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Luke Smith 5 years ago
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# mutt-wizard

The mutt-wizard is a simple interface gives you:
Get all this great stuff without effort:

- a fully-functioning neomutt-based terminal email workflow with vim bindings, vibrant display.
- email backed up offline with isync/mbsync, allowing mobile and offline access of all your mail.
- automatically generated shortcuts for jumping between different accounts or mailboxes within an account.
- sensible binds that make managing, moving and reading mail quicker and easier than ever.
- your passwords safely encrypted on your machine so you (and only you) can access your account easily (uses GPG).
- A full-featured and autoconfigured email client on the terminal with neomutt
- Mail stored offline so you can view and write email while away from internet and keep backups

Specifically, this wizard:

- Determines your email server's IMAP and SMTP servers and ports
- Creates dotfiles for `neomutt`, `isync`, and `msmtp` appropirate for your email address
- Encrypts and stores locally your password for easy remote access, accessible only by your GPG key
- Handles as many as nine separate email accounts automatically
- Auto-creates bindings to switch between accounts or between mailboxes
- Can automatically set mail updates as often as you want to sync your mail and update you when new mail arrives
- Provides sensible defaults and an attractive appearance for the neomutt email client

I maintain mutt-wizard for GNU/Linux, but individual contributors have also made it compatible with Mac.

## Use mutt-wizard
## Install and Use

Clone the repo to `~/.config/mutt`. Either move to backup or delete your old `~/.config/mutt` directory if you have one. Remove/backup your old isync/mbsync and msmtp configs if you have them as well.
```
git clone https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard ~/.config/mutt
```

Be sure to install the following programs:
Yes you have to put the whole repo in the mutt directory (`~/.config/mutt/`).
Just backup or delete any previous mutt configs (or msmtp or mbsync configs if you have them; if you don't know, you don't have them).

- `neomutt` - the email client. If you delete a lot of the neomutt-specific settings in the muttrc, you can run vanilla mutt if you want.
- `isync` - for the `mbsync` command. Downloads the email. Required for installation.
- `msmtp` - sends your email.
Install these required programs:

**You must have a GPG public/private key pair as well.** This is what will safely encrypt your passwords. Run `gpg --full-gen-key` (or `gpg2 --full-gen-key`) to get one.
- `neomutt` - the email client.
- `isync` - downloads and syncs the mail.
- `msmtp` - sends the email.

## Install
You also need a GPG key pair to encrypt passwords.
If you don't know what that is, just run `gpg --full-gen-key` (or `gpg2 --full-gen-key`) to get one.
You might also want some good optional stuff:

Once the repository is in place in `~/.config/mutt/`:
- `w3m` - view HTML email and images in neomutt.
- `notmuch` - index and search mail. Install it and run `notmuch setup`, tell it that your mail is in `~/.local/share/mail/`. You can run it in mutt with `ctrl-f`. Run `notmuch new` to process new mail, although the included `mailsync` script does this for you.
- `abook` - a terminal-based address book. Pressing tab while typing an address to send mail to will suggest contacts that are in your abook.
- A cron manager - if you want to enable the auto-sync feature.

- Select to add an account. This will autogenerate your config files for mutt, mbsync and msmtp.
- Run `mbsync -a` once (at least a partial sync). This will create all the directories you need to finalize installation and will start downloading your mail.
- Select the option to autodetect mailboxes. This will use the directories mbsync creates to detect your mailboxes and make your mail readable by mutt.
## User interface

### Optional dependencies
To give you an example of the interface, here's an idea:

mutt-wizard is configured by default for you to use other useful tools, but these are not strictly necessary.
- `m` - send mail (uses your default `$EDITOR` to write)
- `j`/`k` and `d`/`u` - vim-like bindings to go down and up (or `d`/`u` to go down/up a page).
- `Enter` - read mail
- `r` - reply to highlighted mail
- `R` - replay all to highlighted mail
- `v` - view attachments to select and open them `s` to save, `Enter` to open.
- `gs`,`gi`,`ga`,`gd`,`gS` - Press `g` followed by another letter to change mailbox: `s`ent, `i`nbox, `a`rchive, `d`rafts, `S`pam, etc.
- `M` and `C` - For `M`ove and `C`opy: follow them with one of the mailbox letters above, i.e. `MS` means "move to Spam".
- `i#` - Press `i` followed by a number 1-9 to go to a different account. If you add 9 accounts via mutt-wizard, they will each be assigned a number.
- `?` - see all keyboard shortcuts

- `w3m` - You'll probably want this one at least. It will help you read HTML email from those terrible people who send it... if you want to. It will also enable viewing images in mutt.
- `notmuch` - can index your mail to be easily searched. Install it and run `notmuch setup`, tell it that your mail is in `~/.local/share/mail/`. You can run it in mutt with `ctrl-f`. Remember to run `notmuch new` to process new mail, although the included `mailsync` script does this for you.
- `abook` - a terminal-based address book. Pressing tab while typing an address to send mail to will suggest contacts that are in your abook.
- A cron manager - if you want to enable the auto-sync feature.

## New stuff and improvements since the original release

- `isync`/`mbsync` has replaced `offlineimap` as the backend. Offlineimap was error-prone, bloated, used obsolete Python 2 modules and required separate steps to install the system.
- `dialog` is no long used (le bloat) and the interface is simply text.
- More autogenerated shortcuts that allow quickly moving and copying mail between boxes.
- More elegant attachment handling. Image/video/pdf attachments without relying on the neomutt instance.
@@ -49,19 +68,22 @@ mutt-wizard is configured by default for you to use other useful tools, but thes
- Optimal XDG standards compliance, moving msmtp configs to `~/.config/`, moving mail to `~/.local/share/mail/` and moving mutt-wizard files to `~/.local/share/muttwizard/`. isync/mbsync still uses home for default though as XDG compliance is not built into them.
- `accounts/` hold account data and `bin/` holds script run by or for mutt. All other directories have been disintegrated.
- Better handling of different gpg versions.
- Script is POSIX sh compliance.
- Script is POSIX sh compliant.
- Error handling for the many people who don't read or follow directions.

## Known issues (not my fault!)
## Watch our for these things:

- For Gmail accounts, remember also to enable third-party ("""less secure""") applications before attempting installation.
- Check the ProtonMail issue on Github if you are a Protonmail user. ProtonMail recently allows IMAP usage with their Bridge program for paid users. I don't have this, so I can't bugtest on it, but many users have gotten it working. Either way, it requires a little more work than just using the wizard.
- Don't expect mutt-wizard to work out the box on a university email. Universities often have special IMAP policies and server settings. You might be lucky, but you might have to changes some settings in the mbsyncrc config file to get it to work properly with a university email.
- If you use an email server whose mailboxes are not in English, mutt-wizard might not be able to guess which is which, so you may have to manually set your Inbox, Sent, Trash, Drafts, etc. in your mutt config file.

## Help!
## Help the Project!

- Try mutt-wizard out on weird machines and weird email addresses and report any errors.
- Open a PR to add new server information into `domains.csv` so their users can more easily use mutt-wizard.
- If nothing else, [Donate!](https://paypal.me/LukeMSmith)

See Luke's website [here](https://lukesmith.xyz). Email him at [luke@lukesmith.xyz](mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz).

mutt-wizard is free/libre software, licensed under the GPLv3.

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