MUTT(1)

📦
version 2.4.3 · 13 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

🦋 NAME 🦋

mutt — The Mutt Mail User Agent. Yes bestie, it's a whole mail app, in your terminal. And it's from the User Manuals manual, page MUTT(1), so you already know it's legit. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Okay so here's every single way you can summon it. Don't skip, they all hit different:

mutt  [-nRyzZ] [-e command] [-F rcfile] [-m type] [-f mailbox]

mutt  [-Enx] [-e command] [-F rcfile] [-H draft] [-i include]
      [-b bcc-addr] [-c cc-addr] [-s subject]
      [-a file ... --] to-addr ...

mutt  [-nx] [-e command] [-F rcfile] [-b bcc-addr] [-c cc-addr]
      [-s subject] [-a file ... --] to-addr ... < message

mutt  [-n] [-e command] [-F rcfile] -p

mutt  [-n] [-e command] [-F rcfile] -A alias

mutt  [-n] [-e command] [-F rcfile] -Q variable

mutt  -v[v]

mutt  -D

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Mutt is a small but very powerful text based program for reading and sending electronic mail under unix operating systems. And it's not just a bare-bones thing either — it's got support for color terminals, MIME, OpenPGP, and a threaded sorting mode. It's giving main character energy in like 300KB of binary. 🔥

Note: This manual page gives a brief overview of the mutt executable command line options. A copy of the full manual is located in /usr/share/doc/mutt, in text, HTML, and/or PDF format. Please refer to the manual to learn how to use and configure Mutt. (Translation: this page is the trailer, the manual is the whole movie. 🎬)

💖 OPTIONS 💖

Every flag, no gatekeeping, periodt:

  • -A alias — Print an expanded version of the given alias and exit. Like a little x-ray for your aliases. 🩻
  • -a file ... — Attach a file using MIME. Separating file and to-addr arguments with -- is mandatory. For example:
mutt -a image.jpg -- to-addr
mutt -a img.jpg *.png -- to-addr-1 to-addr-2

The -a option must be placed at the end of command line options. No sneaking it in the middle, bestie, it's a strictly-end-of-the-line situation. 🙅‍♀️

  • -b bcc-addr — Specify a blind carbon copy (BCC) address. Secret lil recipient. 🤫
  • -c cc-addr — Specify a carbon copy (CC) address.
  • -d level — If Mutt was compiled with +DEBUG, log debugging output to ~/.muttdebug0. Level can range from -5 to 5 and affects verbosity. A value of zero disables debugging. A value less than zero disables automatic log file rotation; the log level is then its absolute value. A value of 2 (-2) is recommended for most diagnosis. 🐛
  • -D — Print the value of all configuration options to stdout. Full config dump, no secrets. 📋
  • -E — Edit the draft file specified by -H or include file specified by -i during message composition.
  • -e command — Specify a configuration command to be run after processing of initialization files.
  • -f mailbox — Specify a mailbox to load.
  • -F rcfile — Use rcfile instead of the user configuration file.
  • -h — Display a short option summary and exit. The "help me bestie" flag. 🫶
  • -H draft — Specify a draft file which contains header and body to use to send a message. If draft is -, then data is read from stdin. The draft file is expected to contain just an RFC822 email — headers and a body. Although it is not an mbox file, if an mbox "From " line is present, it will be silently discarded. Draft files are processed the same in interactive and batch mode; they are not passed through untouched. For example, encrypted draft files will be decrypted. 👀
  • -i include — Specify an include file to be inserted into the body of a message. Ignored if -H is set. If include is -, then data is read from stdin.
  • -m type — Specify a default mailbox type for newly created folders. Can be one of the following: mbox, MMDF, MH or Maildir. See also $mbox_type in the manual.
  • -n — Do not read the system-wide Muttrc configuration file.
  • -p — Resume a postponed message. Exit immediately if there are no postponed messages. No postponed mail? She's leaving. 🚪
  • -Q variable — Query a configuration variable. The query is performed after all configuration files have been parsed, and any commands given on the command line have been executed.
  • -R — Open a mailbox in read-only mode. Look but don't touch. ✋
  • -s subject — Specify the subject of the message. Must be enclosed in quotes if it contains spaces. Quote it or regret it.
  • -v — Display the Mutt version number and compile-time definitions.
  • -vv — Display license and copyright information. Double the v, double the legal lore. ⚖️
  • -x — Emulate the mailx(1) compose mode.
  • -y — Start Mutt with a listing of all mailboxes specified by the mailboxes configuration command.
  • -z — Exit immediately with code 1 if mailbox specified by -f does not contain any messages.
  • -Z — Open the first mailbox specified by the mailboxes configuration command which contains new mail. Exit immediately with code 1 if there is no new mail in any of them.
  • -- — Treat remaining arguments as to-addr even if they start with a dash. See also -a above. To-addr can be a local or network mail address as well as mailto: URL. 🛡️

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

The vibes your shell hands over before Mutt even wakes up:

  • EDITOR, VISUAL — Specifies the editor to use when composing messages. If both EDITOR and VISUAL are set, VISUAL takes precedence. If neither EDITOR nor VISUAL are set, the default is vi(1). VISUAL is the older sibling who always wins the argument, apparently. 😭
  • EGDSOCKET, RANDFILE — Paths used to initialize the random engine for SSL library.
  • EMAIL — The user's e-mail address.
  • HOME — Full path of the user's home directory.
  • MAIL — Full path of the user's spool mailbox.
  • MAILDIR — Full path of the user's spool mailbox if MAIL is unset. Commonly used when the spool mailbox is a maildir(5) folder.
  • MAILCAPS — Path to search for mailcap files.
  • MM_NOASK — If this variable is set, mailcap are always used without prompting first. No questions asked, literally. 💀
  • PGPPATH — Directory in which the user's PGP public keyring can be found. When used with the original PGP program, mutt and mutt_pgpring(1) rely on this being set.
  • REPLYTO — Default Reply-To address.
  • TMPDIR — Directory in which temporary files are created. If unset, /tmp is used for $tmpdir, and /var/tmp is used for $tmpdraftdir. See also the $tmpdir and $tmpdraftdir configuration variables.
  • LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG — Used to determine charset and locale to use.
  • TEXTDOMAINDIR — Directory containing translation files. If set, this path overwrite the Mutt installation directory. Used for testing translation changes.

🎀 FILES 🎀

Where everything lives, iykyk:

  • ~/.muttrc
  • ~/.mutt/muttrc
  • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mutt/muttrc

User configuration files. Pick your fighter. 👑

  • /etc/Muttrc or /usr/share/mutt/Muttrc — System-wide configuration file.
  • /tmp/muttXXXXXX — Temporary files created by Mutt.
  • ~/.muttdebug0 — File containing debugging output. Log files are automatically rotated by mutt changing the number at the end. See -d option above.
  • ~/.mailcap — User definition for handling non-text MIME types.
  • /etc/mailcap — System definition for handling non-text MIME types.
  • ~/.mime.types — User's personal mapping between MIME types and file extensions.
  • /etc/mime.types — System mapping between MIME types and file extensions.
  • /usr/bin/mutt_dotlock — The privileged dotlocking program. 💪
  • /usr/share/doc/mutt/manual.txt — The Mutt manual.

💀 BUGS 💀

None. Mutts have fleas, not bugs. That's the whole section. Iconic. 🐶

🐜 FLEAS 🐜

Okay so the bugs are called fleas and here's the whole flea circus:

  • Suspend/resume while editing a file with an external editor does not work under SunOS 4.x if you use the curses lib in /usr/5lib. It does work with the S-Lang library, however.
  • Resizing the screen while using an external pager causes Mutt to go haywire on some systems. Haywire. That's the technical term, apparently.
  • Suspend/resume does not work under Ultrix.
  • The help line for the index menu is not updated if you change the bindings for one of the functions listed while Mutt is running.
  • For a more up-to-date list of bugs, errm, fleas, please visit the mutt project's bug tracking system under https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/issues.
NOTE: The bug tracking system is not meant for feature requests. These should go to the mutt-dev mailing list, see section 1.2 Mailing Lists of the manual for details. Don't be the person who files a feature request as a bug, bestie, I'm begging. 🙏

⚠️ NO WARRANTIES ⚠️

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

Go read your sisters, they ate:

mutt_dotlock(1), mutt_pgpring(1), pgpewrap(1), sendmail(1), smail(1), smime_keys(1), curses(3), ncurses(3), mailcap(5), maildir(5), mbox(5), mmdf(5), muttrc(5)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Michael Elkins, and others. Use <mutt-dev@mutt.org> to contact the developers.

✨ and that's the whole page, bestie ✨

This one came out of the User Manuals manual, section Unix, on July 24, 2020, page MUTT(1). Screenshot it, bookmark it, send it to the group chat. 💌🦋🌸

📦 where this page comes from