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Mutt email client 25 years old

mutt.org

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Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#91

Post by stevekemp »

ninjin wrote: post #71
jjav wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the configuration is very arcane at times and monolithic; For my needs it seems quite modular. I have one ~/.mutt directory with separate muttrc files for every email account (10+) and within each account I use folder-hook to have separate (many are shared) config files. Arcane is more subjective, but I like it.

It does get more intuitive over time once you grasp some of the fundamentals of interactions with external programmes and how the query language and hooks are what you should first reach for. This I suppose is the “arcane” part, it can be difficult to both grasp and find good resources that teach you the ropes. However, this is fairly common for the *NIX command line and can be a strength as well in the end. What usu…

After many years of using mutt the lack of flexibility really started to eat away at me. I decided I'd write my own console-based mail-client with a real/complete scripting language.

The result was very flexible and customizable for myself:

https://github.com/lumail/lumail/

https://lumail.org/

Unfortunately after 10+ years of self-hosting my email on a virtual machine I've now switched to paying for GSuite, so the project has become orphaned. For a while I thought there was a chance it would become popular and useful, but I guess the userbase for these kind of applications is pretty small - almost everyone still using mutt does so because they love it, and are used to it. Changing isn't an easy thing to do.

I'll be interested to see how Aerc turns out:

https://aerc-mail.org/

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#92

Post by marcthe12 »

res0nat0r wrote: post #48
zadwang wrote: post #35

I use mutt, mbsync, maildrop, and mblaze, mairix, msmtp, oauth2 with gmail. I have local speed, two way sync, customized email filtering, fast searching, vim editing, and multiple machine freedom. I am happy.

I would love absolutely Mutt if it weren't for everyone in the world using html email. I know you can view or strip html emails down to their essentials, but it doesn't render properly enough where I can reply to everything at work and not look like a fool because I'm missing some context. Too bad because Mutt is amazing.

Sometime I wish there was a terminal markup language. So It can do formatting but terminal compatible

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#93

Post by simias »

feanaro wrote: post #54
res0nat0r wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love absolutely Mutt if it weren't for everyone in the world using html email. I know you can view or strip html emails down to their essentials, but it doesn't render properly enough where I can reply to everything at work and not look like a fool because I'm missing some context. Too bad because Mutt is amazing.

You can just set up Mutt to open HTML mail in Firefox.

I use mutt a lot, and that's what I do when some HTML content is not viewable in the terminal but unless I'm missing something it's one of the areas where HTML-aware clients actually fare better, both in convenience and privacy/security.

For instance if I open some marketing email I got in the ProtonMail web client I get a warning that "This message contains remote content" with the option to allow it. Before that my browser makes no query to any third-party website so nobody can track it.

If I open the same email in firefox from mutt, firefox immediately fetches the remote content normally and unconditionally.

You could probably script something to start a browser in offline mode but I haven't seen most people do it (see the replies in this thread that just tell people to "open HTML with Firefox"). So paradoxically mutt users might be easier to track than ProtonMail, GMail and other HTML-aware webmail users.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#94

Post by zadwang »

res0nat0r wrote: post #48
zadwang wrote: post #35

I use mutt, mbsync, maildrop, and mblaze, mairix, msmtp, oauth2 with gmail. I have local speed, two way sync, customized email filtering, fast searching, vim editing, and multiple machine freedom. I am happy.

I would love absolutely Mutt if it weren't for everyone in the world using html email. I know you can view or strip html emails down to their essentials, but it doesn't render properly enough where I can reply to everything at work and not look like a fool because I'm missing some context. Too bad because Mutt is amazing.

I render such emails in browser and it is rarely lossy. It is based on munpack and some hacky scripts. Basically construct a html page with all the info and attachments and open it in browser.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#95

Post by feanaro »

simias wrote: post #93
feanaro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just set up Mutt to open HTML mail in Firefox.

I use mutt a lot, and that's what I do when some HTML content is not viewable in the terminal but unless I'm missing something it's one of the areas where HTML-aware clients actually fare better, both in convenience and privacy/security. For instance if I open some marketing email I got in the ProtonMail web client I get a warning that "This message contains remote content" with the option to allow it. Before that my…

That's true, though I avoid this problem by only opening HTML email from known, trusted senders where I consider it acceptable to signal that I opened the email.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#97

Post by ori_b »

res0nat0r wrote: post #48
zadwang wrote: post #35

I use mutt, mbsync, maildrop, and mblaze, mairix, msmtp, oauth2 with gmail. I have local speed, two way sync, customized email filtering, fast searching, vim editing, and multiple machine freedom. I am happy.

I would love absolutely Mutt if it weren't for everyone in the world using html email. I know you can view or strip html emails down to their essentials, but it doesn't render properly enough where I can reply to everything at work and not look like a fool because I'm missing some context. Too bad because Mutt is amazing.

I can't think of a single instance where that happened. Do you have some apps generating broken messages?

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#98

Post by wincent »

zadwang wrote: post #35

I use mutt, mbsync, maildrop, and mblaze, mairix, msmtp, oauth2 with gmail. I have local speed, two way sync, customized email filtering, fast searching, vim editing, and multiple machine freedom. I am happy.

I had a similar set-up and did some screencasts on it a few years back (link below). It worked well, and was the least-sucky thing out there for plain-text email, but in the end I just got fatigued at continuously having to switch to another viewer (a browser) in order to properly see HTML email, which was ubiquitous. I ran back into Gmail's loving embrace, not happily, but reluctantly.

Overview is here: https://youtu.be/obY1um6ehDM

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#99

Post by alpaca128 »

peteretep wrote: post #79
res0nat0r wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love absolutely Mutt if it weren't for everyone in the world using html email. I know you can view or strip html emails down to their essentials, but it doesn't render properly enough where I can reply to everything at work and not look like a fool because I'm missing some context. Too bad because Mutt is amazing.

Headless browser + OCR ... how hard can it be?!

You might as well just use any other email client then and it'll be more efficient.

Re: Mutt email client 25 years old

#100

Post by pw6hv »

uaas wrote: post #77
pw6hv wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not parent but I have a similar setup. Yes, absolutely. I think storing our owns emails/attachments locally is part of best practices. That is our data and having a safe backup of it is a must.

Care to elaborate on the safety of backup? You mean it’s safe at your hard drive from availability or from privacy perspective?

Safe as in: "{random_provider} locked me out from my email account and I lost all my emails and attachments."
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