The Mutt E-Mail Client
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The Mutt E-Mail Client

Michael Elkins

<me@cs.hmc.edu>

version 1.5.20 (2009-06-14)

Abstract

“All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.” — me, circa 1995

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1. Mutt Home Page
2. Mailing Lists
3. Getting Mutt
4. Mutt Online Resources
5. Contributing to Mutt
6. Typograhical Conventions
7. Copyright

2. Getting Started

1. Core Concepts

2. Screens and Menus

2.1. Index
2.2. Pager
2.3. File Browser
2.4. Help
2.5. Compose Menu
2.6. Alias Menu
2.7. Attachment Menu

3. Moving Around in Menus

4. Editing Input Fields

4.1. Introduction
4.2. History

5. Reading Mail

5.1. The Message Index
5.2. The Pager
5.3. Threaded Mode
5.4. Miscellaneous Functions

6. Sending Mail

6.1. Introduction
6.2. Editing the Message Header
6.3. Sending Cryptographically Signed/Encrypted Messages
6.4. Sending Format=Flowed Messages

7. Forwarding and Bouncing Mail

8. Postponing Mail

3. Configuration

1. Location of Initialization Files

2. Syntax of Initialization Files

3. Address Groups

4. Defining/Using Aliases

5. Changing the Default Key Bindings

6. Defining Aliases for Character Sets

7. Setting Variables Based Upon Mailbox

8. Keyboard Macros

9. Using Color and Mono Video Attributes

10. Message Header Display

10.1. Selecting Headers
10.2. Ordering Displayed Headers

11. Alternative Addresses

12. Mailing Lists

13. Using Multiple Spool Mailboxes

14. Monitoring Incoming Mail

15. User-Defined Headers

16. Specify Default Save Mailbox

17. Specify Default Fcc: Mailbox When Composing

18. Specify Default Save Filename and Default Fcc: Mailbox at Once

19. Change Settings Based Upon Message Recipients

20. Change Settings Before Formatting a Message

21. Choosing the Cryptographic Key of the Recipient

22. Adding Key Sequences to the Keyboard Buffer

23. Executing Functions

24. Message Scoring

25. Spam Detection

26. Setting and Querying Variables

26.1. Variable Types
26.2. Commands
26.3. User-Defined Variables

27. Reading Initialization Commands From Another File

28. Removing Hooks

29. Format Strings

29.1. Basic usage
29.2. Conditionals
29.3. Filters
29.4. Padding

4. Advanced Usage

1. Regular Expressions

2. Patterns: Searching, Limiting and Tagging

2.1. Pattern Modifier
2.2. Simple Searches
2.3. Nesting and Boolean Operators
2.4. Searching by Date

3. Using Tags

4. Using Hooks

4.1. Message Matching in Hooks

5. External Address Queries

6. Mailbox Formats

7. Mailbox Shortcuts

8. Handling Mailing Lists

9. Handling multiple folders

10. Editing Threads

10.1. Linking Threads
10.2. Breaking Threads

11. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support

12. Start a WWW Browser on URLs

13. Miscellany

5. Mutt's MIME Support

1. Using MIME in Mutt

1.1. Viewing MIME Messages in the Pager
1.2. The Attachment Menu
1.3. The Compose Menu

2. MIME Type Configuration with mime.types

3. MIME Viewer Configuration with Mailcap

3.1. The Basics of the Mailcap File
3.2. Secure Use of Mailcap
3.3. Advanced Mailcap Usage
3.4. Example Mailcap Files

4. MIME Autoview

5. MIME Multipart/Alternative

6. Attachment Searching and Counting

7. MIME Lookup

6. Optional Features

1. General Notes

1.1. Enabling/Disabling Features
1.2. URL Syntax

2. SSL/TLS Support

3. POP3 Support

4. IMAP Support

4.1. The IMAP Folder Browser
4.2. Authentication

5. SMTP Support

6. Managing Multiple Accounts

7. Local Caching

7.1. Header Caching
7.2. Body Caching
7.3. Maintenance

8. Exact Address Generation

9. Sending Anonymous Messages via Mixmaster

7. Security Considerations

1. Passwords

2. Temporary Files

3. Information Leaks

3.1. Message-Id: headers
3.2. mailto:-style Links

4. External Applications

8. Performance Tuning

1. Reading and Writing Mailboxes
2. Reading Messages from Remote Folders
3. Searching and Limiting

9. Reference

1. Command-Line Options

2. Configuration Commands

3. Configuration Variables

4. Functions

4.1. Generic Menu
4.2. Index Menu
4.3. Pager Menu
4.4. Alias Menu
4.5. Query Menu
4.6. Attach Menu
4.7. Compose Menu
4.8. Postpone Menu
4.9. Browser Menu
4.10. Pgp Menu
4.11. Smime Menu
4.12. Mix Menu
4.13. Editor Menu

10. Miscellany

1. Acknowledgements
2. About This Document

List of Tables

1.1. Typographical conventions for special terms
2.1. Most common navigation keys in entry-based menus
2.2. Most common navigation keys in page-based menus
2.3. Most common line editor keys
2.4. Most common message index keys
2.5. Message status flags
2.6. Message recipient flags
2.7. Most common pager keys
2.8. ANSI escape sequences
2.9. Color sequences
2.10. Most common thread mode keys
2.11. Most common mail sending keys
2.12. Most common compose menu keys
2.13. PGP key menu flags
3.1. Symbolic key names
4.1. POSIX regular expression character classes
4.2. Regular expression repetition operators
4.3. GNU regular expression extensions
4.4. Pattern modifiers
4.5. Simple search keywords
4.6. Date units
9.1. Command line options
9.2. Default generic Function Bindings
9.3. Default index Function Bindings
9.4. Default pager Function Bindings
9.5. Default alias Function Bindings
9.6. Default query Function Bindings
9.7. Default attach Function Bindings
9.8. Default compose Function Bindings
9.9. Default postpone Function Bindings
9.10. Default browser Function Bindings
9.11. Default pgp Function Bindings
9.12. Default smime Function Bindings
9.13. Default mix Function Bindings
9.14. Default editor Function Bindings

List of Examples

3.1. Multiple configuration commands per line
3.2. Commenting configuration files
3.3. Escaping quotes in congfiguration files
3.4. Splitting long configuration commands over several lines
3.5. Using external command's output in configuration files
3.6. Using environment variables in configuration files
3.7. Configuring external alias files
3.8. Setting sort method based on mailbox name
3.9. Header weeding
3.10. Configuring header display order
3.11. Defining custom headers
3.12. Using %-expandos in save-hook
3.13. Embedding push in folder-hook
3.14. Configuring spam detection
3.15. Using user-defined variables for config file readability
3.16. Using user-defined variables for backing up other config option values
3.17. Deferring user-defined variable expansion to runtime
3.18. Using external filters in format strings
4.1. Matching all addresses in address lists
4.2. Using boolean operators in patterns
4.3. Specifying a default hook
5.1. Attachment counting
6.1. URLs
6.2. Managing multiple accounts

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		Chapter 1. Introduction