Live data from Hacker News

Mutt email client 25 years old

mutt.org

21–30 of 161 posts

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#21
I sometimes daydream that everyone at work uses Linux in general and a text-based email program in particular. It isn't too farfetched. When email took off, I was in college, and we all used Pine.

Anyway, if you email me, it will arrive on my virtual private server, and I will read it with Mutt.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#22
I solved a problem with nmh last week. That felt good (finding ten emails by string search from a .mbox format archive and making another mbox archive from them)

I am pretty sure mutt would have done it too, I used mh because I had the muscle memory

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#23
post #14
post #12

For console email, I still use Alpine. Can anyone elaborate on the benefits (if any) of switching to Mutt?

mutt is the best MUA for dealing with large quantities of email. The key to this is the limit/tag workflow. (I wrote it up a few years ago here: https://blog.randomstring.org/2016/09/26/secrets-of-mutt/ ) In brief, you use the limit command to see only the email you are interested in, then use the tag command to do something to those specific messages. Both limit and tag use the same pattern language to specify From,…

I find bower to be better than mutt at dealing with large quantities of email, but mutt is better at everything else. bower can also run locally with a mailbox on a remote, which allows things like easy seamless opening of attachments that don't work as well in a terminal (images, PDFs, &c.).

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#24
My stepmother's cousin, Jean-Pierre Radley, was a Unix enthusiast and consultant in New York City (mainly an early SCO adopter, who dabbled in Linux later on). He taught me to use mutt in 1997 or so -- apparently not long after it came out!

I'm still using mutt, although Jean-Pierre passed away three years ago.

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=je...

I believe that at the time he started using mutt, he was still getting some of his e-mail over the declining UUCP network (as he was a tremendous UUCP enthusiast and even provided commercial UUCP connectivity and support at one point).

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#26
the best times with mutt were the days where we were hanging out with michael elkins (me) at the linux user group meetings in L.A. during which i came up with this joke:

"i didn't write mutt, it was me"

i used mutt until a few years ago when i switched to sup.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#27

I sometimes daydream that everyone at work uses Linux in general and a text-based email program in particular. It isn't too farfetched. When email took off, I was in college, and we all used Pine. Anyway, if you email me, it will arrive on my virtual private server, and I will read it with Mutt.

I’ve never been more inclined than now to do the same thing.

How do you deal with spam?

How do you ensure your emails don’t get junk mailed?

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#28

One of the major reasons I use Gmail in the browser is because it’s in the browser: it’s always on the same tab and I can switch to it when I want to check it. I used Mutt (unsuccessfully) a few years ago since my other window that’s always open is a terminal emulator. I wonder: should I fire up a Linux emulation in my browser and run Mutt inside that? I’m sure things have gotten fast enough that this would actually…

I use mutt for Gmail in my terminal, the setup is fairly easy and documented across blog posts example muttrc ========================================================= set imap_user = ' @gmail.com' set imap_authenticators="oauthbearer" set imap_oauth_refresh_command="~/.mutt/oauth2.py --quiet --user= @gmail.com --client_id= .apps.googleusercontent.com --client_secret= --refresh_token= " set smtp_authenticators="oauth…

I still use POP cause I’m paranoid. Does imap guarantees that it downloads and stores all mail indefinitely?

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#29

I sometimes daydream that everyone at work uses Linux in general and a text-based email program in particular. It isn't too farfetched. When email took off, I was in college, and we all used Pine. Anyway, if you email me, it will arrive on my virtual private server, and I will read it with Mutt.

I’ve never been more inclined than now to do the same thing. How do you deal with spam? How do you ensure your emails don’t get junk mailed?

Not parent, but I'm in the same boat with the self-hosted email VPS. I usually use Thunderbird as a client though, but sometimes mutt.

- SpamAssassin does a wonderful job after training it about once every 3 years. I get almost no spam.

- I was able to send to most people from my VPS, but not Charter. Charter blanket-blocked my ip block. So I ended up setting up SMTP forwarding via sendgrid free tier (100 emails per day). Now I always get through.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#30

I sometimes daydream that everyone at work uses Linux in general and a text-based email program in particular. It isn't too farfetched. When email took off, I was in college, and we all used Pine. Anyway, if you email me, it will arrive on my virtual private server, and I will read it with Mutt.

I’ve never been more inclined than now to do the same thing. How do you deal with spam? How do you ensure your emails don’t get junk mailed?

I'm not doing it right now, but the simple answers:

> How do you deal with spam?

You configure filters on your server so that they are flagged

> How do you ensure your emails don’t get junk mailed?

1. Ensure your server is running in a non-blacklisted IP block.

2. Just configure DKIM and SPF, other email servers should accept your emails without problem

Post reply on HN