the Reply-To field
10604 edit-subject s edit the subject of this message
10605 edit-to t edit the TO list
10606 edit-type ^T edit attachment type
10607 filter-entry F filter attachment through a shell
10609 forget-passphrase ^F wipe PGP passphrase from memory
10610 ispell i run ispell on the message
10611 new-mime n compose new attachment using mailcap
10613 pgp-menu p show PGP options
10614 pipe-entry | pipe message/attachment to a shell
10616 postpone-message P save this message to send later
10617 print-entry l print the current entry
10618 rename-file R rename/move an attached file
10619 send-message y send the message
10620 toggle-unlink u toggle whether to delete file after
10622 view-attach RET view attachment using mailcap entry
10624 write-fcc w write the message to a folder
10629 delete-entry d delete the current entry
10630 undelete-entry u undelete the current entry
10635 change-dir c change directories
10636 check-new TAB check mailboxes for new mail
10637 enter-mask m enter a file mask
10638 search / search for a regular expression
10639 search-next n search for next match
10640 search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular
10642 select-new N select a new file in this directory
10643 sort o sort messages
10644 sort-reverse O sort messages in reverse order
10645 toggle-mailboxes TAB toggle whether to browse mailboxes
10647 view-file SPACE view file
10648 subscribe s subscribe to current mailbox (IMAP
10650 unsubscribe u unsubscribe to current mailbox (IMAP
10652 toggle-subscribed T toggle view all/subscribed mailboxes
10658 view-name % view the key's user id
10659 verify-key c verify a PGP public key
10664 backspace BackSpace delete the char in front of the
10666 backward-char ^B move the cursor one character to the
10668 backward-word ESC b move the cursor to the previous word
10669 bol ^A jump to the beginning of the line
10670 buffy-cycle Space cycle among incoming mailboxes
10671 capitalize-word ESC c uppercase the first character in the
10673 complete TAB complete filename or alias
10674 complete-query ^T complete address with query
10675 delete-char ^D delete the char under the cursor
10676 downcase-word ESC l lowercase all characters in current
10678 eol ^E jump to the end of the line
10679 forward-char ^F move the cursor one character to the
10681 forward-word ESC f move the cursor to the next word
10682 history-down not bound scroll down through the history list
10683 history-up not bound scroll up through the history list
10684 kill-eol ^K delete chars from cursor to end of
10686 kill-eow ESC d delete chars from cursor to end of
10688 kill-line ^U delete all chars on the line
10689 kill-word ^W delete the word in front of the
10691 quote-char ^V quote the next typed key
10692 transpose-chars not bound transpose character under cursor
10694 upcase-word ESC u uppercase all characters in current
10698 Chapter 8. Miscellany
10706 Kari Hurtta <kari.hurtta@fmi.fi> co-developed the original MIME >parsing
10707 code back in the ELM-ME days.
10709 The following people have been very helpful to the development of Mutt
10710 (sorted by surnames):
10712 o Vikas Agnihotri <vikasa@writeme.com>
10713 o Francois Berjon < Francois.Berjon@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr>
10714 o Aric Blumer <aric@fore.com>, John Capo < jc@irbs.com >
10715 o David Champion <dgc@uchicago.edu>
10716 o Brendan Cully <brendan@kublai.com>
10717 o Liviu Daia <daia@stoilow.imar.ro>
10718 o Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@herndon4.his.com>
10719 o David DeSimone <fox@convex.hp.com>
10720 o Nickolay N. Dudorov <nnd@wint.itfs.nsk.su>
10721 o Ruslan Ermilov <ru@freebsd.org>
10722 o Edmund Grimley Evans <edmundo@rano.org>
10723 o Michael Finken <finken@conware.de>
10724 o Sven Guckes <guckes@math.fu-berlin.de>
10725 o Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ie>
10726 o Mark Holloman <holloman@nando.net>
10727 o Andreas Holzmann <holzmann@fmi.uni-passau.de>
10728 o Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it>
10729 o Björn Jacke <bjacke@suse.com>
10730 o Byrial Jensen <byrial@image.dk>
10731 o David Jeske <jeske@igcom.net>
10732 o Christophe Kalt <kalt@hugo.int-evry.fr>
10733 o Tommi Komulainen <Tommi.Komulainen@iki.fi>
10734 o Felix von Leitner (a.k.a ``Fefe'') < leitner@math.fu-berlin.de >
10735 o Brandon Long <blong@fiction.net>
10736 o Jimmy Mäkeä <jmy@flashback.net>
10737 o Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@pointer.in-minden.de>
10738 o Thomas ``Mike'' Michlmayr <mike@cosy.sbg.ac.at>
10739 o Andrew W. Nosenko <awn@bcs.zp.ua>
10740 o David O'Brien <obrien@Nuxi.cs.ucdavis.edu>
10741 o Clint Olsen <olsenc@ichips.intel.com>
10742 o Park Myeong Seok <pms@romance.kaist.ac.kr>
10743 o Thomas Parmelan <tom@ankh.fr.eu.org>
10744 o Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>
10745 o Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>
10746 o Roland Rosenfeld <roland@spinnaker.de>
10747 o TAKIZAWA Takashi <taki@luna.email.ne.jp>
10748 o Allain Thivillon <Allain.Thivillon@alma.fr>
10749 o Gero Treuner <gero@faveve.uni-stuttgart.de>
10750 o Vsevolod Volkov <vvv@lucky.net>
10751 o Ken Weinert <kenw@ihs.com>
10753 Mutt-ng is developed by the following people:
10755 o Andreas Krennmair <ak@synflood.at>
10756 o Nico Golde <nico@ngolde.de>
10757 o Rocco Rutte <pdmef@cs.tu-berlin.de>
10759 The following people have been very helpful to the development of Mutt-ng
10760 (sorted by surnames):
10762 o Christian Gall <cg@cgall.de>
10763 o Iain Lea <iain@bricbrac.de>
10764 o Andreas Kneib <akneib@gmx.net>
10765 o Carsten Schoelzki <cjs@weisshuhn.de>
10766 o Elimar Riesebieter <riesebie@lxtec.de>
projects / apps / madmutt.git / blob