The Mutt E-Mail Client by Michael Elkins v0.89, 26 January 1998 ``All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.'' -me, circa 1995 1. Introduction 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. 1.1. Mutt Home Page http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me/mutt/index.html 1.2. Mailing Lists To subscribe to one of the following mailing lists, send a message with the word subscribe in the subject to list-name- request@cs.hmc.edu. o mutt-announce@cs.hmc.edu -- low traffic list for announcements o mutt-users@cs.hmc.edu -- help, bug reports and feature requests o mutt-dev@cs.hmc.edu -- development mailing list Note: all messages posted to mutt-announce are automatically forwarded to mutt-users, so you do not need to be subscribed to both lists. 1.3. Software Distribution Sites o ftp://ftp.cs.hmc.edu/pub/me/mutt/ 1.4. IRC Visit channel #mutt on DALnet (www.dal.net) to chat with other people interested in Mutt. 1.5. Copyright Mutt is Copyright (C) 1996-8 Michael R. Elkins 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. 2. 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 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 ``reference''. 2.1. 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. 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 2.2. Editing Input Fields 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. ^A or bol move to the start of the line ^B or backward-char move back one char ^D or delete-char delete the char under the cursor ^E or eol move to the end of the line ^F or 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 history-up recall previous string from history history-down recall next string from history backspace kill the char in front of the cursor ^G n/a abort n/a complete filename (only when prompting for a file) n/a finish editing You can remap the editor functions using the ``bind'' command. For example, to make the Delete key delete the character in front of the cursor rather than under, you could use bind editor delete backspace 2.3. 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. 2.3.1. The Message Index 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 display-message 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 2.3.1.1. 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: 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 Some of the status flags can be turned on or off using o set-flag (default: w) o clear-flag (default: W) Furthermore, the following flags reflect who the message is addressed to. They can be customized with the ``to_chars'' variable. + 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 2.3.2. The Pager By default, Mutt uses its builtin pager to display the body of messages. The pager is very similar to the Unix program less though not nearly as featureful. go down one line 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 In addition, many of the functions from the index are available in the pager, such as delete-message or 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 ``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: 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 Mutt uses these attributes for handling text/enriched messages, and they can also be used by an external ``autoview'' script for highlighting purposes. 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. 2.3.3. Threaded Mode When the mailbox is ``sorted'' by threads, there are a few additional functions available in the index and pager modes. ^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 See also: ``$strict_threads''. 2.3.4. Miscellaneous Functions create-alias (default: a) Creates a new alias based upon the current message (or prompts for a new one). Once editing is complete, an ``alias'' command is added to the file specified by the ``$alias_file'' variable for future use. Note: Specifying an ``$alias_file'' does not add the aliases specified there-in, you must also ``source'' the file. display-headers (default: h) Toggles the weeding of message header fields specified by ``ignore'' commands. enter-command (default: ``:'') This command is used to execute any command you would normally put in a configuration file. A common use is to check the settings of variables, or in conjunction with ``macros'' to change settings on the fly. list-reply (default: L) Reply to the current or tagged message(s) by extracting any addresses which match the addresses given by the ``lists'' command. Using this when replying to messages posted to mailing lists help avoid duplicate copies being sent to the author of the message you are replying to. pipe-message (default: |) Asks for an external Unix command and pipes the current or tagged message(s) to it. The variables ``$pipe_decode'', ``$pipe_split'', ``$pipe_sep'' and ``$wait_key'' control the exact behaviour of this function. shell-escape (default: !) Asks for an external Unix command and executes it. The ``$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. toggle-quoted (default: T) The pager uses the ``$quote_regexp'' variable to detect quoted text when displaying the body of the message. This function toggles the display of the quoted material in the message. It is particularly useful when are interested in just the response and there is a large amount of quoted text in the way. 2.4. Sending Mail The following bindings are available in the index for sending messages. m compose compose a new message r reply reply to sender g group-reply reply to all recipients L list-reply reply to mailing list address f forward forward message b bounce bounce (remail) message Bouncing a message sends the message as is to the recipient you specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or modify the message you are forwarding. Bouncing a message uses the ``sendmail_bounce'' command to send a copy of a message to recipients as if they were original recipients of the message. See also ``$mime_fwd''. Mutt will then enter the 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 ``$askcc'', ``$askbcc'', ``$autoedit'', and ``$fast_reply'' for changing how Mutt asks these questions. Mutt will then automatically start your ``$editor'' on the message body. If the ``$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 ``$attribution'', ``$indent_str'' and ``$post_indent_str''. When forwarding a message, if the ``$mime_fwd'' variable is unset, a copy of the forwarded message will be included. If you have specified a ``$signature'', it will be appended to the message. Once you have finished editing the body of your mail message, you are returned to the compose menu. The following options are available: a attach-file attach a file d edit-description edit description on attachment D detach-file detach a file T edit-to edit the To field c edit-cc edit the Cc field b edit-bcc edit the Bcc field y send-message send the message s edit-subject edit the Subject f edit-fcc specify an ``Fcc'' mailbox p pgp-menu select PGP options (US version only) P postpone-message postpone this message until later q quit quit (abort) sending the message i ispell check spelling (if available on your system) 2.4.1. Editing the message header When editing the header of your outgoing message, there are a couple of special features available. If you specify Fcc: filename Mutt will pick up filename just as if you had used the edit-fcc function in the compose menu. You can also attach files to your message by specifying Attach: filename [ description ] where filename is the file to attach and description is an optional string to use as the description of the attached file. When replying to messages, if you remove the In-Reply-To: field from the header field, Mutt will not generate a References: field, which allows you to create a new message thread. Also see ``edit_hdrs''. 2.5. Postponing Mail At times it is desirable to delay sending a message that you have already begun to compose. When the postpone-message function is used in the compose menu, the body of your message and attachments are stored in the mailbox specified by the ``$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 compose a new message from the index or pager you will be prompted if postponed messages exist. If multiple messages are currently postponed, the postponed menu will pop up and you can select which message you would like to resume. 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 ``$postpone'' quad-option. 3. 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'' ``command line'' option is specified. This file is typically /usr/local/share/Muttrc or /usr/local/lib/Muttrc. Next, it looks for a file in your home directory named .muttrc. In this file is where you place ``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 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 Muttrc file. The same is true of the user configuration file, if you have a file .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 .muttrc file. The version number is the same which is visible using the ``-v'' ``command line'' switch or using the show-version key (default: V) from the index menu. 3.1. Syntax of Initialization Files An initialization file consists of a series of ``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, my_hdr X-Disclaimer: Why are you listening to me? # This is a comment Single quotes (') and double quotes (") 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 not for single quotes. \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh. For example, if want to put quotes ``"'' inside of a string, you can use ``\'' to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted character. set realname="Michael \"MuttDude\" Elkins" ``\\'' 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, my_hdr X-Operating-System: `uname -a` 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 ``command reference''. 3.2. Defining/Using aliases Usage: alias key address [ , 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. Note: if you want to create an alias for a group (by specifying more than one address), you must separate the addresses with a comma (``,''). To remove an alias or aliases: unalias addr [ addr ... ] alias muttdude me@cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins) alias theguys manny, moe, jack Unlike other mailers, Mutt doesn't require aliases to be defined in a special file. The alias command can appear anywhere in a configuration file, as long as this file is ``sourced''. Consequently, you can have multiple alias files, or you can have all aliases defined in your muttrc. On the other hand, the ``create-alias'' function can use only one file, the one pointed to by the ``$alias_file'' variable (which is ~/.muttrc 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 ``source'' this file too. For example: source /usr/local/share/Mutt.aliases source ~/.mail_aliases set alias_file=~/.mail_aliases To use aliases, you merely use the alias at any place in mutt where mutt prompts for addresses, such as the To: or CC: prompt. You can also enter aliases in your editor at the appropirate headers if you have the ``$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 select-entry key (default: RET), and use the exit key (default: q) to return to the address prompt. 3.3. Changing the default key bindings Usage: bind map key function This command allows you to change the default key bindings (operation invoked when pressing a key). map specifies in which menu the binding belongs. The currently defined maps are: o generic o alias o attach o browser o editor o index o compose o pager o pgp o url key is the key (or key sequence) you wish to bind. To specify a control character, use the sequence \Cx, where x is the letter of the control character (for example, to specify control-A use ``\Ca''). Note that the case of x as well as \C is ignored, so that \CA, \Ca, \cA and \ca are all equivalent. An alternative form is to specify the key as a three digit octal number prefixed with a ``\'' (for example \177 is equivalent to \c?). In addition, key may consist of: \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 key does not need to be enclosed in quotes unless it contains a space (`` ''). function specifies which action to take when key is pressed. For a complete list of functions, see the ``reference''. The special function noop unbinds the specify key sequence. 3.4. Setting variables based upon mailbox Usage: folder-hook [!]pattern 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. pattern is a regular expression specifying in which mailboxes to execute command before loading. If a mailbox matches multiple folder-hook's, they are executed in the order given in the muttrc. Note: if you use the ``!'' shortcut for ``$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 not operator for the expression. Note that the settings are 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: folder-hook mutt set sort=threads However, the sorting method is not restored to its previous value when reading a different mailbox. To specify a default command, use the pattern ``.'': folder-hook . set sort=date-sent 3.5. Keyboard macros Usage: macro menu key sequence Macros are useful when you would like a single key to perform a series of actions. When you press key in menu menu, Mutt will behave as if you had typed 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. key and sequence are expanded by the same rules as the ``key bindings'', with the addition that control characters in sequence can also be specified as ^x. In order to get a caret (``^'') you need to use ^^. Note: Macro definitions (if any) listed in the help screen(s), are silently truncated at the screen width, and are not wrapped. 3.6. Using color and mono video attributes Usage: color object foreground background [ 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 and a background color (it is not possible to only specify one or the other). object can be one of: o attachment o body (match regexp in the body of messages) o bold (hiliting bold patterns in the body of messages) o error (error messages printed by Mutt) o header (match regexp in the message header) o hdrdefault (default color of the message header in the pager) o indicator (arrow or bar used to indicate the current item in a menu) o markers (the ``+'' markers at the beginning of wrapped lines in the pager) o message (informational messages) o normal o quoted (text matching ``$quote_regexp'' in the body of a message) o quoted1, quoted2, ..., quotedN (higher levels of quoting) o search (hiliting of words in the pager) o signature o status (mode lines used to display info about the mailbox or message) o tilde (the ``~'' used to pad blank lines in the pager) o tree (thread tree drawn in the message index and attachment menu) o underline (hiliting underlined patterns in the body of messages) foreground and background can be one of the following: o white o black o green o magenta o blue o cyan o yellow o red o default o colorx foreground can optionally be prefixed with the keyword bright to make the foreground color boldfaced (e.g., brightred). If your terminal supports it, the special keyword default can be used as a transparent color. The value brightdefault is also valid. If Mutt is linked against the S-Lang library, you also need to set the COLORFGBG environment variable to the default colors of your terminal for this to work; for example (for Bourne-like shells): set COLORFGBG="green;black" export COLORFGBG Note: The S-Lang library requires you to use the lightgray and brown keywords instead of white and yellow when setting this variable. Mutt also recognizes the keywords color0, color1, ..., colorN-1 (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 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: mono [ regexp ] where attribute is one of the following: o none o bold o underline o reverse o standout 3.7. Ignoring (weeding) unwanted message headers Usage: [un]ignore pattern [ 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 not make Mutt display headers with the given pattern. ``unignore *'' will remove all tokens from the ignore list. For example: # 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: 3.8. Mailing lists Usage: [un]lists address [ address ... ] Mutt has a few nice features for ``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 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 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. 3.9. Using Multiple spool mailboxes Usage: mbox-hook [!]pattern mailbox This command is used to move read messages from a specified mailbox to a different mailbox automatically when you quit or change folders. pattern is a regular expression specifying the mailbox to treat as a ``spool'' mailbox and mailbox specifies where mail should be saved when read. Unlike some of the other hook commands, only the first matching pattern is used (it is not possible to save read mail in more than a single mailbox). 3.10. Defining mailboxes which receive mail Usage: mailboxes [!]filename [ 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 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 mailboxes command, and indicate which contain new messages. Mutt will automatically enter this mode when invoked from the command line with the -y option. Note: new mail is detected by comparing the last modification time to the last access time. Utilities like biff or 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. Note: the filenames in the mailboxes command are resolved when the command is executed, so if these names contain ``shortcut characters'' (such as ``='' and ``!''), any variable definition that affect these characters (like ``$folder'' and ``$spool'') should be executed before the mailboxes command. 3.11. User defined headers Usage: my_hdr string unmy_hdr field [ 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 my_hdr Organization: A Really Big Company, Anytown, USA in your .muttrc. Note: space characters are 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 ``edit_hdrs'' variable, or use the 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: unmy_hdr to cc 3.12. Defining the order of headers when viewing messages Usage: hdr_order header1 header2 header3 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will attempt to present headers to you when viewing messages. hdr_order From Date: From: To: Cc: Subject: 3.13. Specify default save filename Usage: save-hook [!]regexp filename This command is used to override the default filename used when saving messages. filename will be used as the default filename if the message is From: an address matching regexp or if you are the author and the message is addressed to: something matching regexp. With no matching save-hook, Mutt first looks to see if the message was addressed to: or cc: one of your mailing ``lists''. If not, the default filename is based upon the reply-to: or from: field if the message is not from yourself, otherwise the first address in the to: or cc: field is used. Examples: save-hook me@(turing\\.)?cs\\.hmc\\.edu$ +elkins save-hook aol\\.com$ +spam 3.14. Change settings based upon message recipients Usage: send-hook [!]regexp command This command can be used to execute arbitrary configuration commands based upon recipients of the message. regexp is a regular expression matching the desired address. command is executed when regexp matches recipients of the message. When multiple matches occur, commands are executed in the order they are specified in the muttrc. Example: send-hook mutt "set mime_fwd signature=''" Another typical use for this command is to change the values of the ``$attribution'', ``$signature'' and ``$locale'' variables in order to change the language of the attributions and signatures based upon the recipients. Note: the send-hook's are only executed ONCE after getting the initial list of recipients. Adding a recipient after replying or editing the message will NOT cause any send-hook to be executed. 3.15. Specify default Fcc: mailbox when composing Usage: fcc-hook [!]regexp mailbox This command is used to save outgoing mail in a mailbox other than ``$record''. Mutt searches the initial list of message recpients for the first matching regexp and uses mailbox as the default Fcc: mailbox. If no match is found the message will be saved to ``$record'' mailbox. Example: fcc-hook aol.com$ +spammers The above will save a copy of all messages going to the aol.com domain to the `+spammers' mailbox by default. 3.16. Adding key sequences to the keyboard buffer Usage: push 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. 3.17. Setting variables Usage: set [no|inv]variable[=value] [ variable ... ] Usage: toggle variable [variable ... ] Usage: unset variable [variable ... ] This command is used to set (and unset) ``configuration variables''. There are four basic types of variables: boolean, number, string and quadoption. boolean variables can be set (true) or unset (false). number variables can be assigned a positive integer value. string variables consist of any number of printable characters. strings must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You may also use the ``C'' escape sequences \n and \t for newline and tab, respectively. quadoption variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of yes will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to the question. Similarly, a value of no will cause the the action to be carried out as if you had answered ``no.'' A value of ask-yes will cause a prompt with a default answer of ``yes'' and ask-no will provide a default answer of ``no.'' Prefixing a variable with ``no'' will unset it. Example: set noaskbcc. For boolean variables, you may optionally prefix the variable name with inv to toggle the value (on or off). This is useful when writing macros. Example: set invsmart_wrap. The toggle command automatically prepends the inv prefix to all specified variables. The unset command automatically prepends the no prefix to all specified variables. Using the enter-command function in the index menu, you can query the value of a variable by prefixing the name of the variable with a question mark: set ?allow_8bit The question mark is actually only required for boolean variables. 3.18. Reading initialization commands from another file Usage: source filename This command allows the inclusion of initialization commands from other files. For example, I place all of my aliases in ~/.mail_aliases so that I can make my ~/.muttrc readable and keep my aliases private. If the filename begins with a tilde (``~''), it will be expanded to the path of your home directory. 4. Advanced Usage 4.1. Searching and Regular Expressions 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 ``searching'' below. 4.1.1. Regular Expressions 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 ``^'' and the dollar sign ``$'' are metacharacters that respectively match the empty string at the beginning and end of a line. A list of characters enclosed by ``['' and ``]'' matches any single character in that list; if the first character of the list is a caret ``^'' then it matches any character not in the list. For example, the regular expression [0123456789] 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 ``]'' place it first in the list. Similarly, to include a literal ``^'' 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: [:alnum:] Alphanumeric characters. [:alpha:] Alphabetic characters. [:blank:] Space or tab characters. [:cntrl:] Control characters. [:digit:] Numeric characters. [:graph:] Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable, but not visible, while an ``a'' is both.) [:lower:] Lower-case alphabetic characters. [:print:] Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.) [:punct:] Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control characters, or space characters). [:space:] Space characters (such as space, tab and formfeed, to name a few). [:upper:] Upper-case alphabetic characters. [:xdigit:] Characters that are hexadecimal digits. 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, [[:digit:]] is equivalent to [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: Collating Symbols A collating symbols is a multi-character collating element enclosed in ``[.'' and ``.]''. For example, if ``ch'' is a collating element, then [[.ch.]] is a regexp that matches this collating element, while [ch] is a regexp that matches either ``c'' or ``h''. 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 ``e'' ``e'' and ``e''. In this case, [[=e=]] is a regexp that matches any of ``e'', ``e'' and ``e''. A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one of several repetition operators: ? The preceding item is optional and matched at most once. * The preceding item will be matched zero or more times. + The preceding item will be matched one or more times. {n} The preceding item is matched exactly n times. {n,} The preceding item is matched n or more times. {,m} The preceding item is matched at most m times. {n,m} The preceding item is matched at least n times, but no more than m times. 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. Note: If you compile Mutt with the GNU rx package, the following operators may also be used in regular expressions: \y Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word. \B Matches the empty string within a word. \< Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word. \> Matches the empty string at the end of a word. \w Matches any word-constituent character (letter, digit, or underscore). \W Matches any character that is not word-constituent. \` Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string). \' Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer. 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. 4.1.2. 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: ~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 Where PATTERN, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are ``regular expressions''. 4.1.3. Complex Searches Logical AND is performed by specifying more than one criterion. For example: ~t mutt ~f elkins would select messages which contain the word ``mutt'' in the list of recipients and that have the word ``elkins'' in the ``From'' header field. Mutt also recognizes the following operators to create more complex search patterns: o ! -- logical NOT operator o | -- logical OR operator o () -- logical grouping operator 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''. !(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins 4.1.4. Searching by Date All dates 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: Limit to messages matching: ~d 20/1/95-31/10 If you omit the minimum (first) date, and just specify ``-DD/MM/YY'', all messages before the given date will be selected. If you omit the maximum (second) date, and specify ``DD/MM/YY-'', all messages 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. Note: all dates used when searching are relative to the local time zone, so unless you change the setting of your ``$hdr_format'' to include a %[...] format, these are not the dates shown in the main index. 4.2. 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 ``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 next operation will be applied to all tagged messages if that operation can be used in that manner. If the ``$auto_tag'' variable is set, the next operation applies to the tagged messages automatically, without requiring the ``tag-prefix''. 4.3. Mailbox Formats Mutt supports reading and writing of four different mailbox formats: mbox, MMDF, MH and Maildir. The mailbox type is autodetected, so there is no need to use a flag for different mailbox types. When creating new mailboxes, Mutt uses the default specified with the ``$mbox_type'' variable. 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: From me@cs.hmc.edu Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:44:56 PST to denote the start of a new message (this is often referred to as the ``From_'' line). MMDF. This is a variant of the mbox format. Each message is surrounded by lines containing ``^A^A^A^A'' (four control-A's). MH. A radical departure from mbox and 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. Note: Mutt detects this type of mailbox by looking for either .mh_sequences or .xmhcache (needed to distinguish normal directories from MH mailboxes). Mutt does not update these files, yet. Maildir. The newest of the mailbox formats, used by the Qmail MTA (a replacement for sendmail). Similar to MH, except that it adds three subdirectories of the mailbox: tmp, new and 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. 4.4. Mailbox 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. o ! -- refers to your ``$spool'' (incoming) mailbox o > -- refers to your ``$mbox'' file o < -- refers to your ``$record'' file o - -- refers to the file you've last visited o ~ -- refers to your home directory o = or + -- refers to your ``$folder'' directory 4.5. Handling Mailing 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 ``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 index menu display. This is useful to distinguish between personal and list mail in the same mailbox. In the ``$hdr_format'' variable, the escape ``%L'' will return the string ``To '' when ``list'' appears in the ``To'' field, and ``Cc '' when it appears in the ``Cc'' field (otherwise it returns the name of the author). Often times the ``To'' and ``Cc'' fields in mailing list messages tend to get quite large. Most people do not bother to remove the author of the message they are reply to from the list, resulting in two or more copies being sent to that person. The ``list-reply'' function, which by default is bound to ``L'' in the index menu and pager, helps reduce the clutter by only replying to the mailing list addresses instead of all recipients. The other method some mailing list admins use is to generate a ``Reply-To'' field which points back to the mailing list address rather than the author of the message. This can create problems when trying to reply directly to the author in private, since most mail clients will automatically reply to the address given in the ``Reply- To'' field. Mutt uses the ``$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 ``sort'' the mailbox into ``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. 4.6. 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. ``$dsn_notify'' is used to request receipts for different results (such as failed message, message delivered, etc.). ``$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. 4.7. POP3 Support (OPTIONAL) If Mutt was compiled with POP3 support (by running the configure script with the --enable-pop flag), it has the ability to fetch your mail from a remote server for local browsing. When you invoke the fetch-mail function (default: G), Mutt attempts to connect to ``pop_host'' and authenticate by logging in as ``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 ``spoolfile''. After this point, Mutt runs exactly as if the mail had always been local. 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 fetchmail 5. 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 mime.types file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to IANA MIME types. The other is the mailcap file, which specifies the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types. 5.1. 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. 5.1.1. 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 text/plain, text/enriched, message/rfc822, and message/news. 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: [-- Attachment #1: Description --] [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --] Where the Description is the description or filename given for the attachment, and the Encoding is one of 7bit/8bit/quoted- printable/base64/binary. If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like: [-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --] 5.1.2. The Attachment Menu The default binding for 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. 5.1.3. 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: - 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending the message. It can be toggled with the toggle-unlink command (default: u). The next field is the MIME content-type, and can be changed with the 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 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 rename-file command (default: R). The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be changed with the edit-description command (default: d). 5.2. MIME Type configuration with mime.types When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your personal mime.types file at ${HOME}/.mime.types, and then the system mime.types file at SHAREDIR/mime.types. SHAREDIR is defined at compilation time, and can be determined by typing 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: application/postscript ps eps application/pgp pgp audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff A sample 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 text/plain. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt will mark it as application/octect-stream. You can change the MIME type that Mutt assigns to an attachment by using the 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. 5.3. MIME Viewer configuration with 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 ${HOME}/.mailcap:SHAREDIR/mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap where $HOME is your home directory and SHAREDIR is the shared direc- tory defined at compile time (visible from mutt -v). In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file, usually as /usr/local/etc/mailcap, which contains some baseline entries. 5.3.1. 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, text/plain, text/html, image/gif, 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, image/*, or video, 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: text/plain; more Or, you could send the message as a file: text/plain; more %s Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html message: text/html; lynx %s In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you must use the %s syntax. 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: text/html; lynx -dump %s | more 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: text/html; lynx %s text/*; more This is the simplest form of a mailcap file. 5.3.2. Advanced mailcap Usage 5.3.2.1. 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: 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 more in the lynx -dump example in the Basic section: text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain and Mutt will use your standard pager to display the results. needsterminal Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with ``autoview'', in order to decide whether it should honor the setting of the ``$wait_key'' variable or not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the corresponding mailcap entry has a needsterminal flag, Mutt will use ``$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. compose= Mutt recognizes this flag, but doesn't currently use it, instead calling the edit command to create messages instead. print= This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus. edit= 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. nametemplate=