astroid(1)

📦
version 0.17 · 9 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

💌 astroid — the manual, but make it cute 💌

okay bestie, so like… this page lives in the General Commands Manual section (you know, the (1) girlies), and it's all about astroid — that's astroid(1) if you're being formal at a family dinner. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

astroid — graphical threads-with-tags style, lightweight and fast, e-mail client for Notmuch 💖

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

astroid [options]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Astroid is a lightweight and fast Mail User Agent that hands you a graphical interface for searching, displaying and composing email, all organized in threads and tags. It rides the Notmuch backend for blazingly fast searches through, like, tons of e-mail. no cap. 🔥

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -c, --config <config> — override the default configuration path. pls refer to the CONFIGURATION section for the deets, bestie 🫶
  • --disable-log — turn logging off. bye 👋
  • -h, --help — show the help message and dip. 💅
  • --log-level <level> — override the configured log level. the level options are: trace, debug (default), info, warn, error and fatal. pick your vibe 🎚️
  • --log-stdout — output logs to standard output, no matter what any other logging configuration says. main character logging energy ✨
  • -m, --mailto <dest> — open the composition window, sending to the <dest> url or address. writing a letter, but make it ✨digital✨
  • -n, --new-config — generate a new configuration file and quit. fresh start, new you 🧚
  • --no-auto-poll — disable automatic polling. she's off the clock 💀
  • --refresh <revision> — update the user view of a running astroid instance with any changes detected in the mail directory since <revision>. you can obtain the current revision with notmuch count --lastmod | cut -f3 (0 will refresh all thread-indexes). --{start,stop}-polling can be used as an alternative, but not with --refresh. 🚫
  • --start-polling — make a running astroid instance watch for changes in the mail directory and display a polling spinner. one must call --stop-polling at the end of the external polling (e.g. by offlineimap) even if it fails. --refresh can be used as an alternative, but not with --{start,stop}-polling. 👀
  • --stop-polling — stop the polling initiated by --start-polling and update the user view with any changes detected since --start-polling was executed. the clean exit, periodt 🛑
  • -t, --test-config — use the test configuration file. only makes sense from the source root, iykyk 🧪
  • --disable-plugins — disable all the plugins. everyone go home 🏠

💜 CONFIGURATION 💜

The configuration file location defaults to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/astroid/config. 🌈

The preferred way to set up a brand new astroid setup is to use --new-config to generate an initial configuration file, then edit it to match the user's needs. all the details live on Astroid's online documentation: https://github.com/astroidmail/astroid/wiki 📚

If $NOTMUCH_CONFIG is set it takes precedence over the configured value for the notmuch database in the configuration file. yes, she overrides. 💅

You can customize the thread view by putting your own HTML and SCSS files in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/astroid/ui/, as explained on https://github.com/astroidmail/astroid/wiki/Customizing-the-user-interface. 🎨

If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, it defaults to ~/.config. 🏡

⚠️ NOTE ⚠️

Astroid is a Mail User Agent: all Astroid provides is a graphical interface to your email (read, view, write, modify, organise). so basically, Astroid lets you launch actions that rely on the performance of other programs to actually fetch, sync, index, search and send your email. it depends on Notmuch for indexing and searching, but other actions can be handled by many different programs: 👑

  • Fetching and syncing your mail between your local computer and email service provider can be handled by any program supporting the Maildir format:
    • OfflineIMAP
    • mbsync
    • Gmailleer
    • ...
  • Sending mail through your email provider can be handled by any sendmail compatible program:
    • msmtp
    • ...
  • Editing can be handled by almost any editor:
    • vim
    • emacs
    • gedit
    • ...

While all these programs (or equivalent programs) need to be set up; once they're configured, you shouldn't need to think about them beyond using astroid. 🫶 The configuration options may be more or less tedious and complicated, depending on what email service provider you use. no shade, just facts 💀

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Maintained by Gaute Hope <eg@gaute.vetsj.com>, who is assisted by other open source contributors. 💖 For more information about astroid development, see <https://github.com/astroidmail/astroid>. 🦋

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

notmuch(1) offlineimap(1) msmtp(1)

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this came to you from the astroid manual page, dated 2026-03-16, under astroid(1) — mwah, slay, go check your mail 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from