ALOT(1)

📦
version 0.12 · 10 versions
, in arch rolling

💌 NAME 💌

okay so, bestie, meet alot — it's a terminal MUA (mail user agent, aka your email app but make it text-mode) built on the notmuch mail system. she's iconic, she's fast, she's got main character energy, and she lives entirely in your terminal. no cap.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

alot [options ...] [subcommand]

like, you give her options, you give her a subcommand, she does the thing. slay.

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

alot is a terminal-based mail user agent for the notmuch mail system. she features a modular, command-prompt driven interface that gives you a full MUA experience — fr fr an alternative to the Emacs mode that ships with notmuch. so if you've been living in Emacs and thinking "hmm what if my mail was its own vibe," this is literally that. 🫶

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -r, --read-only — opens the notmuch database in read-only mode. nothing gets written back, she's just here to look respectfully 👀
  • *-c *FILENAME, --config=FILENAME — points to the configuration file (default: ~/.config/alot/config)
  • *-n *FILENAME, --notmuch-config=FILENAME — points to the notmuch configuration file (default: see notmuch-config(1))
  • -C COLOURS, --colour-mode=COLOURS — how many colours to use on the terminal; **must be 1, 16 or 256 (default: the configuration option colourmode, or 256 if that's not set) — yes bestie, this is where you pick your aesthetic 🌈
  • *-p *PATH, --mailindex-path=PATH — path to the notmuch index
  • -d LEVEL, --debug-level=LEVEL — debug level; **must be one of debug, info, warning or error (default: info)
  • *-l *FILENAME, --logfile=FILENAME — the log file (default: /dev/null, so by default she's logging absolutely nowhere, which is honestly kind of a mood 💀)
  • -h, --help — displays help and exits, like a polite queen
  • -v, --version — outputs version information and exits

🧚 COMMANDS 🧚

  • search — starts in a search buffer using the query string you pass as the parameter (see notmuch-search-terms(7)). this is the classic entry point, lowkey the best one
  • compose — compose a new message. new email era ✨
  • bufferlist — starts with only a bufferlist buffer open
  • taglist — starts with only a taglist buffer open
  • namedqueries — starts with the list of named queries
  • pyshell — starts the interactive python shell inside alot. ngl, this is for the girlies who want to poke at her internals 🐍

🔥 USAGE 🔥

so here's the tea on moving around: the arrow keys, page-up/down, j, k and Space all move the focus. Escape cancels prompts, and Enter selects. hit : at literally any time and type commands into the prompt — that's the whole interface, and it ate. 💅

the interface shows one buffer at a time. use Tab and Shift-Tab to switch between them, close the current buffer with d, and list them all with ;.

the buffer type — or mode — is displayed at the bottom left, and it's the thing that determines which prompt commands you even have available. curious about any command? just type help YOURCOMMAND to the prompt and she'll list the usage info for it. and if you want to know the keybindings for the current mode, press ?. iykyk.

⭐ UNIX SIGNALS ⭐

  • SIGUSR1 — refreshes the current buffer. a little glow-up, on demand 💖
  • SIGINT — shuts down the user interface. bye bestie 😭

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

notmuch(1)

👑 Author

Patrick Totzke

Copyright (C) 2012-24 Patrick Totzke

and that's the whole page, bestie — brought to you by alot 0.12, dated Dec 27, 2025. go check your mail in the terminal, she's waiting 🦋💜

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