The Mutt E-Mail Client <author>by Michael Elkins <htmlurl url="mailto:me@cs.hmc.edu" name="<me@cs.hmc.edu>"> <date>v0.89, 26 January 1998 <abstract> ``All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.'' -me, circa 1995 </abstract> <sect>Introduction <bf/Mutt/ is a small but very powerful text-based MIME mail client. Mutt is highly configurable, and is well suited to the mail power user with advanced features like key bindings, keyboard macros, mail threading, regular expression searches and a powerful pattern matching language for selecting groups of messages. <sect1>Mutt Home Page <htmlurl url="http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me/mutt/index.html" name="http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me/mutt/index.html"> <sect1>Mailing Lists To subscribe to one of the following mailing lists, send a message with the word <em/subscribe/ in the subject to <tt/list-name/<em/-request/<tt/@cs.hmc.edu/. <itemize> <item><htmlurl url="mailto:mutt-announce-request@cs.hmc.edu" name="mutt-announce@cs.hmc.edu"> -- low traffic list for announcements <item><htmlurl url="mailto:mutt-users-request@cs.hmc.edu" name="mutt-users@cs.hmc.edu"> -- help, bug reports and feature requests <item><htmlurl url="mailto:mutt-dev-request@cs.hmc.edu" name="mutt-dev@cs.hmc.edu"> -- development mailing list </itemize> <bf/Note:/ all messages posted to <em/mutt-announce/ are automatically forwarded to <em/mutt-users/, so you do not need to be subscribed to both lists. <sect1>Software Distribution Sites <itemize> <item><htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.cs.hmc.edu/pub/me/mutt/" name="ftp://ftp.cs.hmc.edu/pub/me/mutt/"> </itemize> <sect1>IRC Visit channel <em/#mutt/ on <htmlurl url="http://www.dal.net" name="DALnet (www.dal.net)"> to chat with other people interested in Mutt. <sect1>Copyright Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-8 Michael R. Elkins <me@cs.hmc.edu> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. <sect>Getting Started This section is intended as a brief overview of how to use Mutt. There are many other features which are described elsewhere in the manual. There is even more information available in the Mutt FAQ and various web pages. See the <htmlurl url="http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me/mutt/" name="Mutt Page"> for more details. The keybindings described in this section are the defaults as distributed. Your local system administrator may have altered the defaults for your site. You can always type ``?'' in any menu to display the current bindings. The first thing you need to do is invoke mutt, simply by typing mutt at the command line. There are various command-line options, see either the mutt man page or the <ref id="commandline" name="reference">. <sect1>Moving Around in Menus Information is presented in menus, very similar to ELM. Here is a table showing the common keys used to navigate menus in Mutt. <tscreen><verb> j or Down next-entry move to the next entry k or Up previous-entry move to the previous entry z or PageDn page-down go to the next page Z or PageUp page-up go to the previous page = or Home first-entry jump to the first entry * or End last-entry jump to the last entry q quit exit the current menu ? help list all keybindings for the current menu </verb></tscreen> <sect1>Editing Input Fields<label id="editing"> Mutt has a builtin line editor which is used as the primary way to input textual data such as email addresses or filenames. The keys used to move around while editing are very similar to those of Emacs. <tscreen><verb> ^A or <Home> bol move to the start of the line ^B or <Left> backward-char move back one char ^D or <Delete> delete-char delete the char under the cursor ^E or <End> eol move to the end of the line ^F or <Right> forward-char move forward one char ^K kill-eol delete to the end of the line ^U kill-line delete entire line ^W kill-word kill the word in front of the cursor <Up> history-up recall previous string from history <Down> history-down recall next string from history <BackSpace> backspace kill the char in front of the cursor ^G n/a abort <Tab> n/a complete filename (only when prompting for a file) <Return> n/a finish editing </verb></tscreen> You can remap the <em/editor/ functions using the <ref id="bind" name="bind"> command. For example, to make the <em/Delete/ key delete the character in front of the cursor rather than under, you could use <tt/bind editor delete backspace/ <sect1>Reading Mail - The Index and Pager Similar to many other mail clients, there are two modes in which mail is read in Mutt. The first is the index of messages in the mailbox, which is called the ``index'' in Mutt. The second mode is the display of the message contents. This is called the ``pager.'' The next few sections describe the functions provided in each of these modes. <sect2>The Message Index <tscreen><verb> c change to a different mailbox ESC c change to a folder in read-only mode C copy the current message to another mailbox ESC C decode a message and copy it to a folder ESC s decode a message and save it to a folder D delete messages matching a pattern d delete the current message F mark as important l show messages matching a pattern N mark message as new o change the current sort method O reverse sort the mailbox q save changes and exit s save-message t toggle the tag on a message ESC t toggle tag on entire message thread u undelete-message v view-attachments x abort changes and exit <Return> display-message <Tab> jump to the next new message @ show the author's full e-mail address $ save changes to mailbox / search ESC / search-reverse ^L clear and redraw the screen ^T tag messages matching a pattern ^U undelete messages matching a pattern </verb></tscreen> <sect3>Status Flags In addition to who sent the message and the subject, a short summary of the disposition of each message is printed beside the message number. Zero or more of the following ``flags'' may appear, which mean: <tscreen><verb> D message is deleted K contains a PGP public key M requires mailcap to view N message is new O message is old P message is PGP encrypted r message has been replied to S message is PGP signed ! message is flagged * message is tagged </verb></tscreen> Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using <itemize> <item><bf/set-flag/ (default: w) <item><bf/clear-flag/ (default: W) </itemize> Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed to. They can be customized with the <ref id="to_chars" name="to_chars"> variable. <tscreen><verb> + message is to you and you only T message is to you, but also to or cc'ed to others C message is cc'ed to you F message is from you </verb></tscreen> <sect2>The Pager By default, Mutt uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages. The pager is very similar to the Unix program <em/less/ though not nearly as featureful. <tscreen><verb> <Return> go down one line <Space> display the next page (or next message if at the end of a message) - go back to the previous page n display the next message ? show keybindings / search for a regular expression (pattern) \ toggle search pattern coloring </verb></tscreen> In addition, many of the functions from the <em/index/ are available in the pager, such as <em/delete-message/ or <em/copy-message/ (this is one advantage over using an external pager to view messages). Also, the internal pager supports a couple other advanced features. For one, it will accept and translate the ``standard'' nroff sequences for bold and underline. These sequences are a series of either the letter, backspace (^H), the letter again for bold or the letter, backspace, ``_'' for denoting underline. Mutt will attempt to display these in bold and underline respectively if your terminal supports them. If not, you can use the bold and underline <ref id="color" name="color"> objects to specify a color or mono attribute for them. Additionally, the internal pager supports the ANSI escape sequences for character attributes. Mutt translates them into the correct color and character settings. The sequences Mutt supports are: <tscreen><verb> ESC [ Ps;Ps;Ps;...;Ps m where Ps = 0 All Attributes Off 1 Bold on 4 Underline on 5 Blink on 7 Reverse video on 3x Foreground color is x 4x Background color is x Colors are 0 black 1 red 2 green 3 yellow 4 blue 5 magenta 6 cyan 7 white </verb></tscreen> Mutt uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they can also be used by an external <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview"> script for highlighting purposes. <bf/Note:/ If you change the colors for your display, for example by changing the color associated with color2 for your xterm, then that color will be used instead of green. <sect2>Threaded Mode<label id="threads"> When the mailbox is <ref id="sort" name="sorted"> by <em/threads/, there are a few additional functions available in the <em/index/ and <em/pager/ modes. <tscreen><verb> ^D delete-thread delete all messages in the current thread ^U undelete-thread undelete all messages in the current thread ^N next-thread jump to the start of the next thread ^P previous-thread jump to the start of the previous thread ^R read-thread mark the current thread as read ESC d delete-subthread delete all messages in the current subthread ESC u undelete-subthread undelete all messages in the current subthread ESC n next-subthread jump to the start of the next subthread ESC p previous-subthread jump to the start of the previous subthread ESC r read-subthread mark the current subthread as read ESC t tag-thread toggle the tag on the current thread </verb></tscreen> See also: <ref id="strict_threads" name="$strict_threads">. <sect2>Miscellaneous Functions <bf/create-alias/<label id="create-alias"> (default: a)<newline> Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a new one). Once editing is complete, an <ref id="alias" name="alias"> command is added to the file specified by the <ref id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> variable for future use. <bf/Note:/ Specifying an <ref id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also <ref id="source" name="source"> the file. <bf/display-headers/<label id="display-headers"> (default: h)<newline> Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by <ref id="ignore" name="ignore"> commands. <bf/enter-command/<label id="enter-command"> (default: ``:'')<newline> This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or in conjunction with <ref id="macro" name="macros"> to change settings on the fly. <bf/list-reply/<label id="list-reply"> (default: L)<newline> Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which match the addresses given by the <ref id="lists" name="lists"> command. Using this when replying to messages posted to mailing lists help avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of the message you are replying to. <bf/pipe-message/<label id="pipe-message"> (default: |)<newline> Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or tagged message(s) to it. The variables <ref id="pipe_decode" name="$pipe_decode">, <ref id="pipe_split" name="$pipe_split">, <ref id="pipe_sep" name="$pipe_sep"> and <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> control the exact behaviour of this function. <bf/shell-escape/<label id="shell-escape"> (default: !)<newline> Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> can be used to control whether Mutt will wait for a key to be pressed when the command returns (presumably to let the user read the output of the command), based on the return status of the named command. <bf/toggle-quoted/<label id="toggle-quoted"> (default: T)<newline> The <em/pager/ uses the <ref id="quote_regexp" name="$quote_regexp"> variable to detect quoted text when displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the display of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of quoted text in the way. <sect1>Sending Mail The following bindings are available in the <em/index/ for sending messages. <tscreen><verb> m compose compose a new message r reply reply to sender g group-reply reply to all recipients L list-reply reply to mailing list address f forward forward message b bounce bounce (remail) message </verb></tscreen> Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or modify the message you are forwarding. Bouncing a message uses the <ref id="sendmail_bounce" name="sendmail_bounce"> command to send a copy of a message to recipients as if they were original recipients of the message. See also <ref id="mime_fwd" name="$mime_fwd">. Mutt will then enter the <em/compose/ menu and prompt you for the recipients to place on the ``To:'' header field. Next, it will ask you for the ``Subject:'' field for the message, providing a default if you are replying to or forwarding a message. See also <ref id="askcc" name="$askcc">, <ref id="askbcc" name="$askbcc">, <ref id="autoedit" name="$autoedit">, and <ref id="fast_reply" name="$fast_reply"> for changing how Mutt asks these questions. Mutt will then automatically start your <ref id="editor" name="$editor"> on the message body. If the <ref id="edit_hdrs" name="$edit_hdrs"> variable is set, the headers will be at the top of the message in your editor. Any messages you are replying to will be added in sort order to the message, with appropriate <ref id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="indent_str" name="$indent_str"> and <ref id="post_indent_str" name="$post_indent_str">. When forwarding a message, if the <ref id="mime_fwd" name="$mime_fwd"> variable is unset, a copy of the forwarded message will be included. If you have specified a <ref id="signature" name="$signature">, it will be appended to the message. Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are returned to the <em/compose/ menu. The following options are available: <tscreen><verb> a attach-file attach a file d edit-description edit description on attachment D detach-file detach a file T edit-to edit the To field c edit-cc edit the Cc field b edit-bcc edit the Bcc field y send-message send the message s edit-subject edit the Subject f edit-fcc specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox p pgp-menu select PGP options (US version only) P postpone-message postpone this message until later q quit quit (abort) sending the message i ispell check spelling (if available on your system) </verb></tscreen> <sect2>Editing the message header<label id="edit_headers"> When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of special features available. If you specify<newline> <tt/Fcc:/ <em/filename/<newline> Mutt will pick up <em/filename/ just as if you had used the <em/edit-fcc/ function in the <em/compose/ menu. You can also attach files to your message by specifying<newline> <tt/Attach:/ <em/filename/ [ <em/description/ ]<newline> where <em/filename/ is the file to attach and <em/description/ is an optional string to use as the description of the attached file. When replying to messages, if you remove the <em/In-Reply-To:/ field from the header field, Mutt will not generate a <em/References:/ field, which allows you to create a new message thread. Also see <ref id="edit_hdrs" name="edit_hdrs">. <sect1>Postponing Mail<label id="postponing_mail"> At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have already begun to compose. When the <em/postpone-message/ function is used in the <em/compose/ menu, the body of your message and attachments are stored in the mailbox specified by the <ref id="postponed" name="$postponed"> variable. This means that you can recall the message even if you exit Mutt and then restart it at a later time. Once a message is postponed, there are several ways to resume it. From the command line you can use the ``-p'' option, or if you <em/compose/ a new message from the <em/index/ or <em/pager/ you will be prompted if postponed messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the <em/postponed/ menu will pop up and you can select which message you would like to resume. <bf/Note:/ If you postpone a reply to a message, the reply setting of the message is only updated when you actually finish the message and send it. Also, you must be in the same folder with the message you replied to for the status of the message to be updated. See also the <ref id="postpone" name="$postpone"> quad-option. <sect>Configuration While the default configuration (or ``preferences'') make Mutt usable right out of the box, it is often desirable to tailor Mutt to suit your own tastes. When Mutt is first invoked, it will attempt to read the ``system'' configuration file (defaults set by your local system administrator), unless the ``-n'' <ref id="commandline" name="command line"> option is specified. This file is typically <tt>/usr/local/share/Muttrc</tt> or <tt>/usr/local/lib/Muttrc</tt>. Next, it looks for a file in your home directory named <tt/.muttrc/. In this file is where you place <ref id="commands" name="commands"> to configure Mutt. In addition, mutt supports version specifc configuration files that are parsed instead of the default files as explained above. For intance, if your system has a <tt/Muttrc-0.88/ file in the system configuration directory, and you are running version 0.88 of mutt, this file will be sourced instead of the <tt/Muttrc/ file. The same is true of the user configuration file, if you have a file <tt/.muttrc-0.88.6/ in your home directory, when you run mutt version 0.88.6, it will source this file instead of the default <tt/.muttrc/ file. The version number is the same which is visible using the ``-v'' <ref id="commandline" name="command line"> switch or using the <tt/show-version/ key (default: V) from the index menu. <sect1>Syntax of Initialization Files An initialization file consists of a series of <ref id="commands" name="commands">, each on its own line. The hash mark, or pound sign (``#''), is used as a ``comment'' character. You can use it to annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character to the end of the line is ignored. For example, <tscreen><verb> my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment </verb></tscreen> Single quotes (') and double quotes (&dquot;) can be used to quote strings which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs, namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string for which should be evaluated. For example, backtics are evaluated inside of double quotes, but <bf/not/ for single quotes. \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh. For example, if want to put quotes ``&dquot;'' inside of a string, you can use ``\'' to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted character. <tscreen><verb> set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins" </verb></tscreen> ``\\'' means to insert a literal ``\'' into the line. ``\n'' and ``\r'' have their usual C meanings of linefeed and carriage-return, respectively. A \ at the end of a line can be used to split commands over multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the middle of command names. It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in backquotes (``). For example, <tscreen><verb> my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a` </verb></tscreen> The output of the Unix command ``uname -a'' will be substituted before the line is parsed. Note that since initialization files are line oriented, only the first line of output from the Unix command will be substituted. For a complete list of the commands understood by mutt, see the <ref id="commands" name="command reference">. <sect1>Defining/Using aliases<label id="alias"> Usage: <tt/alias/ <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ] It's usually very cumbersome to remember or type out the address of someone you are communicating with. Mutt allows you to create ``aliases'' which map a short string to a full address. <bf/Note:/ if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than one address), you <bf/must/ separate the addresses with a comma (``,''). To remove an alias or aliases: <tt/unalias/ <em/addr/ [ <em/addr/ <em/.../ ] <tscreen><verb> alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins) alias theguys manny, moe, jack </verb></tscreen> Unlike other mailers, Mutt doesn't require aliases to be defined in a special file. The <tt/alias/ command can appear anywhere in a configuration file, as long as this file is <ref id="source" name="sourced">. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc. On the other hand, the <ref id="create-alias" name="create-alias"> function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the <ref id="alias_file" name="$alias_file"> variable (which is <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> by default). This file is not special either, in the sense that Mutt will happily append aliases to any file, but in order for the new aliases to take effect you need to explicitely <ref id="source" name="source"> this file too. For example: <tscreen><verb> source /usr/local/share/Mutt.aliases source ~/.mail_aliases set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases </verb></tscreen> To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where mutt prompts for addresses, such as the <em/To:/ or <em/CC:/ prompt. You can also enter aliases in your editor at the appropirate headers if you have the <ref id="edit_hdrs" name="$edit_hdrs"> variable set. In addition, at the various address prompts, you can use the tab character to expand a partial alias to the full alias. If there are multiple matches, mutt will bring up a menu with the matching aliases. In order to be presented with the full list of aliases, you must hit tab with out a partial alias, such as at the beginning of the prompt or after a comma denoting multiple addresses. In the alias menu, you can select as many aliases as you want with the <em/select-entry/ key (default: RET), and use the <em/exit/ key (default: q) to return to the address prompt. <sect1>Changing the default key bindings<label id="bind"> Usage: <tt/bind/ <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/ This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation invoked when pressing a key). <em/map/ specifies in which menu the binding belongs. The currently defined maps are: <itemize> <item>generic <item>alias <item>attach <item>browser <item>editor <item>index <item>compose <item>pager <item>pgp <item>url </itemize> <em/key/ is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a control character, use the sequence <em/\Cx/, where <em/x/ is the letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use ``\Ca''). Note that the case of <em/x/ as well as <em/\C/ is ignored, so that <em/\CA, \Ca, \cA/ and <em/\ca/ are all equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example <em/\177/ is equivalent to <em/\c?/). In addition, <em/key/ may consist of: <tscreen><verb> \t tab \r carriage return \n newline \e escape up up arrow down down arrow left left arrow right right arrow pageup Page Up pagedown Page Down backspace Backspace delete Delete insert Insert enter Enter home Home end End f1 function key 1 f10 function key 10 </verb></tscreen> <em/key/ does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a space (`` ''). <em/function/ specifies which action to take when <em/key/ is pressed. For a complete list of functions, see the <ref id="functions" name="reference">. The special function <tt/noop/ unbinds the specify key sequence. <sect1>Setting variables based upon mailbox<label id="folder-hook"> Usage: <tt/folder-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/command/ It is often desirable to change settings based on which mailbox you are reading. The folder-hook command provides a method by which you can execute any configuration command. <em/pattern/ is a regular expression specifying in which mailboxes to execute <em/command/ before loading. If a mailbox matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in the muttrc. <bf/Note:/ if you use the ``!'' shortcut for <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spoolfile"> at the beginning of the pattern, you must place it inside of double or single quotes in order to distinguish it from the logical <em/not/ operator for the expression. Note that the settings are <em/not/ restored when you leave the mailbox. For example, a command action to perform is to change the sorting method based upon the mailbox being read: <tscreen><verb> folder-hook mutt set sort=threads </verb></tscreen> However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when reading a different mailbox. To specify a <em/default/ command, use the pattern ``.'': <tscreen><verb> folder-hook . set sort=date-sent </verb></tscreen> <sect1>Keyboard macros<label id="macro"> Usage: <tt/macro/ <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of actions. When you press <em/key/ in menu <em/menu/, Mutt will behave as if you had typed <em/sequence/. So if you have a common sequence of commands you type, you can create a macro to execute those commands with a single key. <em/key/ and <em/sequence/ are expanded by the same rules as the <ref id="bind" name="key bindings">, with the addition that control characters in <em/sequence/ can also be specified as <em/ˆx/. In order to get a caret (``ˆ'') you need to use <em/ˆˆ/. <bf/Note:/ Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped. <sect1>Using color and mono video attributes<label id="color"> Usage: <tt/color/ <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ] If your terminal supports color, you can spice up Mutt by creating your own color scheme. To define the color of an object (type of information), you must specify both a foreground color <bf/and/ a background color (it is not possible to only specify one or the other). <em/object/ can be one of: <itemize> <item>attachment <item>body (match <em/regexp/ in the body of messages) <item>bold (hiliting bold patterns in the body of messages) <item>error (error messages printed by Mutt) <item>header (match <em/regexp/ in the message header) <item>hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager) <item>indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu) <item>markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in the pager) <item>message (informational messages) <item>normal <item>quoted (text matching <ref id="quote_regexp" name="$quote_regexp"> in the body of a message) <item>quoted1, quoted2, ..., quoted<bf/N/ (higher levels of quoting) <item>search (hiliting of words in the pager) <item>signature <item>status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message) <item>tilde (the ``˜'' used to pad blank lines in the pager) <item>tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu) <item>underline (hiliting underlined patterns in the body of messages) </itemize> <em/foreground/ and <em/background/ can be one of the following: <itemize> <item>white <item>black <item>green <item>magenta <item>blue <item>cyan <item>yellow <item>red <item>default <item>color<em/x/ </itemize> <em/foreground/ can optionally be prefixed with the keyword <tt/bright/ to make the foreground color boldfaced (e.g., <tt/brightred/). If your terminal supports it, the special keyword <em/default/ can be used as a transparent color. The value <em/brightdefault/ is also valid. If Mutt is linked against the <em/S-Lang/ library, you also need to set the <em/COLORFGBG/ environment variable to the default colors of your terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells): <tscreen><verb> set COLORFGBG="green;black" export COLORFGBG </verb></tscreen> <bf/Note:/ The <em/S-Lang/ library requires you to use the <em/lightgray/ and <em/brown/ keywords instead of <em/white/ and <em/yellow/ when setting this variable. Mutt also recognizes the keywords <em/color0/, <em/color1/, …, <em/color/<bf/N-1/ (<bf/N/ being the number of colors supported by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your display (for example by changing the color associated with <em/color2/ for your xterm), since color names may then lose their normal meaning. If your terminal does not support color, it is still possible change the video attributes through the use of the ``mono'' command: Usage: <tt/mono/ <em/<object> <attribute>/ [ <em/regexp/ ] where <em/attribute/ is one of the following: <itemize> <item>none <item>bold <item>underline <item>reverse <item>standout </itemize> <sect1>Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers<label id="ignore"> Usage: <tt/[un]ignore/ <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ] Messages often have many header fields added by automatic processing systems, or which may not seem useful to display on the screen. This command allows you to specify header fields which you don't normally want to see. You do not need to specify the full header field name. For example, ``ignore content-'' will ignore all header fields that begin with the pattern ``content-''. To remove a previously added token from the list, use the ``unignore'' command. Note that if you do ``ignore x-'' it is not possible to ``unignore x-mailer,'' for example. The ``unignore'' command does <bf/not/ make Mutt display headers with the given pattern. ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list. For example: <tscreen><verb> # Sven's draconian header weeding ignore * unignore from date subject to cc unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list: unignore posted-to: </verb></tscreen> <sect1>Mailing lists<label id="lists"> Usage: <tt/[un]lists/ <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ] Mutt has a few nice features for <ref id="using_lists" name="handling mailing lists">. In order to take advantage of them, you must specify which addresses belong to mailing lists. It is important to note that you should <bf/never/ specify the domain name ( the part after the ``@'') with the lists command. You should only specify the ``mailbox'' portion of the address (the part before the ``@''). For example, if you've subscribed to the Mutt mailing list, you will receive mail addressed to <em/mutt-users@cs.hmc.edu/. So, to tell Mutt that this is a mailing list, you would add ``lists mutt-users'' to your initialization file. The ``unlists'' command is to remove a token from the list of mailing-lists. Use ``unlists *'' to remove all tokens. <sect1>Using Multiple spool mailboxes<label id="mbox-hook"> Usage: <tt/mbox-hook/ [!]<em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/ This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to a different mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders. <em/pattern/ is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a ``spool'' mailbox and <em/mailbox/ specifies where mail should be saved when read. Unlike some of the other <em/hook/ commands, only the <em/first/ matching pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single mailbox). <sect1>Defining mailboxes which receive mail<label id="mailboxes"> Usage: <tt/mailboxes/ [!]<em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ] This command specifies folders which can receive mail and which will be checked for new messages. By default, the main menu status bar displays how many of these folders have new messages. When changing folders, pressing <em/space/ will cycle through folders with new mail. Pressing TAB in the directory browser will bring up a menu showing the files specified by the <tt/mailboxes/ command, and indicate which contain new messages. Mutt will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the command line with the <tt/-y/ option. <bf/Note:/ new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to the last access time. Utilities like <tt/biff/ or <tt/frm/ or any other program which accesses the mailbox might cause Mutt to never detect new mail for that mailbox if they do not properly reset the access time. <bf/Note:/ the filenames in the <tt/mailboxes/ command are resolved when the command is executed, so if these names contain <ref id="shortcuts" name="shortcut characters"> (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable definition that affect these characters (like <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> and <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spool">) should be executed before the <tt/mailboxes/ command. <sect1>User defined headers<label id="my_hdr"> Usage:<newline> <tt/my_hdr/ <em/string/<newline> <tt/unmy_hdr/ <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ] The ``my_hdr'' command allows you to create your own header fields which will be added to every message you send. For example, if you would like to add an ``Organization:'' header field to all of your outgoing messages, you can put the command <quote> my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA </quote> in your <tt/.muttrc/. <bf/Note:/ space characters are <em/not/ allowed between the keyword and the colon (``:''). The standard for electronic mail (RFC822) says that space is illegal there, so Mutt enforces the rule. If you would like to add a header field to a single message, you should either set the <ref id="edit_hdrs" name="edit_hdrs"> variable, or use the <em/edit-headers/ function (default: ``E'') in the send-menu so that you can edit the header of your message along with the body. To remove user defined header fields, use the ``unmy_hdr'' command. You may specify an asterisk (``*'') to remove all header fields, or the fields to remove. For example, to remove all ``To'' and ``Cc'' header fields, you could use: <quote> unmy_hdr to cc </quote> <sect1>Defining the order of headers when viewing messages<label id="hdr_order"> Usage: <tt/hdr_order/ <em/header1/ <em/header2/ <em/header3/ With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt to present headers to you when viewing messages. <tscreen><verb> hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject: </verb></tscreen> <sect1>Specify default save filename<label id="save-hook"> Usage: <tt/save-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/filename/ This command is used to override the default filename used when saving messages. <em/filename/ will be used as the default filename if the message is <em/From:/ an address matching <em/regexp/ or if you are the author and the message is addressed <em/to:/ something matching <em/regexp/. With no matching <em/save-hook/, Mutt first looks to see if the message was addressed <em/to:/ or <em/cc:/ one of your mailing <ref id="lists" name="lists">. If not, the default filename is based upon the <em/reply-to:/ or <em/from:/ field if the message is not from yourself, otherwise the first address in the <em/to:/ or <em/cc:/ field is used. Examples: <tscreen><verb> save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam </verb></tscreen> <sect1>Change settings based upon message recipients<label id="send-hook"> Usage: <tt/send-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/command/ This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based upon recipients of the message. <em/regexp/ is a regular expression matching the desired address. <em/command/ is executed when <em/regexp/ matches recipients of the message. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc. Example: <tt/send-hook mutt &dquot;set mime_fwd signature=''&dquot;/ Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the <ref id="attribution" name="$attribution">, <ref id="signature" name="$signature"> and <ref id="locale" name="$locale"> variables in order to change the language of the attributions and signatures based upon the recipients. <bf/Note:/ the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. <sect1>Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing<label id="fcc-hook"> Usage: <tt/fcc-hook/ [!]<em/regexp/ <em/mailbox/ This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than <ref id="record" name="$record">. Mutt searches the initial list of message recpients for the first matching <em/regexp/ and uses <em/mailbox/ as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved to <ref id="record" name="$record"> mailbox. Example: <tt/fcc-hook aol.com$ +spammers/ The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to the `+spammers' mailbox by default. <sect1>Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer<label id="push"> Usage: <tt/push/ <em/string/ This command adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. You may use it to automatically run a sequence of commands at startup, or when entering certain folders. <sect1>Setting variables<label id="set"> Usage: <tt/set/ [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ]<newline> Usage: <tt/toggle/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ]<newline> Usage: <tt/unset/ <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ] This command is used to set (and unset) <ref id="variables" name="configuration variables">. There are four basic types of variables: boolean, number, string and quadoption. <em/boolean/ variables can be <em/set/ (true) or <em/unset/ (false). <em/number/ variables can be assigned a positive integer value. <em/string/ variables consist of any number of printable characters. <em/strings/ must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You may also use the ``C'' escape sequences <bf/\n/ and <bf/\t/ for newline and tab, respectively. <em/quadoption/ variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of <em/yes/ will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to the question. Similarly, a value of <em/no/ will cause the the action to be carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of <em/ask-yes/ will cause a prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and <em/ask-no/ will provide a default answer of ``no.'' Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: <tt/set noaskbcc/. For <em/boolean/ variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with <tt/inv/ to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing macros. Example: <tt/set invsmart_wrap/. The <tt/toggle/ command automatically prepends the <tt/inv/ prefix to all specified variables. The <tt/unset/ command automatically prepends the <tt/no/ prefix to all specified variables. Using the enter-command function in the <em/index/ menu, you can query the value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question mark: <tscreen><verb> set ?allow_8bit </verb></tscreen> The question mark is actually only required for boolean variables. <sect1>Reading initialization commands from another file<label id="source"> Usage: <tt/source/ <em/filename/ This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in <tt>˜/.mail_aliases</tt> so that I can make my <tt>˜/.muttrc</tt> readable and keep my aliases private. If the filename begins with a tilde (``˜''), it will be expanded to the path of your home directory. <sect>Advanced Usage <sect1>Searching and Regular Expressions<label id="regex"> All text patterns for searching and matching in Mutt must be specified as regular expressions (regexp) in the ``POSIX extended'' syntax (which is more or less the syntax used by egrep and GNU awk). For your convenience, we have included below a brief description of this syntax. The search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper case letter, and case insensitive otherwise. Note that ``\'' must be quoted if used for a regular expression in an initialization command: ``\\''. For more information, see the section on <ref id="searching" name="searching"> below. <sect2>Regular Expressions<label id="regexps"> A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings. Regular expressions are constructed analagously to arithmetic expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions. The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits, are regular expressions that match themselves. Any metacharacter with special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash. The period ``.'' matches any single character. The caret ``ˆ'' and the dollar sign ``&dollar'' are metacharacters that respectively match the empty string at the beginning and end of a line. A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``&rsqb'' matches any single character in that list; if the first character of the list is a caret ``ˆ'' then it matches any character <bf/not/ in the list. For example, the regular expression <bf/[0123456789&rsqb/ matches any single digit. A range of ASCII characters may be specified by giving the first and last characters, separated by a hyphen ``‐''. Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside lists. To include a literal ``&rsqb'' place it first in the list. Similarly, to include a literal ``ˆ'' place it anywhere but first. Finally, to include a literal hyphen ``‐'' place it last. Certain named classes of characters are predefined. Character classes consist of ``[:'', a keyword denoting the class, and ``:]''. The following classes are defined by the POSIX standard: <descrip> <tag/[:alnum:]/ Alphanumeric characters. <tag/[:alpha:]/ Alphabetic characters. <tag/[:blank:]/ Space or tab characters. <tag/[:cntrl:]/ Control characters. <tag/[:digit:]/ Numeric characters. <tag/[:graph:]/ Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable, but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.) <tag/[:lower:]/ Lower-case alphabetic characters. <tag/[:print:]/ Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.) <tag/[:punct:]/ Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control characters, or space characters). <tag/[:space:]/ Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few). <tag/[:upper:]/ Upper-case alphabetic characters. <tag/[:xdigit:]/ Characters that are hexadecimal digits. </descrip> A character class is only valid in a regular expression inside the brackets of a character list. Note that the brackets in these class names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket list. For example, <bf/[[:digit:]]/ is equivalent to <bf/[0-9]/. Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols (called collating elements) that are represented with more than one character, as well as several characters that are equivalent for collating or sorting purposes: <descrip> <tag/Collating Symbols/ A collating symbols is a multi-character collating element enclosed in ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating element, then <bf/[[.ch.]]/ is a regexp that matches this collating element, while <bf/[ch]/ is a regexp that matches either ``c'' or ``h''. <tag/Equivalence Classes/ An equivalence class is a locale-specific name for a list of characters that are equivalent. The name is enclosed in ``[='' and ``=]''. For example, the name ``e'' might be used to represent all of ``è'' ``é'' and ``e''. In this case, <bf/[[=e=]]/ is a regexp that matches any of ``è'', ``é'' and ``e''. </descrip> A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one of several repetition operators: <descrip> <tag/?/ The preceding item is optional and matched at most once. <tag/*/ The preceding item will be matched zero or more times. <tag/+/ The preceding item will be matched one or more times. <tag/{n}/ The preceding item is matched exactly <em/n/ times. <tag/{n,}/ The preceding item is matched <em/n/ or more times. <tag/{,m}/ The preceding item is matched at most <em/m/ times. <tag/{n,m}/ The preceding item is matched at least <em/n/ times, but no more than <em/m/ times. </descrip> Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings that respectively match the concatenated subexpressions. Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator ``|''; the resulting regular expression matches any string matching either subexpression. Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes precedence over alternation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in parentheses to override these precedence rules. <bf/Note:/ If you compile Mutt with the GNU <em/rx/ package, the following operators may also be used in regular expressions: <descrip> <tag/\\y/ Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word. <tag/\\B/ Matches the empty string within a word. <tag/\\</ Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word. <tag/\\>/ Matches the empty string at the end of a word. <tag/\\w/ Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or underscore). <tag/\\W/ Matches any character that is not word-constituent. <tag/\\`/ Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string). <tag/\\'/ Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer. </descrip> Please note however that these operators are not defined by POSIX, so they may or may not be available in stock libraries on various systems. <sect2>Searching<label id="searching"> Many of Mutt's commands allow you to specify a pattern to match (limit, tag-pattern, delete-pattern, etc.). There are several ways to select messages: <tscreen><verb> ~b PATTERN messages which contain PATTERN in the message body ~c USER messages carbon-copied to USER ~d [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range ~e PATTERN message which contains PATTERN in the ``Sender'' field ~f USER messages originating from USER ~h PATTERN messages which contain PATTERN in the message header ~i ID message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field ~m [MIN]-[MAX] message in the range MIN to MAX ~r [MIN]-[MAX] messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range ~s SUBJECT messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field. ~t USER messages addressed to USER ~A all messages ~D deleted messages ~F flagged messages ~N new messages ~O old messages ~R read messages ~Q messages which have been replied to ~T tagged messages ~U unread messages </verb></tscreen> Where PATTERN, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are <ref id="regex" name="regular expressions">. <sect2>Complex Searches Logical AND is performed by specifying more than one criterion. For example: <tscreen><verb> ~t mutt ~f elkins </verb></tscreen> would select messages which contain the word ``mutt'' in the list of recipients <bf/and/ that have the word ``elkins'' in the ``From'' header field. Mutt also recognizes the following operators to create more complex search patterns: <itemize> <item>! -- logical NOT operator <item>| -- logical OR operator <item>() -- logical grouping operator </itemize> Here is an example illustrating a complex search pattern. This pattern will select all messages which do not contain ``mutt'' in the ``To'' or ``Cc'' field and which are from ``elkins''. <tscreen><verb> !(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins </verb></tscreen> <sect2>Searching by Date All dates <bf/must/ be in DD/MM/YY format (month and year are optional, defaulting to the current month and year). An example of a valid range of dates is: <tscreen><verb> Limit to messages matching: ~d 20/1/95-31/10 </verb></tscreen> If you omit the minimum (first) date, and just specify ``-DD/MM/YY'', all messages <em/before/ the given date will be selected. If you omit the maximum (second) date, and specify ``DD/MM/YY-'', all messages <em/after/ the given date will be selected. If you specify a single date with no dash (``-''), only messages sent on the given date will be selected. <bf/Note:/ all dates used when searching are relative to the <bf/local/ time zone, so unless you change the setting of your <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format"> to include a <tt/%[...]/ format, these are <bf/not/ the dates shown in the main index. <sect1>Using Tags Sometimes it is desirable to perform an operation on a group of messages all at once rather than one at a time. An example might be to save messages to a mailing list to a separate folder, or to delete all messages with a given subject. To tag all messages matching a pattern, use the tag-pattern function, which is bound to ``control-T'' by default. Or you can select individual messages by hand using the ``tag-message'' function, which is bound to ``t'' by default. See <ref id="searching" name="searching"> for Mutt's searching syntax. Once you have tagged the desired messages, you can use the ``tag-prefix'' operator, which is the ``;'' (semicolon) key by default. When the ``tag-prefix'' operator is used, the <bf/next/ operation will be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that manner. If the <ref id="auto_tag" name="$auto_tag"> variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''. <sect1>Mailbox Formats Mutt supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats: mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new mailboxes, Mutt uses the default specified with the <ref id="mbox_type" name="$mbox_type"> variable. <bf/mbox/. This is the most widely used mailbox format for UNIX. All messages are stored in a single file. Each message has a line of the form: <tscreen><verb> From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST </verb></tscreen> to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the ``From_'' line). <bf/MMDF/. This is a variant of the <em/mbox/ format. Each message is surrounded by lines containing ``^A^A^A^A'' (four control-A's). <bf/MH/. A radical departure from <em/mbox/ and <em/MMDF/, a mailbox consists of a directory and each message is stored in a separate file. The filename indicates the message number (however, this is may not correspond to the message number Mutt displays). Deleted messages are renamed with a comma (,) prepended to the filename. <bf/Note:/ Mutt detects this type of mailbox by looking for either <tt/.mh_sequences/ or <tt/.xmhcache/ (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH mailboxes). Mutt does not update these files, yet. <bf/Maildir/. The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a replacement for sendmail). Similar to <em/MH/, except that it adds three subdirectories of the mailbox: <em/tmp/, <em/new/ and <em/cur/. Filenames for the messages are chosen in such a way they are unique, even when two programs are writing the mailbox over NFS, which means that no file locking is needed. <sect1>Mailbox Shortcuts<label id="shortcuts"> There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes. These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox path. <itemize> <item>! -- refers to your <ref id="spoolfile" name="$spool"> (incoming) mailbox <item>> -- refers to your <ref id="mbox" name="$mbox"> file <item>< -- refers to your <ref id="record" name="$record"> file <item>- -- refers to the file you've last visited <item>˜ -- refers to your home directory <item>= or + -- refers to your <ref id="folder" name="$folder"> directory </itemize> <sect1>Handling Mailing Lists<label id="using_lists"> Mutt has a few configuration options that make dealing with large amounts of mail easier. The first thing you must do is to let Mutt know what addresses you consider to be mailing lists (technically this does not have to be a mailing list, but that is what it is most often used for). This is accomplished through the use of the <ref id="lists" name="lists"> command in your muttrc. Now that Mutt knows what your mailing lists are, it can do several things, the first of which is the ability to show the list name in the <em/index/ menu display. This is useful to distinguish between personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format"> variable, the escape ``%L'' will return the string ``To <list>'' when ``list'' appears in the ``To'' field, and ``Cc <list>'' when it appears in the ``Cc'' field (otherwise it returns the name of the author). Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the author of the message they are reply to from the list, resulting in two or more copies being sent to that person. The ``list-reply'' function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the <em/index/ menu and <em/pager/, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the mailing list addresses instead of all recipients. The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply-To'' field. Mutt uses the <ref id="reply_to" name="$reply_to"> variable to help decide which address to use. If set, you will be prompted as to whether or not you would like to use the address given in the ``Reply-To'' field, or reply directly to the address given in the ``From'' field. When unset, the ``Reply-To'' field will be used when present. Lastly, Mutt has the ability to <ref id="sort" name="sort"> the mailbox into <ref id="threads" name="threads">. A thread is a group of messages which all relate to the same subject. This is usually organized into a tree-like structure where a message and all of its replies are represented graphically. If you've ever used a threaded news client, this is the same concept. It makes dealing with large volume mailing lists easier because you can easily delete uninteresting threads and quickly find topics of value. <sect1>Delivery Status Notification (DSN) Support RFC1894 defines a set of MIME content types for relaying information about the status of electronic mail messages. These can be thought of as ``return receipts.'' Berkeley sendmail 8.8.x currently has some command line options in which the mail client can make requests as to what type of status messages should be returned. To support this, there are two variables. <ref id="dsn_notify" name="$dsn_notify"> is used to request receipts for different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.). <ref id="dsn_return" name="$dsn_return"> requests how much of your message should be returned with the receipt (headers or full message). Refer to the man page on sendmail for more details on DSN. <sect1>POP3 Support (OPTIONAL) If Mutt was compiled with POP3 support (by running the <em/configure/ script with the <em/--enable-pop/ flag), it has the ability to fetch your mail from a remote server for local browsing. When you invoke the <em/fetch-mail/ function (default: G), Mutt attempts to connect to <ref id="pop_host" name="pop_host"> and authenticate by logging in as <ref id="pop_user" name="pop_user">. After the connection is established, you will be prompted for your password on the remote system. Once you have been authenticated, Mutt will fetch all your new mail and place it in the local <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile">. After this point, Mutt runs exactly as if the mail had always been local. <bf/Note:/ The POP3 support is there only for convenience, and it's rather limited. If you need more functionality you should consider using a specialized program, such as <htmlurl url="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/fetchmail" name="fetchmail"> <sect>Mutt's MIME Support Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt the premier text-mode MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards wherever possible. When configuring Mutt for MIME, there are two extra types of configuration files which Mutt uses. One is the <tt/mime.types/ file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to IANA MIME types. The other is the <tt/mailcap/ file, which specifies the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types. <sect1>Using MIME in Mutt There are three areas/menus in Mutt which deal with MIME, they are the pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose menu. <sect2>Viewing MIME messages in the pager When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt internally supports a number of MIME types, including <tt>text/plain, text/enriched, message/rfc822, and message/news</tt>. In addition, the export controlled version of Mutt recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types, including PGP/MIME and application/pgp. Mutt will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them. These lines are of the form: <tscreen><verb> [-- Attachment #1: Description --] [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --] </verb></tscreen> Where the <tt/Description/ is the description or filename given for the attachment, and the <tt/Encoding/ is one of <tt>7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</tt>. If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like: <tscreen><verb> [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --] </verb></tscreen> <sect2>The Attachment Menu<label id="attach_menu"> The default binding for <tt/view-attachments/ is `v', which displays the attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list of the attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can save, print, pipe, and view attachments. You can apply these operations to a group of attachments at once, by tagging the attachments and by using the ``tag-prefix'' operator. You can also reply to the current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or the attachments tagged) will be quoted in your reply. You can view attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer definition. See the help on the attachment menu for more information. <sect2>The Compose Menu The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy, filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a list of tagged attachments. You can also modifying the attachment information, notably the type, encoding and description. Attachments appear as follows: <verb> - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description> 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description> </verb> The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending the message. It can be toggled with the <tt/toggle-unlink/ command (default: u). The next field is the MIME content-type, and can be changed with the <tt/edit-type/ command (default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment, which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit links. It can be changed with the <tt/edit-encoding/ command (default: ^E). The next field is the size of the attachment, rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename, which can be changed with the <tt/rename-file/ command (default: R). The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be changed with the <tt/edit-description/ command (default: d). <sect1>MIME Type configuration with <tt/mime.types/ When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your personal mime.types file at <tt>${HOME}/.mime.types</tt>, and then the system mime.types file at <tt>SHAREDIR/mime.types</tt>. <tt/SHAREDIR/ is defined at compilation time, and can be determined by typing <tt/mutt -v/ from the command line. The mime.types file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space separated list of extensions. For example: <tscreen><verb> application/postscript ps eps application/pgp pgp audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff </verb></tscreen> A sample <tt/mime.types/ file comes with the Mutt distribution, and should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use. If Mutt can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary information, Mutt will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it as <tt>text/plain</tt>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt will mark it as <tt>application/octect-stream</tt>. You can change the MIME type that Mutt assigns to an attachment by using the <tt/edit-type/ command from the compose menu (default: ^T). When typing in the MIME type, Mutt requires that major type be one of the 5 types: application, text, image, video, or audio. If you attempt to use a different major type, Mutt will abort the change. <sect1>MIME Viewer configuration with <tt/mailcap/ Mutt supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format is commonly refered to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to use this format include Netscape, MosaicX, lynx and metamail. In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt can not handle internally, Mutt parses a series of external configuration files to find an external handler. The default search string for these files is a colon delimited list set to <tscreen><verb> ${HOME}/.mailcap:SHAREDIR/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap </verb></tscreen> where <tt/$HOME/ is your home directory and <tt/SHAREDIR/ is the shared directory defined at compile time (visible from <tt/mutt -v/). In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file, usually as <tt>/usr/local/etc/mailcap</tt>, which contains some baseline entries. <sect2>The Basics of the mailcap file A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank, or definitions. A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want. A blank line is blank. A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is divided by a semicolon ';' character. The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype method. For example, <tt>text/plain, text/html, image/gif, </tt> etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for wildcards, one using the special '*' subtype, the other is the implicit wild, where you only include the major type. For example, <tt>image/*</tt>, or <tt>video,</tt> will match all image types and video types, respectively. The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change this behaviour by using %s as a parameter to your view command. This will cause Mutt to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt will turn over the terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time Mutt will remove the temporary file if it exists. So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the external pager more on stdin: <tscreen><verb> text/plain; more </verb></tscreen> Or, you could send the message as a file: <tscreen><verb> text/plain; more %s </verb></tscreen> Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html message: <tscreen><verb> text/html; lynx %s </verb></tscreen> In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you must use the %s syntax. <bf/Note:/ Some older versions of lynx contain a bug where they will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will find the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to continously spawn itself to view the object. On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you just want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can use: <tscreen><verb> text/html; lynx -dump %s | more </verb></tscreen> Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on all other text formats, then you would use the following: <tscreen><verb> text/html; lynx %s text/*; more </verb></tscreen> This is the simplest form of a mailcap file. <sect2>Advanced mailcap Usage <sect3>Optional Fields In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options. Mutt recognizes the following optional fields: <descrip> <tag/copiousoutput/ This flag tells Mutt that the command passes possibly large amounts of text on stdout. This causes Mutt to invoke a pager (either the internal pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt assumes that the command is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <tt>more</tt> in the <tt>lynx -dump</tt> example in the Basic section: <tscreen><verb> text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput </verb></tscreen> This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain and Mutt will use your standard pager to display the results. <tag/needsterminal/ Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview">, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting of the <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> variable or not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, Mutt will use <ref id="wait_key" name="$wait_key"> and the exit status of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt you for a key. <tag>compose=<command></tag> Mutt recognizes this flag, but doesn't currently use it, instead calling the edit command to create messages instead. <tag>print=<command></tag> This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus. <tag>edit=<command></tag> This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose new attachments. Mutt will default to the defined editor for text attachmments. <tag>nametemplate=<template></tag> This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the command fields. Certain programs will require a certain file extension, for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance, lynx will only interpret a file as <tt>text/html</tt> if the file ends in <tt/.html/. So, you would specify lynx as a <tt>text/html</tt> viewer with a line in the mailcap file like: <tscreen><verb> text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html </verb></tscreen> <tag>test=<command></tag> This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap entry should be used. The command is defined with the command expansion rules defined in the next section. If the command returns 0, then the test passed, and Mutt uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero, then the test failed, and Mutt continues searching for the right entry. <bf/Note:/ the content-type must match before Mutt performs the test. For example: <tscreen><verb> text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX text/html; lynx %s </verb></tscreen> In this example, Mutt will run the program RunningX which will return 0 if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it isn't. If RunningX returns 0, then Mutt will call netscape to display the text/html object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt will go on to the next entry and use lynx to display the text/html object. </descrip> <sect3>Search Order When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt will search for the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are attempting to print an <tt>image/gif</tt>, and you have the following entries in your mailcap file, Mutt will search for an entry with the print command: <tscreen><verb> image/*; xv %s image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \ nametemplate=%s.gif </verb></tscreen> Mutt will skip the <tt>image/*</tt> entry and use the <tt>image/gif</tt> entry with the print command. In addition, you can use this with <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview"> to denote two commands for viewing an attachment, one to be viewed automatically, the other to be viewed interactively from the attachment menu. In addition, you can then use the test feature to determine which viewer to use interactively depending on your environment. <tscreen><verb> text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput </verb></tscreen> For <ref id="auto_view" name="Autoview">, Mutt will choose the third entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the first entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt will use the second entry for interactive viewing. <sect3>Command Expansion The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the <tt>/bin/sh</tt> shell using the system() function. Before the command is passed to <tt>/bin/sh -c</tt>, it is parsed to expand various special parameters with information from Mutt. The keywords Mutt expands are: <descrip> <tag/%s/ As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded to a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing program should place the results of composition. In addition, the use of this keyword causes Mutt to not pass the body of the message to the view/print/edit program on stdin. <tag/%t/ Mutt will expand %t to the text representation of the content type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the mailcap definition line, ie <tt>text/html</tt> or <tt>image/gif</tt>. <tag>%{<parameter>}</tag> Mutt will expand this to the value of the specified parameter from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if Your mail message contains: <tscreen><verb> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 </verb></tscreen> then Mutt will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn an xterm using the right charset to view the message. <tag>∖%</tag> This will be replaced by a % </descrip> Mutt does not currently support the %F and %n keywords specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt. <sect2>Example mailcap files This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard: <code> # I'm always running X :) video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null image/*; xv %s > /dev/null # I'm always running netscape (if my computer had more memory, maybe) text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)' </code> This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples: <code> # Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup, # send that to /dev/null so I don't see it video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null # Send html to a running netscape by remote text/html; netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningNetscape # If I'm not running netscape but I am running X, start netscape on the # object text/html; netscape %s; test=RunningX # Else use lynx to view it as text text/html; lynx %s # This version would convert the text/html to text/plain text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput # enriched.sh converts text/enriched to text/html and then uses # lynx -dump to convert it to text/plain text/enriched; enriched.sh ; copiousoutput # I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s # Netscape adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal # Use xv to view images if I'm running X # In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor # for images image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; \ edit=xpaint %s # Convert images to text using the netpbm tools image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput # Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box application/ms-excel; open.pl %s </code> <sect1>MIME Autoview<label id="auto_view"> In addition to explicitly telling Mutt to view an attachment with the MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt has support for automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager. To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the <tt/copiousoutput/ option to denote that it is non-interactive. Usually, you also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text representation which you can view in the pager. You then use the <tt/auto_view/ muttrc command to list the content-types that you wish to view automatically. For instance, if you set auto_view to: <tscreen><verb> auto_view text/html text/enriched application/x-gunzip application/postscript image/gif application/x-tar-gz </verb></tscreen> Mutt could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view attachmments of these types. <tscreen><verb> text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html text/enriched; enriched.sh ; copiousoutput image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput </verb></tscreen> <sect>Reference <sect1>Command line options<label id="commandline"> Running <tt/mutt/ with no arguments will make Mutt attempt to read your spool mailbox. However, it is possible to read other mailboxes and to send messages from the command line as well. <tscreen><verb> -a attach a file to a message -c specify a carbon-copy (Cc) address -F specify an alternate file to read initialization commands -f specify a mailbox to load -h print help on command line options -H specify a draft file from which to read a header and body -i specify a file to include in a message composition -n do not read the system Muttrc -m specify a default mailbox type -p recall a postponed message -R open mailbox in read-only mode -s specify a subject (enclose in quotes if it contains spaces) -v show version number and compile-time definitions -x simulate the mailx(1) compose mode -y show a menu containing the files specified by the mailboxes command -z exit immediately if there are no messages in the mailbox -Z open the first folder with new message,exit immediately if none </verb></tscreen> To read messages in a mailbox <tt/mutt/ [ -nz ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -m <em/type/ ] [ -f <em/mailbox/ ] To compose a new message <tt/mutt/ [ -n ] [ -F <em/muttrc/ ] [ -a <em/file/ ] [ -c <em/address/ ] [ -i <em/filename/ ] [ -s <em/subject/ ] <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ] Mutt also supports a ``batch'' mode to send prepared messages. Simply redirect input from the file you wish to send. For example, <tt>mutt -s &dquot;data set for run #2&dquot; professor@bigschool.edu < ˜/run2.dat</tt> This command will send a message to ``professor@bigschool.edu'' with a subject of ``data set for run #2''. In the body of the message will be the contents of the file ``˜/run2.dat''. <sect1>Configuration Commands<label id="commands"> The following are the commands understood by mutt. <itemize> <item> <tt><ref id="alias" name="alias"></tt> <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="alias" name="unalias"></tt> <em/key/ <em/address/ [ , <em/address/, ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="auto_view" name="auto_view"></tt> <em/mimetype/ [ <em/mimetype/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="bind" name="bind"></tt> <em/map/ <em/key/ <em/function/ <item> <tt><ref id="color" name="color"></tt> <em/object/ <em/foreground/ <em/background/ [ <em/regexp/ ] <item> <tt><ref id="folder-hook" name="folder-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/command/ <item> <tt><ref id="ignore" name="ignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="ignore" name="unignore"></tt> <em/pattern/ [ <em/pattern/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="hdr_order" name="hdr_order"></tt> <em/header/ [ <em/header/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="lists" name="lists"></tt> <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="lists" name="unlists"></tt> <em/address/ [ <em/address/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="macro" name="macro"></tt> <em/menu/ <em/key/ <em/sequence/ <item> <tt><ref id="mailboxes" name="mailboxes"></tt> <em/filename/ [ <em/filename/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="color" name="mono"></tt> <em/object attribute/ [ <em/regexp/ ] <item> <tt><ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook"></tt> <em/pattern/ <em/mailbox/ <item> <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"></tt> <em/string/ <item> <tt><ref id="my_hdr" name="unmy_hdr"></tt> <em/field/ [ <em/field/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="push" name="push"></tt> <em/string/ <item> <tt><ref id="save-hook" name="save-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/filename/ <item> <tt><ref id="send-hook" name="send-hook"></tt> <em/regexp/ <em/command/ <item> <tt><ref id="set" name="set"></tt> [no|inv]<em/variable/[=<em/value/] [ <em/variable/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="set" name="toggle"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="set" name="unset"></tt> <em/variable/ [<em/variable/ ... ] <item> <tt><ref id="source" name="source"></tt> <em/filename/ </itemize> <sect1>Configuration variables<label id="variables"> <sect2>abort_nosubject<label id="abort_nosubject"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-yes If set to <em/yes/, when composing messages and no subject is given at the subject prompt, composition will be aborted. If set to <em/no/, composing messages with no subject given at the subject prompt will never be aborted. <sect2>abort_unmodified<label id="abort_unmodified"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: yes If set to <em/yes/, composition will automatically abort after editing the message body if no changes are made to the file (this check only happens after the <em/first/ edit of the file). When set to <em/no/, composition will never be aborted. <sect2>alias_file<label id="alias_file"> Type: string<newline> Default: ˜/.muttrc The default file in which to save aliases created by the <ref id="create-alias" name="create-alias"> function. <bf/Note:/ Mutt will not automatically source this file; you must explicitly use the <ref id="source" name="source"> command for it to be executed. <sect2>allow_8bit Type: boolean<newline> Default: set Controls whether 8-bit data is converted to 7-bit using either Quoted-Printable or Base64 encoding when sending mail. <sect2>alternates<label id="alternates"> Type: string<newline> Default: none A regexp that allows you to specify <em/alternate/ addresses where you receive mail. This affects Mutt's idea about messages from you and addressed to you. <sect2>arrow_cursor<label id="arrow_cursor"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, an arrow (``->'') will be used to indicate the current entry in menus instead of hiliting the whole line. On slow network or modem links this will make response faster because there is less that has to be redrawn on the screen when moving to the next or previous entries in the menu. <sect2>ascii_chars<label id="ascii_chars"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, Mutt will use plain ASCII characters when displaying thread and attachment trees, instead of the default <em/ACS/ characters. <sect2>askbcc<label id="askbcc"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, Mutt will prompt you for blind-carbon-copy (Bcc) recipients before editing an outgoing message. <sect2>askcc<label id="askcc"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, Mutt will prompt you for carbon-copy (Cc) recipients before editing the body of an outgoing message. <sect2>attach_sep<label id="attach_sep"> Type: string<newline> Default: newline The separator to add between attachments when piping or saving a list of tagged attachments to an external Unix command. <sect2>attach_split<label id="attach_split"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set Used in connection with the <em/pipe-entry/ and <em/save-entry/ commands and the ``tag-prefix'' operator in the <ref id="attach_menu" name="attachment"> menu. If this variable is unset, when piping or saving a list of tagged attachments Mutt will concatenate the attachments and will pipe or save them as a single file. The <ref id="attach_sep" name="attach_sep"> separator will be added after each message. When set, Mutt will pipe or save the messages one by one. In both cases the the messages are processed in the displayed order. <sect2>attribution<label id="attribution"> Type: format string<newline> Default: &dquot;On %d, %n wrote:&dquot; This is the string that will precede a message which has been included in a reply. For a full listing of defined escape sequences see the section on <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format">. <sect2>autoedit<label id="autoedit"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, Mutt will skip the initial send-menu and allow you to immediately begin editing the body of your message when replying to another message. The send-menu may still be accessed once you have finished editing the body of your message. If the <ref id="edit_hdrs" name="$edit_hdrs"> variable is also set, the initial prompts in the send-menu are always skipped, even when composing a new message. <sect2>auto_tag<label id="auto_tag"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, functions in the <em/index/ menu which affect a message will be applied to all tagged messages (if there are any). When unset, you must first use the tag-prefix function (default: ";") to make the next function apply to all tagged messages. <sect2>beep<label id="beep"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When this variable is set, mutt will beep when an error occurs. <sect2>charset<label id="charset"> Type: string<newline> Default: iso-8859-1 Character set your terminal uses to display and enter textual data. This information is required to properly label outgoing messages which contain 8-bit characters so that receiving parties can display your messages in the correct character set. <sect2>check_new<label id="check_new"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set <bf/Note:/ this option only affects <em/maildir/ and <em/MH/ style mailboxes. When <em/set/, Mutt will check for new mail delivered while the mailbox is open. Especially with MH mailboxes, this operation can take quite some time since it involves scanning the directory and checking each file to see if it has already been looked at. If <em/check_new/ is <em/unset/, no check for new mail is performed while the mailbox is open. <sect2>confirmappend<label id="confirmappend"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when appending messages to an existing mailbox. <sect2>confirmcreate<label id="confirmcreate"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when saving messages to a mailbox which does not yet exist before creating it. <sect2>copy<label id="copy"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: yes This variable controls whether or not copies of your outgoing messages will be saved for later references. Also see <ref id="record" name="record">, <ref id="save_name" name="save_name">, <ref id="force_name" name="force_name"> and <ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook">. <sect2>date_format<label id="date_format"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot;!%a, %b %d, %Y at %I:%M:%S%p %Z&dquot; This variable controls the format of the date printed by the ``%d'' sequence in <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format">. This is passed to the <em/strftime/ call to process the date. See the man page for <em/strftime(3)/ for the proper syntax. Unless the first character in the string is a bang (``!''), the month and week day names are expanded according to the locale specified in the variable <ref id="locale" name="locale">. If the first character in the string is a bang, the bang is discarded, and the month and week day names in the rest of the string are expanded in the <em/C/ locale (that is in US English). <sect2>delete Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-yes Controls whether or not messages are really deleted when closing or synchronizing a mailbox. If set to <em/yes/, messages marked for deleting will automatically be purged without prompting. If set to <em/no/, messages marked for deletion will be kept in the mailbox. <sect2>dsn_notify<label id="dsn_notify"> Type: string<newline> Default: none <bf/Note:/ you should not enable this unless you are using Sendmail 8.8.x or greater. This variable sets the request for when notification is returned. The string consists of a comma separated list (no spaces!) of one or more of the following: <em/never/, to never request notification, <em/failure/, to request notification on transmission failure, <em/delay/, to be notified of message delays, <em/success/, to be notified of successful transmission. Example: <tt/set dsn_notify=&dquot;failure,delay&dquot;/ <sect2>dsn_return<label id="dsn_return"> Type: string Default: none <bf/Note:/ you should not enable this unless you are using Sendmail 8.8.x or greater. This variable controls how much of your message is returned in DSN messages. It may be set to either <em/hdrs/ to return just the message header, or <em/full/ to return the full message. Example: <tt/set dsn_return=hdrs/ <sect2>edit_hdrs<label id="edit_hdrs"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset This option allows you to edit the header of your outgoing messages along with the body of your message. Also see <ref id="edit_headers" name="edit_headers">. <sect2>editor<label id="editor"> Type: String<newline> Default: value of environment variable $VISUAL, $EDITOR, or &dquot;vi&dquot; This variable specifies which editor to use when composing messages. <sect2>escape<label id="escape"> Type: string<newline> Default: ˜ Escape character to use for functions in the builtin editor. <sect2>fast_reply<label id="fast_reply"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, the initial prompt for recipients and subject are skipped when replying to messages, and the initial prompt for subject is skipped when forwarding messages. <bf/Note:/ this variable has no effect when the <ref id="autoedit" name="$autoedit"> variable is set. <sect2>fcc_attach<label id="fcc_attach"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set This variable controls whether or not attachments on outgoing messages are saved along with the main body of your message. <sect2>folder<label id="folder"> Type: String<newline> Default: ˜/Mail Specifies the default location of your mailboxes. A `+' or `=' at the beginning of a pathname will be expanded to the value of this variable. Note that if you change this variable from the default value you need to make sure that the assignment occurs <em/before/ you use `+' or `=' for any other variables since expansion takes place during the `set' command. <sect2>force_name<label id="force_name"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset This variable is similar to <ref id="save_name" name="$save_name">, except that Mutt will store a copy of your outgoing message by the username of the address you are sending to even if that mailbox does not exist. Also see the <ref id="record" name="$record"> variable. <sect2>forw_decode<label id="forw_decode"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, forwarded messages will have their header weeded, and will be converted to plain text (similar to what you seen when viewing a message) when included in your new message. Also see <ref id="mime_fwd" name="mime_fwd">. <sect2>forw_format<label id="forw_format"> Type: format string<newline> Default: "[%a: %s]" This variable controls the default subject when forwarding a message. It uses the same format sequences as the <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format"> variable. <sect2>forw_quote<label id="forw_quote"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When <em/set/ forwarded messages included in the main body of the message (when <ref id="mime_fwd" name="mime_fwd"> is <em/unset/) will be quoted using <ref id="indent_str" name="indent_str">. <sect2>hdr_format<label id="hdr_format"> Type: format string<newline> Default: &dquot;%4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15L (%4l) %s&dquot; This variable allows you to customize the message index display to your personal taste. ``Format strings'' are similar to the strings used in the ``C'' function <tt/printf/ to format output (see the man page for more detail). The following sequences are defined in Mutt: <tscreen><verb> %a address of the author %c number of characters (bytes) in the message %C current message number %d date and time of the message in the format specified by ``date_format'' %f entire From: line (address + real name) %F author name, or recipient name if the message is from you %i message-id of the current message %l number of lines in the message %L list-from function %m total number of message in the mailbox %n author's real name (or address if missing) %s subject of the message %S status of the message (N/D/!/*/r) %t `to:' field (recipients) %T the appropriate character from the $<ref id="to_chars" name="to_chars"> string %u user (login) name of the author %Z message status flags %{fmt} the date and time of the message is converted to sender's time zone, and ``fmt'' is expanded by the system call ``strftime''; a leading bang disables locales %[fmt] the date and time of the message is converted to the local time zone, and ``fmt'' is expanded by the system call ``strftime''; a leading bang disables locales %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with character "X" %|X pad to the end of the line with character "X" </verb></tscreen> <sect2>hdrs<label id="hdrs"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When unset, the header fields normally added by the <ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"> command are not created. This variable <em/must/ be unset before composing a new message or replying in order to take effect. If set, the user defined header fields are added to every new message (except when sending in batch mode). <sect2>header Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, this variable causes Mutt to include the <em/full/ header of the message you are replying to into the edit buffer. <sect2>help<label id="help"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When set, help lines describing the bindings for the major functions provided by each menu are displayed on the first line of the screen. <bf/Note:/ The binding will not be displayed correctly if the function is bound to a sequence rather than a single keystroke. Also, the help line may not be updated if a binding is changed while Mutt is running. Since this variable is primarily aimed at new users, neither of these should present a major problem. <sect2>history<label id="history"> Type: number<newline> Default: 10 This variable controls the size (in number of strings remembered) of the string history buffer. The buffer is cleared each time the variable is set. <sect2>hostname<label id="hostname"> Type: string<newline> Default: varies Specifies the hostname to use after the ``@'' in local e-mail addresses. This overrides the compile time definition obtained from /etc/resolv.conf. <sect2>ignore_list_reply_to<label id="ignore_list_reply_to"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Affects the behaviour of the <em/reply/ function when replying to messages from mailing lists. When set, if the ``Reply-To:'' field is set to the same value as the ``To:'' field, Mutt assumes that the ``Reply-To:'' field was set by the mailing list to automate responses to the list, and will ignore this field. To direct a response to the mailing list when this option is set, use the <em/list-reply/ function; <em/group-reply/ will reply to both the sender and the list. <sect2>in_reply_to Type: format string<newline> Default: &dquot;%i; from \&dquot;%n\&dquot; on %{!%a, %b %d, %Y at %I:%M:%S%p}&dquot; This specifies the format of the <tt/In-Reply-To:/ header field added when replying to a message. For a full listing of defined escape sequences see the section on <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format">. <sect2>include<label id="include"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-yes Controls whether or not a copy of the message(s) you are replying to is included in your reply. <sect2>indent_str<label id="indent_str"> Type: format string<newline> Default: "> " Specifies the string to prepend to each line of text quoted in a message to which you are replying. You are strongly encouraged not to change this value, as it tends to agitate the more fanatical netizens. <sect2>ispell<label id="ispell"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot;ispell&dquot; How to invoke ispell (GNU's spell-checking software). <sect2>locale<label id="locale"> Type: string<newline> Default: "C" The locale used by <em/strftime(3)/ to format dates. Legal values are the strings your system accepts for the locale variable <em/LC_TIME/. <sect2>mailcap_path<label id="mailcap_path"> Type: string<newline> Default: $MAILCAPS or ˜/.mailcap:/usr/local/share/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap This variable specifies which files took consult when attempting to display MIME bodies not directly supported by Mutt. <sect2>mark_old Type: Boolean<newline> Default: set Controls whether or not Mutt makes the distinction between <em/new/ messages and <em/old/ <bf/unread/ messages. By default, Mutt will mark new messages as old if you exit a mailbox without reading them. The next time you start Mutt, the messages will show up with an "O" next to them in the index menu, indicating that they are old. In order to make Mutt treat all unread messages as new only, you can unset this variable. <sect2>markers<label id="markers"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set Controls the display of wrapped lines in the internal pager. If set, a ``+'' marker is displayed at the beginning of wrapped lines. Also see the <ref id="smart_wrap" name="$smart_wrap"> variable. <sect2>mask<label id="mask"> Type: string<newline> Default: "^(\.\.$|[^.])" A regular expression used in the file browser. Files whose names don't match this mask will not be shown. <sect2>mbox<label id="mbox"> Type: String<newline> Default: +inbox This specifies the folder into which read mail in your <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile"> folder will be appended. <sect2>mbox_type<label id="mbox_type"> Type: String<newline> Default: mbox The default mailbox type used when creating new folders. May be any of mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. <sect2>metoo Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If unset, Mutt will remove your address from the list of recipients when replying to a message. If you are replying to a message sent by you, Mutt will also assume that you want to reply to the recipients of that message rather than to yourself. <sect2>menu_scroll<label id="menu_scroll"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When <em/set/, menus will be scrolled up or down one line when you attempt to move across a screen boundary. If <em/unset/, the screen is cleared and the next or previous page of the menu is displayed (useful for slow links to avoid many redraws). <sect2>mime_fwd<label id="mime_fwd"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, the message you are forwarding will be attached as a separate MIME part instead of included in the main body of the message. This is useful for forwarding MIME messages so the receiver can properly view the message. Also see <ref id="forw_decode" name="forw_decode">. <sect2>move Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-no Controls whether you will be asked to confirm moving read messages from your spool mailbox to your <ref id="mbox" name="$mbox"> mailbox, or as a result of a <ref id="mbox-hook" name="mbox-hook"> command. <sect2>msg_format<label id="msg_format"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot%s&dquot; This is the string displayed in the <ref id="attach_menu" name="attachment"> menu for attachments of type message/rfc822. For a full listing of defined escape sequences see the section on <ref id="hdr_format" name="hdr_format">. <sect2>pager<label id="pager"> Type: string<newline> Default: builtin This variable specifies which pager you would like to use to view messages. <tt/builtin/ means to use the builtin pager, otherwise this variable should specify the pathname of the external pager you would like to use. <sect2>pager_context<label id="pager_context"> Type: number<newline> Default: 0 This variable controls the number of lines of context that are given when displaying the next or previous page in the internal pager. By default, Mutt will display the line after the last one on the screen at the top of the next page (0 lines of context). <sect2>pager_format<label id="pager_format"> Type: format string<newline> Default: &dquot;-%S- %C/%m: %-20.20n %s&dquot; This variable controls the format of the one-line message ``status'' displayed before each message in either the internal or an external pager. The valid sequences are listed in the <ref id="hdr_format" name="hdr_format"> section. <sect2>pager_index_lines<label id="pager_index_lines"> Type: number<newline> Default: 0 Determines the number of lines of a mini-index which is shown when in the pager. The current message, unless near the top or bottom of the folder, will be roughly one third of the way down this mini-index, giving the reader the context of a few messages before and after the message. This is useful, for example, to determine how many messages remain to be read in the current thread. One of the lines is reserved for the status bar from the index, so a <em/pager_index_lines/ of 6 will only show 5 lines of the actual index. A value of 0 results in no index being shown. If the number of messages in the current folder is less than <em/pager_index_lines/, then the index will only use as many lines as it needs. <sect2>pager_stop<label id="pager_stop"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, the internal-pager will <bf/not/ move to the next message when you are at the end of a message and invoke the <em/next-page/ function. <sect2>pgp<label id="pgp"> Type: string<newline> Default: system dependent This variable allows you to override the compile time definition of where the PGP binary resides on your system. <sect2>pgp_autoencrypt<label id="pgp_autoencrypt"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to PGP/MIME encrypt outgoing messages. This is probably only useful in connection to the <em/send-hook/ command. It can be overridden by use of the <em/pgp-menu/, when encryption is not required or signing is requested as well. <sect2>pgp_autosign<label id="pgp_autosign"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to PGP/MIME sign outgoing messages. This can be overridden by use of the <em/pgp-menu/, when signing is not required or encryption is requested as well. <sect2>pgp_encryptself<label id="pgp_encryptself"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set If set, the PGP <em/+encrypttoself/ flag is used when encrypting messages. <sect2>pgp_pubring<label id="pgp_pubring"> Type: string<newline> Default: $PGPPATH/pubring.pgp or ˜/.pgp/pubring.pgp if $PGPPATH isn't set. Points to the PGP public keyring. <sect2>pgp_replyencrypt<label id="pgp_replyencrypt"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, automatically PGP encrypt replies to messages which are encrypted. <sect2>pgp_replysign<label id="pgp_replysign"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, automatically PGP sign replies to messages which are signed. <sect2>pgp_secring<label id="pgp_secring"> Type: string<newline> Default: $PGPPATH/secring.pgp or ˜/.pgp/secring.pgp if $PGPPATH isn't set. Points to the PGP secret keyring. <sect2>pgp_sign_as<label id="pgp_sign_as"> Type: string<newline> Default: unset If you have more than one key pair, this option allows you to specify which of your private keys to use. It is recommended that you use the keyid form to specify your key (e.g., ``0xABCDEFGH''). <sect2>pgp_strict_enc<label id="pgp_strict_enc"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, Mutt will automatically encode PGP/MIME signed messages as <em/quoted-printable/. <sect2>pgp_timeout<label id="pgp_timeout"> Type: number<newline> Default: 500 The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase will expire if not used. <sect2>pipe_decode<label id="pipe_decode"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Used in connection with the <em/pipe-message/ command. When unset, Mutt will pipe the messages without any preprocessing. When set, Mutt will weed headers and will attempt to PGP/MIME decode the messages first. <sect2>pipe_sep<label id="pipe_sep"> Type: string<newline> Default: newline The separator to add between messages when piping a list of tagged messages to an external Unix command. <sect2>pipe_split<label id="pipe_split"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Used in connection with the <em/pipe-message/ command and the ``tag-prefix'' operator. If this variable is unset, when piping a list of tagged messages Mutt will concatenate the messages and will pipe them as a single folder. When set, Mutt will pipe the messages one by one. In both cases the the messages are piped in the current sorted order, and the <ref id="pipe_sep" name="$pipe_sep"> separator is added after each message. <sect2>pop_delete<label id="pop_delete"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, Mutt will delete successfully downloaded messages from the POP server when using the fetch-mail function. When unset, Mutt will download messages but also leave them on the POP server. <sect2>pop_host<label id="pop_host"> Type: string<newline> Default: none The name or address of your POP3 server. <sect2>pop_pass<label id="pop_pass"> Type: string<newline> Default: unset Specifies the password for you POP account. If unset, Mutt will prompt you for your password when you invoke the fetch-mail function. <bf/Warning/: you should only use this option when you are on a fairly secure machine, because the superuser can read your muttrc even if you are the only one who can read the file. <sect2>pop_port<label id="pop_port"> Type: number<newline> Default: 110 This variable specifies which port your POP server is listening on. <sect2>pop_user<label id="pop_user"> Type: string<newline> Default: login name on local system Your login name on the POP3 server. <sect2>post_indent_str<label id="post_indent_str"> Type: format string<newline> Default: none Similar to the <ref id="attribution" name="$attribution"> variable, Mutt will append this string after the inclusion of a message which is being replied to. <sect2>postpone<label id="postpone"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-yes Controls whether or not messages are saved in the <ref id="postponed" name="$postponed"> mailbox when you elect not to send immediately. <sect2>postponed<label id="postponed"> Type: string<newline> Default: ˜/postponed Mutt allows you to indefinitely <ref id="postponing_mail" name="postpone sending a message"> which you are editing. When you choose to postpone a message, Mutt saves it in the folder specified by this variable. Also see the <ref id="postpone" name="$postpone"> variable. <sect2>print Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-no Controls whether or not Mutt asks for confirmation before printing. This is useful for people (like me) who accidentally hit ``p'' often. <sect2>print_cmd<label id="print_cmd"> Type: string<newline> Default: lpr This specifies the command pipe that should be used to print messages. <sect2>prompt_after<label id="prompt_after"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set If you use an <em/external/ <ref id="pager" name="pager">, setting this variable will cause Mutt to prompt you for a command when the pager exits rather than returning to the index menu. If unset, Mutt will return to the index menu when the external pager exits. <sect2>quote_regexp<label id="quote_regexp"> Type: string<newline> Default: "^([ \t]*[>|#:}])+" A regular expression used in the internal-pager to determine quoted sections of text in the body of a message. <bf/Note:/ In order to use the <em/quoted/<bf/x/ patterns in the internal pager, you need to set this to a regular expression that matches <em/exactly/ the quote characters at the beginning of quoted lines. <sect2>read_inc<label id="read_inc"> Type: number<newline> Default: 10 If set to a value greater than 0, Mutt will display which message it is currently on when reading a mailbox. The message is printed after <em/read_inc/ messages have been read (e.g., if set to 25, Mutt will print a message when it reads message 25, and then again when it gets to message 50). This variable is meant to indicate progress when reading large mailboxes which may take some time. When set to 0, only a single message will appear before the reading the mailbox. Also see the <ref id="write_inc" name="$write_inc"> variable. <sect2>read_only<label id="read_only"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, all folders are opened in read-only mode. <sect2>realname<label id="realname"> Type: string<newline> Default: GCOS field from /etc/passwd This variable specifies what "real" or "personal" name should be used when sending messages. <sect2>recall<label id="recall"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-yes Controls whether or not you are prompted to recall postponed messages when composing a new message. Also see <ref id="postponed" name="postponed"> <sect2>record<label id="record"> Type: string<newline> Default: none This specifies the file into which your outgoing messages should be appended. (This is meant as the primary method for saving a copy of your messages, but another way to do this is using the <ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"> command to create a <em/Bcc:/ field with your email address in it.) The value of <em/$record/ is overridden by the <ref id="force_name" name="$force_name"> and <ref id="save_name" name="$save_name"> variables, and the <ref id="fcc-hook" name="fcc-hook"> command. <sect2>references<label id="references"> Type: number<newline> Default: 10 If set to a value greater than 0, Mutt will trim the reference list in the <em/References:/ field to at most that number of entries when replying. If set to 0, all entries are included. <sect2>reply_regexp<label id="reply_regexp"> Type: string<newline> Default: "^(re|aw):[ \t]*" A regular expression used to recognize reply messages when threading and replying. The default value corresponds to the English "Re:" and the German "Aw:". <sect2>reply_to<label id="reply_to"> Type: quadoption<newline> Default: ask-yes If set, Mutt will ask you if you want to use the address listed in the Reply-To: header field when replying to a message. If you answer no, it will use the address in the From: header field instead. This option is useful for reading a mailing list that sets the Reply-To: header field to the list address and you want to send a private message to the author of a message. <sect2>resolve<label id="resolve"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When set, the cursor will be automatically advanced to the next (possibly undeleted) message whenever a command that modifies the current message is executed. <sect2>reverse_alias<label id="reverse_alias"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset This variable controls whether or not Mutt will display the "personal" name from your aliases in the index menu if it finds an alias that matches the message's sender. For example, if you have the following alias: <tscreen><verb> alias juser abd30425@somewhere.net (Joe User) </verb></tscreen> and then you receive mail which contains the following header: <tscreen><verb> From: abd30425@somewhere.net </verb></tscreen> It would be displayed in the index menu as ``Joe User'' instead of ``abd30425@somewhere.net.'' This is useful when the person's e-mail address is not human friendly (like Compu$erve addresses). <sect2>reverse_name<label id="reverse_name"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset It may sometimes arrive that you receive mail to a certain machine, move the messages to another machine, and reply to some the messages from there. If this variable is set, the default <em/From:/ line of the reply messages is built using the address where you received the messages you are replying to. If the variable is unset, the <em/From:/ line will use your address on the current machine. <sect2>save_address<label id="save_address"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, mutt will take the sender's full address when choosing a default folder for saving a mail. If <ref id="save_name" name="save_name"> or <ref id="force_name" name="force_name"> is set too, the selection of the fcc folder will be changed as well. <sect2>save_empty<label id="save_empty"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When unset, mailboxes which contain no saved messages will be removed when closed (the exception is <ref id="spoolfile" name="spoolfile"> which is never removed). If set, mailboxes are never removed. <bf/Note:/ This only applies to mbox and MMDF folders, Mutt does not delete MH and Maildir directories. <sect2>save_name<label id="save_name"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset This variable controls how copies of outgoing messages are saved. When set, a check is made to see if a mailbox specified by the recipient address exists (this is done by searching for a mailbox in the <ref id="folder" name="folder"> directory with the <em/username/ part of the recipient address). If the mailbox exists, the outgoing message will be saved to that mailbox, otherwise the message is saved to the <ref id="record" name="record"> mailbox. Also see the <ref id="force_name" name="$force_name"> variable. <sect2>sendmail<label id="sendmail"> Type: string<newline> Default: /usr/lib/sendmail -t -oi -oem Specifies the program and arguments used to deliver mail sent by Mutt. Mutt expects that the specified program will read the message header for recipients. Also see <ref id="sendmail_bounce" name="sendmail_bounce">. <sect2>sendmail_bounce<label id="sendmail_bounce"> Type: string<newline> Default: /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oem Specifies the program and arguments to use when sending mail with recipients listed on the command line rather than in the message header. This is necessary when bouncing a message where you do not want to deliver the message to the original recipients, but to another address. <sect2>shell<label id="shell"> Type: string<newline> Default: retrieved from passwd file Command to use when spawning a subshell. <sect2>sig_dashes<label id="sig_dashes"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set If set, a line containing ``-- '' will be inserted before your <ref id="signature" name="signature">. It is <bf/strongly/ recommended that you not unset this variable unless your ``signature'' contains just your name. The reason for this is because many software packages use ``-- \n'' to detect your signature. For example, Mutt has the ability to highlight the signature in a different color in the builtin pager. <sect2>signature<label id="signature"> Type: string<newline> Default: ˜/.signature Specifies the filename of your signature, which is appended to all outgoing messages. If the filename ends with a pipe (``|''), it is assumed that filename is a shell command and input should be read from its stdout. <sect2>simple_search<label id="simple_search"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot;˜f %s | ˜s %s&dquot; Specifies how Mutt should expand a simple search into a real search pattern. A simple search is one that does not contain any of the <tt/˜/ operators. See <ref id="searching" name="searching"> for more information on search patterns. For example, if you simply type <tt/joe/ at a search or limit prompt, Mutt will automatically expand it to the value specified by this variable. For the default value it would be: <tt/˜f joe | ˜s joe/ <sect2>smart_wrap<label id="smart_wrap"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set Controls the display of lines longer then the screen width in the internal pager. If set, long lines are wrapped at a word boundary. If unset, lines are simply wrapped at the screen edge. Also see the <ref id="markers" name="$markers"> variable. <sect2>sort<label id="sort"> Type: string<newline> Default: date-sent Specifies how to sort messages in the <em/index/ menu. Valid values are <itemize> <item>date-sent <item>date-received <item>from <item>mailbox-order (unsorted) <item>subject <item>threads </itemize> You may optionally use the <tt/reverse-/ prefix to specify reverse sorting order (example: <tt/set sort=reverse-date-sent/). <sect2>sort_aux<label id="sort_aux"> Type: string<newline> Default: date-sent When sorting by threads, this variable controls how threads are sorted in relation to each other, and how the branches of the thread trees are sorted. This can usefully be set to any value that sort can, except "threads". In that case, mutt wll just use "date-sent". You can also specify the <tt/last-/ prefix. It may be combinde with <tt/reverse-/, but <tt/last-/ must come after <tt/reverse-/. This mutt sort a message against its siblings by which has the last descendant, using the rest of sort_aux as an ordering. For instance, <tt/set sort_aux=last-date-received/ would mean that if a new message is received in a thread, that thread becomes the last one displayed (or the first, if youh have <tt/set sort=reverse-threads/.) <sect2>sort_browser<label id="sort_browser"> Type: string<newline> Specifies how to sort entries in the file browser. By default, the entries are sorted alphabetically. Valid values: <itemize> <item>date <item>alpha (alphabetically) </itemize> You may optionally use the <tt/reverse-/ prefix to specify reverse sorting order (example: <tt/set sort_browser=reverse-date/). <sect2>spoolfile<label id="spoolfile"> Type: string<newline> Default: most likely /var/mail/$USER or /usr/spool/mail/$USER If your spool mailbox is in a non-default place where Mutt cannot find it, you can specify its location with this variable. Mutt will automatically set this variable to the value of the environment variable <tt/$MAIL/ if it is not set. <sect2>sort_re<label id="sort_re"> Type: boolean Default: set This variable is only useful when sorting by threads with <ref id="strict_threads" name="strict_threads"> unset. In that case, it changes the heuristic mutt uses to thread messages by subject. With sort_re set, mutt will only attach a message as the child of another message by subject if the subject of the child message starts with a substring matching the setting of <ref id="reply_regexp" name="reply_regexp">. With sort_re unset, mutt will attach the message whether or not this is the case, as long as the non-<ref id="reply_regexp" name="reply_regexp"> parts of both messages are identical. <sect2>status_chars<label id="status_chars"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot;-*%&dquot; Controls the characters used by the &dquot;%r&dquot; indicator in <ref id="status_format" name="status_format">. The first character is used when the mailbox is unchanged. The second is used when the mailbox has been changed, and it needs to be resynchronized. The third is used if the mailbox is in read-only mode, or if the mailbox will not be written when exiting that mailbox (You can toggle whether to write changes to a mailbox with the toggle-write operation, bound by default to &dquot;%&dquot;). <sect2>status_format<label id="status_format"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot;-%r-Mutt: %f [Msgs:%?M?%M/?%m%?n? New:%n?%?d? Del:%d?%?F? Flag:%F?%?t? Tag:%t?%?p? Post:%p?%?b? Inc:%b? %l]---(%s)%|-&dquot; Controls the format of the status line displayed in the <em/index/ menu. This string is similar to <ref id="hdr_format" name="$hdr_format">, but has its own set of printf()-like sequences: <tscreen><verb> %b number of mailboxes with new mail * %d number of deleted messages * %h local hostname %f the full pathname of the current mailbox %F number of flagged messages * %l size (in bytes) of the current mailbox * %m the number of messages in the mailbox * %M the number of messages shown (i.e., which match the current limit) * %n number of new messages in the mailbox * %p number of postponed messages * %r modified/read-only/won't-write indicator, according to $status_chars %s current sorting mode %t number of tagged messages * %v Mutt version string %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with "X" %|X pad to the end of the line with "X" * = can be optionally printed if nonzero </verb></tscreen> Some of the above sequences can be used to optionally print a string if their value is nonzero. For example, you may only want to see the number of flagged messages if such messages exist, since zero is not particularly meaningful. To optionally print a string based upon one of the above sequences, the following contruct is used <tscreen><verb> %?<sequence_char>?<optional_string>? </verb></tscreen> where <em/sequece_char/ is a character from the table above, and <em/optional_string/ is the string you would like printed if <em/status_char/ is nonzero. <em/optional_string/ <bf/may/ contain other sequence as well as normal text, but you may <bf/not/ nest optional strings. Here is an example illustrating how to optionally print the number of new messages in a mailbox: <tscreen><verb> %?n?%n new messages.? </verb></tscreen> <sect2>status_on_top<label id="status_on_top"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Setting this variable causes the <ref id="status_format" name="status bar"> to be displayed on the first line of the screen rather than near the bottom. <sect2>strict_threads<label id="strict_threads"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset If set, threading will only make use of the ``In-Reply-To'' and ``References'' fields when <ref id="sort" name="sorting"> by message threads. By default, messages with the same subject are grouped together in ``pseudo threads.'' This may not always be desirable, such as in a personal mailbox where you might have several unrelated messages with the subject ``hi'' which will get grouped together. <sect2>suspend<label id="suspend"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When <em/unset/, mutt won't stop when the user presses the terminal's <em/susp/ key, usually ``control-Z''. This is useful if you run mutt inside an xterm using a command like <tt/xterm -e mutt/. <sect2>thorough_search<label id="thorough_search"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset Affects the <em/˜b/ and <em/˜h/ search operations described in section <ref id="searching" name="Searching"> above. If set, the headers and attachments of messages to be searched are decoded before searching. If unset, messages are searched as they appear in the folder. <sect2>tilde<label id="tilde"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset When set, the internal-pager will pad blank lines to the bottom of the screen with a tilde (˜). <sect2>timeout<label id="timeout"> Type: number<newline> Default: 600 This variable controls the <em/number of seconds/ Mutt will wait for a key to be pressed in the main menu before timing out and checking for new mail. A value of zero or less will cause Mutt not to ever time out. <sect2>tmpdir<label id="tmpdir"> Type: string<newline> Default: /tmp This variable allows you to specify where Mutt will place its temporary files needed for displaying and composing messages. <sect2>to_chars<label id="to_chars"> Type: string<newline> Default: &dquot; +TCF&dquot; Controls the character used to indicate mail addressed to you. The first character is the one used when the mail is NOT addressed to your address (default: space). The second is used when you are the only recipient of the message (default: +). The third is when your address appears in the TO header field, but you are not the only recipient of the message (default: T). The fourth character is used when your address is specified in the CC header field, but you are not the only recipient. The fifth character is used to indicate mail that was sent by <em/you/. <sect2>use_8bitmime<label id="use_8bitmime"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: unset <bf/Warning:/ do not set this variable unless you are using a version of sendmail which supports the <tt/-B8BITMIME/ flag (such as sendmail 8.8.x) or you may not be able to send mail. When <em/set/, Mutt will invoke <ref id="sendmail" name="$sendmail"> with the <tt/-B8BITMIME/ flag when sending 8-bit messages to enable ESMTP negotiation. <sect2>use_domain<label id="use_domain"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When set, Mutt will qualify all local addresses (ones without the @host portion) with the value of <ref id="hostname" name="$hostname">. If <em/unset/, no addresses will be qualified. <sect2>use_from<label id="use_from"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set When <em/set/, Mutt will generate the `From:' header field when sending messages. If <em/unset/, no `From:' header field will be generated unless the user explicitly sets one using the <ref id="my_hdr" name="my_hdr"> command. <sect2>use_mailcap<label id="use_mailcap"> Type: quad-option<newline> Default: ask If set to ``yes'', always try to use a mailcap entry to display a MIME part that Mutt can't understand what to do with. If ``ask'', prompt as to whether to display as text or to use a mailcap entry. If ``no'', always view unsupported MIME types as text. <bf/Note:/ For compatibility with <bf/metamail/, Mutt will also look at the environment variable <em/MM_NOASK/. Setting this to <bf/1/ is equivalent to setting <em/use_mailcap/ to ``yes''. Otherwise, the value of <em/MM_NOASK/ is interpreted as a comma-separated list of type names (without white space) for which the corresponding mailcap entries will be used to display MIME parts without prompting the user for confirmation. <sect2>verify_sig<label id="verify_sig"> Type: quad-option<newline> Default: yes If ``yes'', always attempt to verify PGP/MIME signatures. If ``ask'', ask whether or not to verify the signature. If ``no'', never attempt to verify PGP/MIME signatures. <sect2>visual<label id="visual"> Type: string<newline> Default: $VISUAL Specifies the visual editor to invoke when the <em/˜v/ command is given in the builtin editor. <sect2>wait_key<label id="wait_key"> Type: boolean<newline> Default: set Controls whether Mutt will ask you to press a key after <em/shell-escape/, <em/pipe-message/, <em/pipe-entry/, <em/print-message/, and <em/print-entry/ commands. It is also used when viewing attachments with <ref id="auto_view" name="autoview">, provided that the corresponding mailcap entry has a <em/needsterminal/ flag, and the external program is interactive. When set, Mutt will always ask for a key. When unset, Mutt will wait for a key only if the external command returned a non-zero status. <sect2>write_inc<label id="write_inc"> Type: number<newline> Default: 10 When writing a mailbox, a message will be printed every <em/write_inc/ messages to indicate progress. If set to 0, only a single message will be displayed before writing a mailbox. Also see the <ref id="read_inc" name="$read_inc"> variable. <sect1>Functions<label id="functions"> The following is the list of available functions listed by the mapping in which they are available. The default key setting is given, and an explanation of what the function does. The key bindings of these functions can be changed with the <ref name="bind" id="bind"> command. <sect2>generic The <em/generic/ menu is not a real menu, but specifies common functions (such as movement) available in all menus except for <em/pager/ and <em/editor/. Changing settings for this menu will affect the default bindings for all menus (except as noted). <verb> bottom-page L move to the bottom of the page current-bottom not bound move current entry to bottom of page current-middle not bound move current entry to middle of page current-top not bound move current entry to top of page enter-command : enter a muttrc command exit q exit this menu first-entry = move to the first entry half-down ] scroll down 1/2 page half-up [ scroll up 1/2 page help ? this screen jump number jump to an index number last-entry * move to the last entry middle-page M move to the middle of the page next-entry j move to the next entry next-line > scroll down one line next-page z move to the next page previous-entry k move to the previous entry previous-line < scroll up one line previous-page Z move to the previous page refresh ^L clear and redraw the screen select-entry RET select the current entry tag-entry t toggle the tag on the current entry tag-prefix ; apply next command to tagged entries top-page H move to the top of the page </verb> <sect2>index <verb> bounce-message b remail a message to another user change-folder c open a different folder change-folder-readonly ESC c open a different folder in read only mode clear-flag W clear a status flag from a message copy-message C copy a message to a file/mailbox create-alias a create an alias from a message sender decode-copy ESC C decode a message and copy it to a file/mailbox decode-save ESC s decode a message and save it to a file/mailbox delete-message d delete the current entry delete-pattern D delete messages matching a pattern delete-subthread ESC d delete all messages in subthread delete-thread ^D delete all messages in thread display-address @ display full address of sender display-headers h display message with full headers display-message RET display a message exit x exit without saving changes fetch-mail G retrieve mail from POP server flag-message F toggle a message's 'important' flag forget-passphrase ^F wipe PGP passphrase from memory forward-message f forward a message with comments group-reply g reply to all recipients limit l show only messages matching a pattern list-reply L reply to specified mailing list mail m compose a new mail message next-new TAB jump to the next new message next-subthread ESC n jump to the next subthread next-thread ^N jump to the next thread next-undeleted j move to the next undeleted message next-unread not bound jump to the next unread message pipe-message | pipe message/attachment to a shell command previous-new ESC TAB jump to the previous new message previous-page Z move to the previous page previous-subthread ESC p jump to previous subthread previous-thread ^P jump to previous thread previous-undeleted k move to the last undelete message previous-unread not bound jump to the previous unread message print-message p print the current entry quit q save changes to mailbox and quit read-subthread ESC r mark the current subthread as read read-thread ^R mark the current thread as read recall-message R recall a postponed message reply r reply to a message save-message s save message/attachment to a file search / search for a regular expression search-next n search for next match search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular expression set-flag w set a status flag on a message shell-escape ! invoke a command in a subshell show-version V show the Mutt version number and date sort-mailbox o sort messages sort-reverse O sort messages in reverse order sync-mailbox $ save changes to mailbox tag-pattern T tag messages matching a pattern tag-thread ESC t tag/untag all messages in the current thread toggle-new N toggle a message's 'new' flag toggle-write % toggle whether the mailbox will be rewritten undelete-message u undelete the current entry undelete-pattern U undelete messages matching a pattern undelete-subthread ESC u undelete all messages in subthread undelete-thread ^U undelete all messages in thread untag-pattern ^T untag messages matching a pattern view-attachments v show MIME attachments </verb> <sect2>pager <verb> bottom $ jump to the bottom of the message bounce-message b remail a message to another user change-folder c open a different folder change-folder-readonly ESC c open a different folder in read only mode copy-message C copy a message to a file/mailbox create-alias a create an alias from a message sender decode-copy ESC C decode a message and copy it to a file/mailbox decode-save ESC s decode a message and save it to a file/mailbox delete-message d delete the current entry delete-subthread ESC d delete all messages in subthread delete-thread ^D delete all messages in thread display-address @ display full address of sender display-headers h display message with full headers enter-command : enter a muttrc command exit i return to the main-menu flag-message F toggle a message's 'important' flag forget-passphrase ^F wipe PGP passphrase from memory forward-message f forward a message with comments group-reply g reply to all recipients half-up not bound move up one-half page half-down not bound move down one-half page help ? this screen list-reply L reply to specified mailing list mail m compose a new mail message mark-as-new N toggle a message's 'new' flag next-line RET scroll down one line next-message J move to the next entry next-new TAB jump to the next new message next-page move to the next page next-subthread ESC n jump to the next subthread next-thread ^N jump to the next thread next-undeleted j move to the next undeleted message next-unread not bound jump to the next unread message pipe-message | pipe message/attachment to a shell command previous-line BackSpace scroll up one line previous-message K move to the previous entry previous-new not bound jump to the previous new message previous-page - move to the previous page previous-subthread ESC p jump to previous subthread previous-thread ^P jump to previous thread previous-undeleted k move to the last undelete message previous-unread not bound jump to the previous unread message print-message p print the current entry quit Q save changes to mailbox and quit read-subthread ESC r mark the current subthread as read read-thread ^R mark the current thread as read recall-message R recall a postponed message redraw-screen ^L clear and redraw the screen reply r reply to a message save-message s save message/attachment to a file search / search for a regular expression search-next n search for next match search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular expression search-toggle \ toggle search pattern coloring shell-escape ! invoke a command in a subshell show-version V show the Mutt version number and date tag-message t tag a message toggle-quoted T toggle display of quoted text top ^ jump to the top of the message undelete-message u undelete the current entry undelete-subthread ESC u undelete all messages in subthread undelete-thread ^U undelete all messages in thread view-attachments v show MIME attachments </verb> <sect2>alias <verb> search / search for a regular expression search-next n search for next match search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular expression </verb> <sect2>attach <verb> bounce-message b remail a message to another user decode-copy ESC C decode a message and copy it to a file/mailbox decode-save ESC s decode a message and save it to a file/mailbox display-headers h display message with full headers forward-message f forward a message with comments group-reply g reply to all recipients list-reply L reply to specified mailing list pipe-entry | pipe message/attachment to a shell command print-entry p print the current entry reply r reply to a message save-entry s save message/attachment to a file view-mailcap m force viewing of attachment using mailcap view-text T view attachment as text </verb> <sect2>compose <verb> attach-file a attach a file(s) to this message copy-file C save message/attachment to a file detach-file D delete the current entry display-headers h display message with full headers edit-bcc b edit the BCC list edit-cc c edit the CC list edit-description d edit attachment description edit-encoding ^E edit attachment trasfer-encoding edit-fcc f enter a file to save a copy of this message in edit-file ^X e edit the file to be attached edit-headers E edit the message with headers edit-message e edit the message edit-mime m edit attachment using mailcap entry edit-reply-to r edit the Reply-To field edit-subject s edit the subject of this message edit-to t edit the TO list edit-type ^T edit attachment type filter-entry F filter attachment through a shell command forget-passphrase ^F wipe PGP passphrase from memory ispell i run ispell on the message new-mime n compose new attachment using mailcap entry pgp-menu p show PGP options pipe-entry | pipe message/attachment to a shell command postpone-message P save this message to send later print-entry l print the current entry rename-file R rename/move an attached file send-message y send the message toggle-unlink u toggle whether to delete file after sending it view-attach RET view attachment using mailcap entry if necessary </verb> <sect2>postponed <verb> delete-entry d delete the current entry undelete-entry u undelete the current entry </verb> <sect2>browser <verb> change-dir c change directories check-new TAB check mailboxes for new mail enter-mask m enter a file mask search / search for a regular expression search-next n search for next match search-reverse ESC / search backwards for a regular expression select-new N select a new file in this directory sort o sort messages sort-reverse O sort messages in reverse order </verb> <sect2>editor <verb> backspace BackSpace delete the char in front of the cursor backward-char ^B move the cursor one character to the left bol ^A jump to the beginning of the line delete-char ^D delete the char under the cursor eol ^E jump to the end of the line forward-char ^F move the cursor one character to the right history-down not bound scroll up through the history list history-up not bound scroll up through the history list kill-eol ^K delete chars from cursor to end of line kill-line ^U delete all chars on the line kill-word ^W delete the word in front of the cursor </verb> <sect>Miscellany <sect1>Acknowledgements Kari Hurrta <htmlurl url="mailto:kari.hurtta@fmi.fi" name="<kari.hurtta@fmi.fi>"> co-developed the original MIME parsing code back in the ELM-ME days. The following people have been very helpful to the development of Mutt: Francois Berjon <htmlurl url="mailto:Francois.Berjon@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr" name="<Francois.Berjon@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr>">,<newline> Aric Blumer <htmlurl url="mailto:aric@fore.com" name="<aric@fore.com>">,<newline> John Capo <htmlurl url="mailto:jc@irbs.com" name="<jc@irbs.com>">,<newline> Liviu Daia <htmlurl url="mailto:daia@stoilow.imar.ro" name="<daia@stoilow.imar.ro>">,<newline> David DeSimone <htmlurl url="mailto:fox@convex.hp.com" name="<fox@convex.hp.com>">,<newline> Nickolay N. Dudorov <htmlurl url="mailto:nnd@wint.itfs.nsk.su" name="<nnd@wint.itfs.nsk.su>">,<newline> Michael Finken <htmlurl url="mailto:finken@conware.de" name="<finken@conware.de>">,<newline> Sven Guckes <htmlurl url="mailto:guckes@math.fu-berlin.de" name="<guckes@math.fu-berlin.de>">,<newline> Mark Holloman <htmlurl url="mailto:holloman@nando.net" name="<holloman@nando.net>">,<newline> Andreas Holzmann <htmlurl url="mailto:holzmann@fmi.uni-passau.de" name="<holzmann@fmi.uni-passau.de>">,<newline> David Jeske <htmlurl url="mailto:jeske@igcom.net" name="<jeske@igcom.net>">,<newline> Christophe Kalt <htmlurl url="mailto:kalt@hugo.int-evry.fr" name="<kalt@hugo.int-evry.fr>">,<newline> Felix von Leitner (a.k.a ``Fefe'') <htmlurl url="mailto:leitner@math.fu-berlin.de" name="<leitner@math.fu-berlin.de>">,<newline> Brandon Long <htmlurl url="mailto:blong@uiuc.edu" name="<blong@uiuc.edu>">,<newline> Lars Marowsky-Bree <htmlurl url="mailto:lmb@pointer.in-minden.de" name="<lmb@pointer.in-minden.de>">,<newline> Thomas ``Mike'' Michlmayr <htmlurl url="mailto:mike@cosy.sbg.ac.at" name="<mike@cosy.sbg.ac.at>">,<newline> David O'Brien <htmlurl url="mailto:obrien@Nuxi.cs.ucdavis.edu" name="<obrien@Nuxi.cs.ucdavis.edu>">,<newline> Clint Olsen <htmlurl url="mailto:olsenc@ichips.intel.com" name="<olsenc@ichips.intel.com>">,<newline> Park Myeong Seok <htmlurl url="mailto:pms@romance.kaist.ac.kr" name="<pms@romance.kaist.ac.kr>">,<newline> Thomas Parmelan <htmlurl url="mailto:tom@ankh.fr.eu.org" name="<tom@ankh.fr.eu.org>">,<newline> Ollivier Robert <htmlurl url="mailto:roberto@keltia.freenix.fr" name="<roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>">,<newline> Allain Thivillon <htmlurl url="mailto:Allain.Thivillon@alma.fr" name="<Allain.Thivillon@alma.fr>">,<newline> Ken Weinert <htmlurl url="mailto:kenw@ihs.com" name="<kenw@ihs.com>"> <sect1>About this document This document was written in SGML, and then rendered using the <htmlurl url="http://pobox.com/~cg/sgmltools/" name="sgml-tools"> package. </article>