1muttrc(5) User Manuals muttrc(5)
2
6 muttrc - Configuration file for the Mutt Mail User Agent
7
9 A mutt configuration file consists of a series of “commands”. Each
10 line of the file may contain one or more commands. When multiple com‐
11 mands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (“;”).
12 The hash mark, or pound sign (“#”), is used as a “comment” character.
14 You can use it to annotate your initialization file. All text after the
15 comment character to the end of the line is ignored.
16 Single quotes (“'”) and double quotes (“"”) can be used to quote
18 strings which contain spaces or other special characters. The differ‐
19 ence between the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular
20 shell programs, namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal
21 string (one that is not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with
22 a backslash [see next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a
23 string which should be evaluated. For example, backticks are evaluated
24 inside of double quotes, but not single quotes.
25 \ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh.
27 For example, if want to put quotes (“"”) inside of a string, you can
28 use “\” to force the next character to be a literal instead of inter‐
29 preted character.
30 “\\” means to insert a literal “\” into the line. “\n” and “\r” have
32 their usual C meanings of linefeed and carriage-return, respectively.
33 A “\” at the end of a line can be used to split commands over multiple
35 lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the middle of
36 command names.
37 It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an
39 initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in
40 backticks (`command`).
41 UNIX environment variables can be accessed like the way it is done in
43 shells like sh and bash: Prepend the name of the variable by a dollar
44 (“$”) sign.
45
47 alias [-group name [...]] key address [, address [ ... ]]
48 unalias [ * | key ]
49 alias defines an alias key for the given addresses. Each address
51 will be resolved into either an email address (user@example.com)
52 or a named email address (User Name <user@example.com>). The ad‐
53 dress may be specified in either format, or in the format
54 “user@example.com (User Name)”. unalias removes the alias cor‐
55 responding to the given key or all aliases when “*” is used as
56 an argument. The optional -group argument to alias causes the
57 aliased address(es) to be added to the named group.
58 group [-group name] [-rx EXPR [ ... ]] [-addr address [ ... ]]
60 ungroup [-group name ] [ * | [[-rx EXPR [ ... ]] [-addr address [ ... ]]]
61 group is used to directly add either addresses or regular ex‐
63 pressions to the specified group or groups. The different cate‐
64 gories of arguments to the group command can be in any order.
65 The flags -rx and -addr specify what the following strings (that
66 cannot begin with a hyphen) should be interpreted as: either a
67 regular expression or an email address, respectively. ungroup
68 is used to remove addresses or regular expressions from the
69 specified group or groups. The syntax is similar to the group
70 command, however the special character * can be used to empty a
71 group of all of its contents.
72 These address groups can also be created implicitly by the
74 alias, lists, subscribe and alternates commands by specifying
75 the optional -group option.
76 Once defined, these address groups can be used in patterns to
78 search for and limit the display to messages matching a group.
79 alternates [-group name] regexp [ regexp [ ... ]]
81 unalternates [ * | regexp [ regexp [ ... ]] ]
82 alternates is used to inform mutt about alternate addresses
84 where you receive mail; you can use regular expressions to spec‐
85 ify alternate addresses. This affects mutt's idea about mes‐
86 sages from you, and messages addressed to you. unalternates re‐
87 moves a regular expression from the list of known alternates.
88 The -group flag causes all of the subsequent regular expressions
89 to be added to the named group.
90 alternative_order type[/subtype] [ ... ]
92 unalternative_order [ * | type/subtype] [...]
93 alternative_order command permits you to define an order of
95 preference which is used by mutt to determine which part of a
96 multipart/alternative body to display. A subtype of “*” matches
97 any subtype, as does an empty subtype. unalternative_order re‐
98 moves entries from the ordered list or deletes the entire list
99 when “*” is used as an argument.
100 attachments [ + | - ]disposition mime-type
102 unattachments [ + | - ]disposition mime-type
103 attachments ?
104 unattachments *
105 attachments specifies what kinds of attachments are used for
107 Mutt's attachment counting and searching support.
108 disposition is the attachment's Content-Disposition type - ei‐
110 ther inline or attachment. You can abbreviate this to I or A.
111 The first part of a message or multipart group, if inline, is
113 counted separately than other inline parts. Specify root or R
114 for disposition to count these as attachments. If this first
115 part is of type multipart/alternative, note that its top-level
116 inline parts are also counted via root disposition (if
117 $count_alternatives is set).
118 disposition is prefixed by either a + symbol or a - symbol. If
120 it's a +, you're saying that you want to allow this disposition
121 and MIME type to qualify. If it's a -, you're saying that this
122 disposition and MIME type is an exception to previous + rules.
123 mime-type is the MIME type of the attachment you want the com‐
125 mand to affect. A MIME type is always of the format major/minor,
126 where major describes the broad category of document you're
127 looking at, and minor describes the specific type within that
128 category. The major part of mime-type must be literal text (or
129 the special token *), but the minor part may be a regular ex‐
130 pression. (Therefore, */.* matches any MIME type.)
131 The MIME types you give to the attachments directive are a kind
133 of pattern. When you use the attachments directive, the patterns
134 you specify are added to a list. When you use unattachments, the
135 pattern is removed from the list. The patterns are not expanded
136 and matched to specific MIME types at this time - they're just
137 text in a list. They're only matched when actually evaluating a
138 message.
139 auto_view type[/subtype] [ ... ]
141 unauto_view type[/subtype] [ ... ]
142 This commands permits you to specify that mutt should automati‐
144 cally convert the given MIME types to text/plain when displaying
145 messages. For this to work, there must be a mailcap(5) entry
146 for the given MIME type with the copiousoutput flag set. A sub‐
147 type of “*” matches any subtype, as does an empty subtype.
148 mime_lookup type[/subtype] [ ... ]
150 unmime_lookup type[/subtype] [ ... ]
151 This command permits you to define a list of "data" MIME content
153 types for which mutt will try to determine the actual file type
154 from the file name, and not use a mailcap(5) entry given for the
155 original MIME type. For instance, you may add the applica‐
156 tion/octet-stream MIME type to this list.
157 bind map1,map2,... key function
159 This command binds the given key for the given map or maps to
160 the given function. Multiple maps may be specified by separating
161 them with commas (no whitespace is allowed).
162 Valid maps are: generic, alias, attach, browser, editor, index,
164 compose, pager, pgp, postpone, mix.
165 For more information on keys and functions, please consult the
167 Mutt Manual. Note that the function name is to be specified
168 without angle brackets.
169 account-hook [!]regexp command
171 This hook is executed whenever you access a remote mailbox. Use‐
172 ful to adjust configuration settings to different IMAP or POP
173 servers.
174 charset-hook alias charset
176 This command defines an alias for a character set. This is use‐
177 ful to properly display messages which are tagged with a charac‐
178 ter set name not known to mutt.
179 iconv-hook charset local-charset
181 This command defines a system-specific name for a character set.
182 This is useful when your system's iconv(3) implementation does
183 not understand MIME character set names (such as iso-8859-1),
184 but instead insists on being fed with implementation-specific
185 character set names (such as 8859-1). In this specific case,
186 you'd put this into your configuration file:
187 iconv-hook iso-8859-1 8859-1
189 message-hook [!]pattern command
191 Before mutt displays (or formats for replying or forwarding) a
192 message which matches the given pattern (or, when it is preceded
193 by an exclamation mark, does not match the pattern), the given
194 command is executed. When multiple message-hooks match, they
195 are executed in the order in which they occur in the configu‐
196 ration file.
197 folder-hook [!]regexp command
199 When mutt enters a folder which matches regexp (or, when regexp
200 is preceded by an exclamation mark, does not match regexp), the
201 given command is executed.
202 When several folder-hooks match a given mail folder, they are
204 executed in the order given in the configuration file.
205 macro map key sequence [ description ]
207 This command binds the given sequence of keys to the given key
208 in the given map or maps. For valid maps, see bind. To specify
209 multiple maps, put only a comma between the maps.
210 color object [ attribute ... ] foreground background [ regexp ]
212 color index [ attribute ... ] foreground background [ pattern ]
213 color compose composeobject [ attribute ... ] foreground background
214 uncolor index pattern [ pattern ... ]
215 If your terminal supports color, these commands can be used to
217 assign foreground/background combinations to certain objects.
218 Valid objects are: attachment, body, bold, error, header, hdrde‐
219 fault, index, indicator, markers, message, normal, prompt,
220 quoted, quotedN, search, signature, status, tilde, tree, under‐
221 line. If the sidebar is enabled the following objects are also
222 valid: sidebar_divider, sidebar_flagged, sidebar_highlight,
223 sidebar_indicator, sidebar_new, sidebar_spoolfile. The body and
224 header objects allow you to restrict the colorization to a regu‐
225 lar expression. The index object permits you to select colored
226 messages by pattern.
227 Valid composeobjects include header, security_encrypt, secu‐
229 rity_sign, security_both, security_none.
230 Valid colors include: white, black, green, magenta, blue, cyan,
232 yellow, red, default, colorN.
233 Valid attributes include: none, bold, underline, reverse, and
235 standout.
236 mono object attribute [ regexp ]
238 mono index attribute [ pattern ]
239 For terminals which don't support color, you can still assign
241 attributes to objects.
242 [un]ignore pattern [ pattern ... ]
244 The ignore command permits you to specify header fields which
245 you usually don't wish to see. Any header field whose tag be‐
246 gins with an “ignored” pattern will be ignored.
247 The unignore command permits you to define exceptions from the
249 above mentioned list of ignored headers.
250 lists [-group name] regexp [ regexp ... ]
252 unlists regexp [ regexp ... ]
253 subscribe [-group name] regexp [ regexp ... ]
254 unsubscribe regexp [ regexp ... ]
255 Mutt maintains two lists of mailing list address patterns, a
257 list of subscribed mailing lists, and a list of known mailing
258 lists. All subscribed mailing lists are known. Patterns use
259 regular expressions.
260 The lists command adds a mailing list address to the list of
262 known mailing lists. The unlists command removes a mailing list
263 from the lists of known and subscribed mailing lists. The sub‐
264 scribe command adds a mailing list to the lists of known and
265 subscribed mailing lists. The unsubscribe command removes it
266 from the list of subscribed mailing lists. The -group flag adds
267 all of the subsequent regular expressions to the named group.
268 mbox-hook [!]regexp mailbox
270 When mutt changes to a mail folder which matches regexp, mailbox
271 will be used as the “mbox” folder, i.e., read messages will be
272 moved to that folder when the mail folder is left.
273 The first matching mbox-hook applies.
275 mailboxes [[-notify | -nonotify]
277 [-poll | -nopoll]
278 [[-label label] | -nolabel]
279 filename] [ ... ]
280 unmailboxes [ * | filename ... ]
281 The mailboxes specifies folders which can receive mail and which
283 will be checked for new messages. When changing folders, press‐
284 ing space will cycle through folders with new mail. The unmail‐
285 boxes command is used to remove a file name from the list of
286 folders which can receive mail. If "*" is specified as the file
287 name, the list is emptied.
288 my_hdr string
290 unmy_hdr field
291 Using my_hdr, you can define headers which will be added to the
293 messages you compose. unmy_hdr will remove the given user-de‐
294 fined headers.
295 hdr_order header1 header2 [ ... ]
297 With this command, you can specify an order in which mutt will
298 attempt to present headers to you when viewing messages.
299 save-hook [!]pattern filename
301 When a message matches pattern, the default file name when sav‐
302 ing it will be the given filename.
303 fcc-hook [!]pattern filename
305 When an outgoing message matches pattern, the default file name
306 for storing a copy (fcc) will be the given filename.
307 fcc-save-hook [!]pattern filename
309 This command is an abbreviation for identical fcc-hook and save-
310 hook commands.
311 send-hook [!]pattern command
313 When composing a message matching pattern, command is executed.
314 When multiple send-hooks match, they are executed in the order
315 in which they occur in the configuration file.
316 send2-hook [!]pattern command
318 Whenever a message matching pattern is changed (either by edit‐
319 ing it or by using the compose menu), command is executed. When
320 multiple send2-hooks match, they are executed in the order in
321 which they occur in the configuration file. Possible applica‐
322 tions include setting the $sendmail variable when a message's
323 from header is changed.
324 send2-hook execution is not triggered by use of enter-command
326 from the compose menu.
327 reply-hook [!]pattern command
329 When replying to a message matching pattern, command is exe‐
330 cuted. When multiple reply-hooks match, they are executed in
331 the order in which they occur in the configuration file, but all
332 reply-hooks are matched and executed before send-hooks, regard‐
333 less of their order in the configuration file.
334 crypt-hook regexp key-id
336 The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can spec‐
337 ify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages
338 to a certain recipient. The meaning of "key ID" is to be taken
339 broadly: This can be a different e-mail address, a numerical key
340 ID, or even just an arbitrary search string. You may use multi‐
341 ple crypt-hooks with the same regexp; multiple matching crypt-
342 hooks result in the use of multiple key-ids for a recipient.
343 index-format-hook name [!]pattern format-string
345 This command is used to inject format strings dynamically into
346 $index_format based on pattern matching against the current mes‐
347 sage.
348 The $index_format expando %@name@ specifies a placeholder for
350 the injection. Index-format-hooks with the same name are matched
351 using pattern against the current message. Matching is done in
352 the order specified in the .muttrc, with the first match being
353 used. The hook's format-string is then substituted and evalu‐
354 ated.
355 open-hook regexp "command"
357 close-hook regexp "command"
358 append-hook regexp "command"
359 These commands provide a way to handle compressed folders. The
361 given regexp specifies which folders are taken as compressed
362 (e.g. "\\.gz$"). The commands tell Mutt how to uncompress a
363 folder (open-hook), compress a folder (close-hook) or append a
364 compressed mail to a compressed folder (append-hook). The com‐
365 mand string is the printf(3) like format string, and it should
366 accept two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the (com‐
367 pressed) folder name, and %t which is replaced with the name of
368 the temporary folder to which to write.
369 push string
371 exec function [ ... ]
372 push adds the named string to the keyboard buffer. “exec func‐
374 tion” is equivalent to “push <function>”.
375 run MuttLisp
377 The run command evaluates the MuttLisp argument. The output of
379 the MuttLisp is then executed as a Mutt command, as if it were
380 typed in the muttrc instead.
381 score pattern value
383 unscore [ * | pattern ... ]
384 The score commands adds value to a message's score if pattern
386 matches it. The unscore command removes score entries from the
387 list.
388 set [no|inv|&|?]variable[=value] [ ... ]
390 toggle variable [ ... ]
391 unset variable [ ... ]
392 reset variable [ ... ]
393 These commands are used to set and manipulate configuration
395 variables.
396 Mutt knows four basic types of variables: boolean, number,
398 string and quadoption. Boolean variables can be set (true), un‐
399 set (false), or toggled. Number variables can be assigned a pos‐
400 itive integer value.
401 String variables consist of any number of printable characters.
403 Strings must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or
404 tabs. You may also use the “C” escape sequences \n and \t for
405 newline and tab, respectively.
406 Quadoption variables are used to control whether or not to be
408 prompted for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A
409 value of yes will cause the action to be carried out automati‐
410 cally as if you had answered yes to the question. Similarly, a
411 value of no will cause the action to be carried out as if you
412 had answered “no.” A value of ask-yes will cause a prompt with a
413 default answer of “yes” and ask-no will provide a default answer
414 of “no.”
415 The reset command resets all given variables to the compile time
417 defaults. If you reset the special variable all, all variables
418 will reset to their compile time defaults.
419 setenv [?]variable [ value ]
421 unsetenv variable
422 These alter the environment that Mutt passes on to its child
424 processes. You can also query current environment values by
425 prefixing a “?” character.
426 sidebar_whitelist mailbox [ mailbox ...]
428 unsidebar_whitelist [ * | mailbox ... ]
429 sidebar_whitelist specifies mailboxes that will always be dis‐
431 played in the sidebar, even if $sidebar_new_mail_only is set and
432 the mailbox does not contain new mail.
433 unsidebar_whitelist is used to remove a mailbox from the list of
435 whitelisted mailboxes. Use unsidebar_whitelist * to remove all
436 mailboxes.
437 source filename
439 The given file will be evaluated as a configuration file.
440 spam pattern format
442 nospam pattern
443 These commands define spam-detection patterns from external spam
445 filters, so that mutt can sort, limit, and search on ``spam
446 tags'' or ``spam attributes'', or display them in the index. See
447 the Mutt manual for details.
448 subjectrx pattern replacement
450 unsubjectrx [ * | pattern ]
451 subjectrx specifies a regular expression pattern which, if de‐
453 tected in a message subject, causes the subject to be replaced
454 with the replacement value. The replacement is subject to sub‐
455 stitutions in the same way as for the spam command: %L for the
456 text to the left of the match, %R for text to the right of the
457 match, and %1 for the first subgroup in the match (etc). If you
458 simply want to erase the match, set it to “%L%R”. Any number of
459 subjectrx commands may coexist.
460 Note this well: the replacement value replaces the entire sub‐
462 ject, not just the match!
463 unsubjectrx removes a given subjectrx from the substitution
465 list. If * is used as the pattern, all substitutions will be re‐
466 moved.
467 unhook [ * | hook-type ]
469 This command will remove all hooks of a given type, or all hooks
470 when “*” is used as an argument. hook-type can be any of the
471 -hook commands documented above.
472 mailto_allow header-field [ ... ]
474 unmailto_allow [ * | header-field ... ]
475 These commands allow the user to modify the list of allowed
477 header fields in a mailto: URL that Mutt will include in the the
478 generated message. By default the list contains only subject
479 and body, as specified by RFC2368.
480 echo message
482 Prints message to the message window. After printing the mes‐
483 sage, echo will pause for the number of seconds specified by
484 $sleep_time.
485 cd directory
487 Changes the current working directory.
488
490 In various places with mutt, including some of the above mentioned hook
491 commands, you can specify patterns to match messages.
492 Constructing Patterns
494 A simple pattern consists of a modifier of the form “~character”, pos‐
495 sibly followed by a parameter against which mutt is supposed to match
496 the object specified by this modifier. For some characters, the ~ may
497 be replaced by another character to alter the behavior of the match.
498 These are described in the list of modifiers, below.
499 With some of these modifiers, the object to be matched consists of sev‐
501 eral e-mail addresses. In these cases, the object is matched if at
502 least one of these e-mail addresses matches. You can prepend a hat
503 (“^”) character to such a pattern to indicate that all addresses must
504 match in order to match the object.
505 You can construct complex patterns by combining simple patterns with
507 logical operators. Logical AND is specified by simply concatenating
508 two simple patterns, for instance “~C mutt-dev ~s bug”. Logical OR is
509 specified by inserting a vertical bar (“|”) between two patterns, for
510 instance “~C mutt-dev | ~s bug”. Additionally, you can negate a pat‐
511 tern by prepending a bang (“!”) character. For logical grouping, use
512 braces (“()”). Example: “!(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins”.
513 Simple Patterns
515 Mutt understands the following simple patterns:
516 ~A all messages
518 ~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body.
519 =b STRING If IMAP is enabled, like ~b but searches for STRING on the
520 server, rather than downloading each message and searching
521 it locally.
522 ~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole message.
523 =B STRING If IMAP is enabled, like ~B but searches for STRING on the
524 server, rather than downloading each message and searching
525 it locally.
526 ~c EXPR messages carbon-copied to EXPR
527 %c GROUP messages carbon-copied to any member of GROUP
528 ~C EXPR messages either to: or cc: EXPR
529 %C GROUP messages either to: or cc: to any member of GROUP
530 ~d MIN-MAX messages with “date-sent” in a Date range
531 ~D deleted messages
532 ~e EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the “Sender” field
533 %e GROUP messages which contain a member of GROUP in the “Sender”
534 field
535 ~E expired messages
536 ~f EXPR messages originating from EXPR
537 %f GROUP messages originating from any member of GROUP
538 ~F flagged messages
539 ~g PGP signed messages
540 ~G PGP encrypted messages
541 ~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message header
542 =h STRING If IMAP is enabled, like ~h but searches for STRING on the
543 server, rather than downloading each message and searching
544 it locally. STRING must be of the form “header: substring”
545 ~H EXPR messages with spam tags matching EXPR
546 ~i EXPR messages which match EXPR in the “Message-ID” field
547 ~k messages containing PGP key material
548 ~l messages addressed to a known mailing list (defined by ei‐
549 ther subscribe or list)
550 ~L EXPR messages either originated or received by EXPR
551 %L GROUP messages either originated or received by any member of
552 GROUP
553 ~m MIN-MAX message in the range MIN to MAX
554 ~M EXPR messages which contain a mime Content-Type matching EXPR
555 ~n MIN-MAX messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX
556 ~N new messages
557 ~O old messages
558 ~p messages addressed to you (consults $from, alternates, and
559 local account/hostname information)
560 ~P messages from you (consults $from, alternates, and local
561 account/hostname information)
562 ~Q messages which have been replied to
563 ~r MIN-MAX messages with “date-received” in a Date range
564 ~R read messages
565 ~s EXPR messages having EXPR in the “Subject” field.
566 ~S superseded messages
567 ~t EXPR messages addressed to EXPR
568 ~T tagged messages
569 ~u messages addressed to a subscribed mailing list (defined by
570 subscribe commands)
571 ~U unread messages
572 ~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
573 ~V cryptographically verified messages
574 ~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the “References” or “In-Re‐
575 ply-To” field
576 ~X MIN-MAX messages with MIN - MAX attachments
577 ~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the “X-Label” field
578 ~z MIN-MAX messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX
579 ~= duplicated messages (see $duplicate_threads)
580 ~$ unreferenced message (requires threaded view)
581 ~(PATTERN) messages in threads containing messages matching a certain
582 pattern, e.g. all threads containing messages from you:
583 ~(~P)
584 ~<(PATTERN) messages whose immediate parent matches PATTERN, e.g.
585 replies to your messages: ~<(~P)
586 ~>(PATTERN) messages having an immediate child matching PATTERN, e.g.
587 messages you replied to: ~>(~P)
588 In the above, EXPR is a regular expression.
590 With the ~d, ~m, ~n, ~r, ~X, and ~z modifiers, you can also specify
592 ranges in the forms <MAX, >MIN, MIN-, and -MAX.
593 With the ~z modifier, the suffixes “K” and “M” are allowed to specify
595 kilobyte and megabyte respectively.
596 The ~b, ~B, ~h, ~M, and ~X modifiers require reading each message in,
598 which can be much slower.
599 You can force Mutt to treat EXPR as a simple string instead of a regu‐
601 lar expression by using = instead of ~ in the pattern name.
602 Matching dates
604 The ~d and ~r modifiers are used to match date ranges, which are inter‐
605 preted to be given in your local time zone.
606 A date is of the form DD[/MM[/[cc]YY]], that is, a two-digit date, op‐
608 tionally followed by a two-digit month, optionally followed by a year
609 specifications. Omitted fields default to the current month and year.
610 Mutt understands either two or four digit year specifications. When
612 given a two-digit year, mutt will interpret values less than 70 as ly‐
613 ing in the 21st century (i.e., “38” means 2038 and not 1938, and “00”
614 is interpreted as 2000), and values greater than or equal to 70 as ly‐
615 ing in the 20th century.
616 Note that this behavior is Y2K compliant, but that mutt does have a
618 Y2.07K problem.
619 Alternatively, you may use YYYYMMDD to specify a date.
621 If a date range consists of a single date, the modifier in question
623 will match that precise date. If the date range consists of a dash
624 (“-”), followed by a date, this range will match any date before and up
625 to the date given. Similarly, a date followed by a dash matches the
626 date given and any later point of time. Two dates, separated by a
627 dash, match any date which lies in the given range of time.
628 You can also modify any absolute date by giving an error range. An er‐
630 ror range consists of one of the characters +, -, *, followed by a pos‐
631 itive number, followed by one of the unit characters y, m, w, or d,
632 specifying a unit of years, months, weeks, or days. + increases the
633 maximum date matched by the given interval of time, - decreases the
634 minimum date matched by the given interval of time, and * increases the
635 maximum date and decreases the minimum date matched by the given inter‐
636 val of time. It is possible to give multiple error margins, which cu‐
637 mulate. Example: 1/1/2001-1w+2w*3d
638 You can also specify offsets relative to the current date. An offset
640 is specified as one of the characters <, >, =, followed by a positive
641 number, followed by one of the unit characters y, m, w, d, H, M, or S.
642 > matches dates which are older than the specified amount of time, an
643 offset which begins with the character < matches dates which are more
644 recent than the specified amount of time, and an offset which begins
645 with the character = matches points of time which are precisely the
646 given amount of time ago.
647
649 abort_noattach
650 Type: quadoption
651 Default: no
652 When the body of the message matches $abort_noattach_regexp and
654 there are no attachments, this quadoption controls whether to
655 abort sending the message.
656 abort_noattach_regexp
660 Type: regular expression
661 Default: “attach”
662 Specifies a regular expression to match against the body of the
664 message, to determine if an attachment was mentioned but mistak‐
665 enly forgotten. If it matches, $abort_noattach will be con‐
666 sulted to determine if message sending will be aborted.
667 Like other regular expressions in Mutt, the search is case sen‐
669 sitive if the pattern contains at least one upper case letter,
670 and case insensitive otherwise.
671 abort_nosubject
675 Type: quadoption
676 Default: ask-yes
677 If set to yes, when composing messages and no subject is given
679 at the subject prompt, composition will be aborted. If set to
680 no, composing messages with no subject given at the subject
681 prompt will never be aborted.
682 abort_unmodified
686 Type: quadoption
687 Default: yes
688 If set to yes, composition will automatically abort after edit‐
690 ing the message body if no changes are made to the file (this
691 check only happens after the first edit of the file). When set
692 to no, composition will never be aborted.
693 alias_file
697 Type: path
698 Default: “~/.muttrc”
699 The default file in which to save aliases created by the <cre‐
701 ate-alias> function. Entries added to this file are encoded in
702 the character set specified by $config_charset if it is set or
703 the current character set otherwise.
704 Note: Mutt will not automatically source this file; you must ex‐
706 plicitly use the “source” command for it to be executed in case
707 this option points to a dedicated alias file.
708 The default for this option is the currently used muttrc file,
710 or “~/.muttrc” if no user muttrc was found.
711 alias_format
715 Type: string
716 Default: “%4n %2f %t %-10a %r”
717 Specifies the format of the data displayed for the “alias” menu.
719 The following printf(3)-style sequences are available:
720 %a alias name
721 %f flags - currently, a “d” for an alias marked for deletion
722 %n index number
723 %r address which alias expands to
724 %t character which indicates if the alias is tagged for in‐
725 clusion
726 allow_8bit
729 Type: boolean
730 Default: yes
731 Controls whether 8-bit data is converted to 7-bit using either
733 Quoted- Printable or Base64 encoding when sending mail.
734 allow_ansi
738 Type: boolean
739 Default: no
740 Controls whether ANSI color codes in messages (and color tags in
742 rich text messages) are to be interpreted. Messages containing
743 these codes are rare, but if this option is set, their text will
744 be colored accordingly. Note that this may override your color
745 choices, and even present a security problem, since a message
746 could include a line like
747 [-- PGP output follows ...
750 and give it the same color as your attachment color (see also
753 $crypt_timestamp).
754 arrow_cursor
758 Type: boolean
759 Default: no
760 When set, an arrow (“->”) will be used to indicate the current
762 entry in menus instead of highlighting the whole line. On slow
763 network or modem links this will make response faster because
764 there is less that has to be redrawn on the screen when moving
765 to the next or previous entries in the menu.
766 ascii_chars
770 Type: boolean
771 Default: no
772 If set, Mutt will use plain ASCII characters when displaying
774 thread and attachment trees, instead of the default ACS charac‐
775 ters.
776 askbcc
780 Type: boolean
781 Default: no
782 If set, Mutt will prompt you for blind-carbon-copy (Bcc) recipi‐
784 ents before editing an outgoing message.
785 askcc
789 Type: boolean
790 Default: no
791 If set, Mutt will prompt you for carbon-copy (Cc) recipients be‐
793 fore editing the body of an outgoing message.
794 assumed_charset
798 Type: string
799 Default: “”
800 This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding
802 schemes for messages without character encoding indication.
803 Header field values and message body content without character
804 encoding indication would be assumed that they are written in
805 one of this list. By default, all the header fields and message
806 body without any charset indication are assumed to be in
807 “us-ascii”.
808 For example, Japanese users might prefer this:
810 set assumed_charset=”iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8”
813 However, only the first content is valid for the message body.
816 attach_charset
820 Type: string
821 Default: “”
822 This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding
824 schemes for text file attachments. Mutt uses this setting to
825 guess which encoding files being attached are encoded in to con‐
826 vert them to a proper character set given in $send_charset.
827 If unset, the value of $charset will be used instead. For exam‐
829 ple, the following configuration would work for Japanese text
830 handling:
831 set attach_charset=”iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8”
834 Note: for Japanese users, “iso-2022-*” must be put at the head
837 of the value as shown above if included.
838 attach_format
842 Type: string
843 Default: “%u%D%I %t%4n %T%.40d%> [%.7m/%.10M, %.6e%?C?, %C?, %s] ”
844 This variable describes the format of the “attachment” menu.
846 The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
847 %C charset
848 %c requires charset conversion (“n” or “c”)
849 %D deleted flag
850 %d description (if none, falls back to %F)
851 %e MIME content-transfer-encoding
852 %F filename in content-disposition header (if none, falls
853 back to %f)
854 %f filename
855 %I disposition (“I” for inline, “A” for attachment)
856 %m major MIME type
857 %M MIME subtype
858 %n attachment number
859 %Q “Q”, if MIME part qualifies for attachment counting
860 %s size (see formatstrings-size)
861 %t tagged flag
862 %T graphic tree characters
863 %u unlink (=to delete) flag
864 %X number of qualifying MIME parts in this part and its
865 children (please see the “attachments” section for possi‐
866 ble speed effects)
867 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with charac‐
868 ter “X”
869 %|X pad to the end of the line with character “X”
870 %*X soft-fill with character “X” as pad
871 For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format docu‐
873 mentation.
874 attach_save_dir
878 Type: path
879 Default: “”
880 The default directory to save attachments from the “attachment”
882 menu. If it doesn't exist, Mutt will prompt to create the di‐
883 rectory before saving.
884 If the path is invalid (e.g. not a directory, or cannot be
886 chdir'ed to), Mutt will fall back to using the current direc‐
887 tory.
888 attach_sep
892 Type: string
893 Default: “\n”
894 The separator to add between attachments when operating (saving,
896 printing, piping, etc) on a list of tagged attachments.
897 attach_split
901 Type: boolean
902 Default: yes
903 If this variable is unset, when operating (saving, printing,
905 piping, etc) on a list of tagged attachments, Mutt will concate‐
906 nate the attachments and will operate on them as a single at‐
907 tachment. The $attach_sep separator is added after each attach‐
908 ment. When set, Mutt will operate on the attachments one by one.
909 attribution
913 Type: string (localized)
914 Default: “On %d, %n wrote:”
915 This is the string that will precede a message which has been
917 included in a reply. For a full listing of defined
918 printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format.
919 attribution_locale
923 Type: string
924 Default: “”
925 The locale used by strftime(3) to format dates in the attribu‐
927 tion string. Legal values are the strings your system accepts
928 for the locale environment variable $LC_TIME.
929 This variable is to allow the attribution date format to be cus‐
931 tomized by recipient or folder using hooks. By default, Mutt
932 will use your locale environment, so there is no need to set
933 this except to override that default.
934 auto_subscribe
938 Type: boolean
939 Default: no
940 When set, Mutt assumes the presence of a List-Post header means
942 the recipient is subscribed to the list. Unless the mailing
943 list is in the “unsubscribe” or “unlist” lists, it will be added
944 to the “subscribe” list. Parsing and checking these things
945 slows header reading down, so this option is disabled by de‐
946 fault.
947 auto_tag
951 Type: boolean
952 Default: no
953 When set, functions in the index menu which affect a message
955 will be applied to all tagged messages (if there are any). When
956 unset, you must first use the <tag-prefix> function (bound to
957 “;” by default) to make the next function apply to all tagged
958 messages.
959 autocrypt
963 Type: boolean
964 Default: no
965 When set, enables autocrypt, which provides passive encryption
967 protection with keys exchanged via headers. See “autocryptdoc”
968 for more details. (Autocrypt only)
969 autocrypt_acct_format
973 Type: string
974 Default: “%4n %-30a %20p %10s”
975 This variable describes the format of the “autocrypt account”
977 menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood
978 %a email address
979 %k gpg keyid
980 %n current entry number
981 %p prefer-encrypt flag
982 %s status flag (active/inactive)
983 (Autocrypt only)
985 autocrypt_dir
989 Type: path
990 Default: “~/.mutt/autocrypt”
991 This variable sets where autocrypt files are stored, including
993 the GPG keyring and sqlite database. See “autocryptdoc” for
994 more details. (Autocrypt only)
995 autocrypt_reply
999 Type: boolean
1000 Default: yes
1001 When set, replying to an autocrypt email automatically enables
1003 autocrypt in the reply. You may want to unset this if you're
1004 using the same key for autocrypt as normal web-of-trust, so that
1005 autocrypt isn't forced on for all encrypted replies. (Autocrypt
1006 only)
1007 autoedit
1011 Type: boolean
1012 Default: no
1013 When set along with $edit_headers, Mutt will skip the initial
1015 send-menu (prompting for subject and recipients) and allow you
1016 to immediately begin editing the body of your message. The
1017 send-menu may still be accessed once you have finished editing
1018 the body of your message.
1019 Note: when this option is set, you cannot use send-hooks that
1021 depend on the recipients when composing a new (non-reply) mes‐
1022 sage, as the initial list of recipients is empty.
1023 Also see $fast_reply.
1025 background_edit
1029 Type: boolean
1030 Default: no
1031 When set, Mutt will run $editor in the background during message
1033 composition. A landing page will display, waiting for the $edi‐
1034 tor to exit. The landing page may be exited, allowing perusal
1035 of the mailbox, or even for other messages to be composed.
1036 Backgrounded sessions may be returned to via the <back‐
1037 ground-compose-menu> function.
1038 For background editing to work properly, $editor must be set to
1040 an editor that does not try to use the Mutt terminal: for exam‐
1041 ple a graphical editor, or a script launching (and waiting for)
1042 the editor in another Gnu Screen window.
1043 For more details, see “bgedit” (”Background Editing” in the man‐
1045 ual).
1046 background_confirm_quit
1050 Type: boolean
1051 Default: yes
1052 When set, if there are any background edit sessions, you will be
1054 prompted to confirm exiting Mutt, in addition to the $quit
1055 prompt.
1056 background_format
1060 Type: string
1061 Default: “%10S %7p %s”
1062 This variable describes the format of the “background compose”
1064 menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
1065 %i parent message id (for replies and forwarded messages)
1066 %n the running number on the menu
1067 %p pid of the $editor process
1068 %r comma separated list of “To:” recipients
1069 %R comma separated list of “Cc:” recipients
1070 %s subject of the message
1071 %S status of the $editor process: running/finished
1072 beep
1075 Type: boolean
1076 Default: yes
1077 When this variable is set, mutt will beep when an error occurs.
1079 beep_new
1083 Type: boolean
1084 Default: no
1085 When this variable is set, mutt will beep whenever it prints a
1087 message notifying you of new mail. This is independent of the
1088 setting of the $beep variable.
1089 bounce
1093 Type: quadoption
1094 Default: ask-yes
1095 Controls whether you will be asked to confirm bouncing messages.
1097 If set to yes you don't get asked if you want to bounce a mes‐
1098 sage. Setting this variable to no is not generally useful, and
1099 thus not recommended, because you are unable to bounce messages.
1100 bounce_delivered
1104 Type: boolean
1105 Default: yes
1106 When this variable is set, mutt will include Delivered-To head‐
1108 ers when bouncing messages. Postfix users may wish to unset
1109 this variable.
1110 braille_friendly
1114 Type: boolean
1115 Default: no
1116 When this variable is set, mutt will place the cursor at the be‐
1118 ginning of the current line in menus, even when the $arrow_cur‐
1119 sor variable is unset, making it easier for blind persons using
1120 Braille displays to follow these menus. The option is unset by
1121 default because many visual terminals don't permit making the
1122 cursor invisible.
1123 browser_abbreviate_mailboxes
1127 Type: boolean
1128 Default: yes
1129 When this variable is set, mutt will abbreviate mailbox names in
1131 the browser mailbox list, using '~' and '=' shortcuts.
1132 The default ”alpha” setting of $sort_browser uses locale-based
1134 sorting (using strcoll(3)), which ignores some punctuation.
1135 This can lead to some situations where the order doesn't make
1136 intuitive sense. In those cases, it may be desirable to unset
1137 this variable.
1138 browser_sticky_cursor
1142 Type: boolean
1143 Default: yes
1144 When this variable is set, the browser will attempt to keep the
1146 cursor on the same mailbox when performing various functions.
1147 These include moving up a directory, toggling between mailboxes
1148 and directory listing, creating/renaming a mailbox, toggling
1149 subscribed mailboxes, and entering a new mask.
1150 certificate_file
1154 Type: path
1155 Default: “~/.mutt_certificates”
1156 This variable specifies the file where the certificates you
1158 trust are saved. When an unknown certificate is encountered, you
1159 are asked if you accept it or not. If you accept it, the cer‐
1160 tificate can also be saved in this file and further connections
1161 are automatically accepted.
1162 You can also manually add CA certificates in this file. Any
1164 server certificate that is signed with one of these CA certifi‐
1165 cates is also automatically accepted.
1166 Example:
1168 set certificate_file=~/.mutt/certificates
1171 change_folder_next
1176 Type: boolean
1177 Default: no
1178 When this variable is set, the <change-folder> function mailbox
1180 suggestion will start at the next folder in your “mailboxes”
1181 list, instead of starting at the first folder in the list.
1182 charset
1186 Type: string
1187 Default: “”
1188 Character set your terminal uses to display and enter textual
1190 data. It is also the fallback for $send_charset.
1191 Upon startup Mutt tries to derive this value from environment
1193 variables such as $LC_CTYPE or $LANG.
1194 Note: It should only be set in case Mutt isn't able to determine
1196 the character set used correctly.
1197 check_mbox_size
1201 Type: boolean
1202 Default: no
1203 When this variable is set, mutt will use file size attribute in‐
1205 stead of access time when checking for new mail in mbox and mmdf
1206 folders.
1207 This variable is unset by default and should only be enabled
1209 when new mail detection for these folder types is unreliable or
1210 doesn't work.
1211 Note that enabling this variable should happen before any “mail‐
1213 boxes” directives occur in configuration files regarding mbox or
1214 mmdf folders because mutt needs to determine the initial new
1215 mail status of such a mailbox by performing a fast mailbox scan
1216 when it is defined. Afterwards the new mail status is tracked
1217 by file size changes.
1218 check_new
1222 Type: boolean
1223 Default: yes
1224 Note: this option only affects maildir and MH style mailboxes.
1226 When set, Mutt will check for new mail delivered while the mail‐
1228 box is open. Especially with MH mailboxes, this operation can
1229 take quite some time since it involves scanning the directory
1230 and checking each file to see if it has already been looked at.
1231 If this variable is unset, no check for new mail is performed
1232 while the mailbox is open.
1233 collapse_unread
1237 Type: boolean
1238 Default: yes
1239 When unset, Mutt will not collapse a thread if it contains any
1241 unread messages.
1242 compose_format
1246 Type: string (localized)
1247 Default: “-- Mutt: Compose [Approx. msg size: %l Atts: %a]%>-”
1248 Controls the format of the status line displayed in the “com‐
1250 pose” menu. This string is similar to $status_format, but has
1251 its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
1252 %a total number of attachments
1253 %h local hostname
1254 %l approximate size (in bytes) of the current message (see
1255 formatstrings-size)
1256 %v Mutt version string
1257 See the text describing the $status_format option for more in‐
1259 formation on how to set $compose_format.
1260 config_charset
1264 Type: string
1265 Default: “”
1266 When defined, Mutt will recode commands in rc files from this
1268 encoding to the current character set as specified by $charset
1269 and aliases written to $alias_file from the current character
1270 set.
1271 Please note that if setting $charset it must be done before set‐
1273 ting $config_charset.
1274 Recoding should be avoided as it may render unconvertable char‐
1276 acters as question marks which can lead to undesired side ef‐
1277 fects (for example in regular expressions).
1278 confirmappend
1282 Type: boolean
1283 Default: yes
1284 When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when appending mes‐
1286 sages to an existing mailbox.
1287 confirmcreate
1291 Type: boolean
1292 Default: yes
1293 When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when saving messages
1295 to a mailbox which does not yet exist before creating it.
1296 connect_timeout
1300 Type: number
1301 Default: 30
1302 Causes Mutt to timeout a network connection (for IMAP, POP or
1304 SMTP) after this many seconds if the connection is not able to
1305 be established. A negative value causes Mutt to wait indefi‐
1306 nitely for the connection attempt to succeed.
1307 content_type
1311 Type: string
1312 Default: “text/plain”
1313 Sets the default Content-Type for the body of newly composed
1315 messages.
1316 copy
1320 Type: quadoption
1321 Default: yes
1322 This variable controls whether or not copies of your outgoing
1324 messages will be saved for later references. Also see $record,
1325 $save_name, $force_name and “fcc-hook”.
1326 copy_decode_weed
1330 Type: boolean
1331 Default: no
1332 Controls whether Mutt will weed headers when invoking the <de‐
1334 code-copy> or <decode-save> functions.
1335 count_alternatives
1339 Type: boolean
1340 Default: no
1341 When set, Mutt will recurse inside multipart/alternatives while
1343 performing attachment searching and counting (see attachments).
1344 Traditionally, multipart/alternative parts have simply repre‐
1346 sented different encodings of the main content of the email.
1347 Unfortunately, some mail clients have started to place email at‐
1348 tachments inside one of alternatives. Setting this will allow
1349 Mutt to find and count matching attachments hidden there, and
1350 include them in the index via %X or through ~X pattern matching.
1351 cursor_overlay
1355 Type: boolean
1356 Default: no
1357 When set, Mutt will overlay the indicator, tree, sidebar_high‐
1359 light, and sidebar_indicator colors onto the currently selected
1360 line. This will allow default colors in those to be overridden,
1361 and for attributes to be merged between the layers.
1362 crypt_autoencrypt
1366 Type: boolean
1367 Default: no
1368 Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to PGP
1370 encrypt outgoing messages. This is probably only useful in con‐
1371 nection to the “send-hook” command. It can be overridden by use
1372 of the pgp menu, when encryption is not required or signing is
1373 requested as well. If $smime_is_default is set, then OpenSSL is
1374 used instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be over‐
1375 ridden by use of the smime menu instead. (Crypto only)
1376 crypt_autopgp
1380 Type: boolean
1381 Default: yes
1382 This variable controls whether or not mutt may automatically en‐
1384 able PGP encryption/signing for messages. See also $crypt_au‐
1385 toencrypt, $crypt_replyencrypt, $crypt_autosign, $crypt_re‐
1386 plysign and $smime_is_default.
1387 crypt_autosign
1391 Type: boolean
1392 Default: no
1393 Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to cryp‐
1395 tographically sign outgoing messages. This can be overridden by
1396 use of the pgp menu, when signing is not required or encryption
1397 is requested as well. If $smime_is_default is set, then OpenSSL
1398 is used instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be
1399 overridden by use of the smime menu instead of the pgp menu.
1400 (Crypto only)
1401 crypt_autosmime
1405 Type: boolean
1406 Default: yes
1407 This variable controls whether or not mutt may automatically en‐
1409 able S/MIME encryption/signing for messages. See also $crypt_au‐
1410 toencrypt, $crypt_replyencrypt, $crypt_autosign, $crypt_re‐
1411 plysign and $smime_is_default.
1412 crypt_confirmhook
1416 Type: boolean
1417 Default: yes
1418 If set, then you will be prompted for confirmation of keys when
1420 using the crypt-hook command. If unset, no such confirmation
1421 prompt will be presented. This is generally considered unsafe,
1422 especially where typos are concerned.
1423 crypt_opportunistic_encrypt
1427 Type: boolean
1428 Default: no
1429 Setting this variable will cause Mutt to automatically enable
1431 and disable encryption, based on whether all message recipient
1432 keys can be located by Mutt.
1433 When this option is enabled, Mutt will enable/disable encryption
1435 each time the TO, CC, and BCC lists are edited. If $edit_head‐
1436 ers is set, Mutt will also do so each time the message is
1437 edited.
1438 While this is set, encryption can't be manually enabled/dis‐
1440 abled. The pgp or smime menus provide a selection to temporar‐
1441 ily disable this option for the current message.
1442 If $crypt_autoencrypt or $crypt_replyencrypt enable encryption
1444 for a message, this option will be disabled for that message.
1445 It can be manually re-enabled in the pgp or smime menus.
1446 (Crypto only)
1447 crypt_opportunistic_encrypt_strong_keys
1451 Type: boolean
1452 Default: no
1453 When set, this modifies the behavior of $crypt_opportunistic_en‐
1455 crypt to only search for ”strong keys”, that is, keys with full
1456 validity according to the web-of-trust algorithm. A key with
1457 marginal or no validity will not enable opportunistic encryp‐
1458 tion.
1459 For S/MIME, the behavior depends on the backend. Classic S/MIME
1461 will filter for certificates with the 't' (trusted) flag in the
1462 .index file. The GPGME backend will use the same filters as
1463 with OpenPGP, and depends on GPGME's logic for assigning the
1464 GPGME_VALIDITY_FULL and GPGME_VALIDITY_ULTIMATE validity flag.
1465 crypt_protected_headers_read
1469 Type: boolean
1470 Default: yes
1471 When set, Mutt will display protected headers in the pager, and
1473 will update the index and header cache with revised headers.
1474 Protected headers are stored inside the encrypted or signed part
1475 of an an email, to prevent disclosure or tampering. For more
1476 information see https://github.com/autocrypt/protected-headers.
1477 Currently Mutt only supports the Subject header.
1478 Encrypted messages using protected headers often substitute the
1480 exposed Subject header with a dummy value (see $crypt_pro‐
1481 tected_headers_subject). Mutt will update its concept of the
1482 correct subject after the message is opened, i.e. via the <dis‐
1483 play-message> function. If you reply to a message before open‐
1484 ing it, Mutt will end up using the dummy Subject header, so be
1485 sure to open such a message first. (Crypto only)
1486 crypt_protected_headers_save
1490 Type: boolean
1491 Default: no
1492 When $crypt_protected_headers_read is set, and a message with a
1494 protected Subject is opened, Mutt will save the updated Subject
1495 into the header cache by default. This allows searching/limit‐
1496 ing based on the protected Subject header if the mailbox is
1497 re-opened, without having to re-open the message each time.
1498 However, for mbox/mh mailbox types, or if header caching is not
1499 set up, you would need to re-open the message each time the
1500 mailbox was reopened before you could see or search/limit on the
1501 protected subject again.
1502 When this variable is set, Mutt additionally saves the protected
1504 Subject back in the clear-text message headers. This provides
1505 better usability, but with the tradeoff of reduced security.
1506 The protected Subject header, which may have previously been en‐
1507 crypted, is now stored in clear-text in the message headers.
1508 Copying the message elsewhere, via Mutt or external tools, could
1509 expose this previously encrypted data. Please make sure you un‐
1510 derstand the consequences of this before you enable this vari‐
1511 able. (Crypto only)
1512 crypt_protected_headers_subject
1516 Type: string
1517 Default: “...”
1518 When $crypt_protected_headers_write is set, and the message is
1520 marked for encryption, this will be substituted into the Subject
1521 field in the message headers. To prevent a subject from being
1522 substituted, unset this variable, or set it to the empty string.
1523 (Crypto only)
1524 crypt_protected_headers_write
1528 Type: boolean
1529 Default: no
1530 When set, Mutt will generate protected headers for signed and
1532 encrypted emails. Protected headers are stored inside the en‐
1533 crypted or signed part of an an email, to prevent disclosure or
1534 tampering. For more information see https://github.com/au‐
1535 tocrypt/protected-headers. Currently Mutt only supports the
1536 Subject header. (Crypto only)
1537 crypt_replyencrypt
1541 Type: boolean
1542 Default: yes
1543 If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL encrypt replies to messages
1545 which are encrypted. (Crypto only)
1546 crypt_replysign
1550 Type: boolean
1551 Default: no
1552 If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages
1554 which are signed.
1555 Note: this does not work on messages that are encrypted and
1557 signed! (Crypto only)
1558 crypt_replysignencrypted
1562 Type: boolean
1563 Default: no
1564 If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages
1566 which are encrypted. This makes sense in combination with
1567 $crypt_replyencrypt, because it allows you to sign all messages
1568 which are automatically encrypted. This works around the prob‐
1569 lem noted in $crypt_replysign, that mutt is not able to find out
1570 whether an encrypted message is also signed. (Crypto only)
1571 crypt_timestamp
1575 Type: boolean
1576 Default: yes
1577 If set, mutt will include a time stamp in the lines surrounding
1579 PGP or S/MIME output, so spoofing such lines is more difficult.
1580 If you are using colors to mark these lines, and rely on these,
1581 you may unset this setting. (Crypto only)
1582 crypt_use_gpgme
1586 Type: boolean
1587 Default: no
1588 This variable controls the use of the GPGME-enabled crypto back‐
1590 ends. If it is set and Mutt was built with gpgme support, the
1591 gpgme code for S/MIME and PGP will be used instead of the clas‐
1592 sic code. Note that you need to set this option in .muttrc; it
1593 won't have any effect when used interactively.
1594 Note that the GPGME backend does not support creating old-style
1596 inline (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages (see
1597 $pgp_autoinline).
1598 crypt_use_pka
1602 Type: boolean
1603 Default: no
1604 Controls whether mutt uses PKA (see
1606 http://www.g10code.de/docs/pka-intro.de.pdf) during signature
1607 verification (only supported by the GPGME backend).
1608 crypt_verify_sig
1612 Type: quadoption
1613 Default: yes
1614 If “yes”, always attempt to verify PGP or S/MIME signatures. If
1616 “ask-*”, ask whether or not to verify the signature. If “no”,
1617 never attempt to verify cryptographic signatures. (Crypto only)
1618 date_format
1622 Type: string
1623 Default: “!%a, %b %d, %Y at %I:%M:%S%p %Z”
1624 This variable controls the format of the date printed by the
1626 “%d” sequence in $index_format. This is passed to the strf‐
1627 time(3) function to process the date, see the man page for the
1628 proper syntax.
1629 Unless the first character in the string is a bang (“!”), the
1631 month and week day names are expanded according to the locale.
1632 If the first character in the string is a bang, the bang is dis‐
1633 carded, and the month and week day names in the rest of the
1634 string are expanded in the C locale (that is in US English).
1635 default_hook
1639 Type: string
1640 Default: “~f %s !~P | (~P ~C %s)”
1641 This variable controls how “message-hook”, “reply-hook”, “send-
1643 hook”, “send2-hook”, “save-hook”, and “fcc-hook” will be inter‐
1644 preted if they are specified with only a simple regexp, instead
1645 of a matching pattern. The hooks are expanded when they are de‐
1646 clared, so a hook will be interpreted according to the value of
1647 this variable at the time the hook is declared.
1648 The default value matches if the message is either from a user
1650 matching the regular expression given, or if it is from you (if
1651 the from address matches “alternates”) and is to or cc'ed to a
1652 user matching the given regular expression.
1653 delete
1657 Type: quadoption
1658 Default: ask-yes
1659 Controls whether or not messages are really deleted when closing
1661 or synchronizing a mailbox. If set to yes, messages marked for
1662 deleting will automatically be purged without prompting. If set
1663 to no, messages marked for deletion will be kept in the mailbox.
1664 delete_untag
1668 Type: boolean
1669 Default: yes
1670 If this option is set, mutt will untag messages when marking
1672 them for deletion. This applies when you either explicitly
1673 delete a message, or when you save it to another folder.
1674 digest_collapse
1678 Type: boolean
1679 Default: yes
1680 If this option is set, mutt's received-attachments menu will not
1682 show the subparts of individual messages in a multipart/digest.
1683 To see these subparts, press “v” on that menu.
1684 display_filter
1688 Type: path
1689 Default: “”
1690 When set, specifies a command used to filter messages. When a
1692 message is viewed it is passed as standard input to $dis‐
1693 play_filter, and the filtered message is read from the standard
1694 output.
1695 dotlock_program
1699 Type: path
1700 Default: “/usr/bin/mutt_dotlock”
1701 Contains the path of the mutt_dotlock(1) binary to be used by
1703 mutt.
1704 dsn_notify
1708 Type: string
1709 Default: “”
1710 This variable sets the request for when notification is re‐
1712 turned. The string consists of a comma separated list (no spa‐
1713 ces!) of one or more of the following: never, to never request
1714 notification, failure, to request notification on transmission
1715 failure, delay, to be notified of message delays, success, to be
1716 notified of successful transmission.
1717 Example:
1719 set dsn_notify=”failure,delay”
1722 Note: when using $sendmail for delivery, you should not enable
1725 this unless you are either using Sendmail 8.8.x or greater or a
1726 MTA providing a sendmail(1)-compatible interface supporting the
1727 -N option for DSN. For SMTP delivery, DSN support is auto-de‐
1728 tected so that it depends on the server whether DSN will be used
1729 or not.
1730 dsn_return
1734 Type: string
1735 Default: “”
1736 This variable controls how much of your message is returned in
1738 DSN messages. It may be set to either hdrs to return just the
1739 message header, or full to return the full message.
1740 Example:
1742 set dsn_return=hdrs
1745 Note: when using $sendmail for delivery, you should not enable
1748 this unless you are either using Sendmail 8.8.x or greater or a
1749 MTA providing a sendmail(1)-compatible interface supporting the
1750 -R option for DSN. For SMTP delivery, DSN support is auto-de‐
1751 tected so that it depends on the server whether DSN will be used
1752 or not.
1753 duplicate_threads
1757 Type: boolean
1758 Default: yes
1759 This variable controls whether mutt, when $sort is set to
1761 threads, threads messages with the same Message-Id together. If
1762 it is set, it will indicate that it thinks they are duplicates
1763 of each other with an equals sign in the thread tree.
1764 edit_headers
1768 Type: boolean
1769 Default: no
1770 This option allows you to edit the header of your outgoing mes‐
1772 sages along with the body of your message.
1773 Although the compose menu may have localized header labels, the
1775 labels passed to your editor will be standard RFC 2822 headers,
1776 (e.g. To:, Cc:, Subject:). Headers added in your editor must
1777 also be RFC 2822 headers, or one of the pseudo headers listed in
1778 “edit-header”. Mutt will not understand localized header la‐
1779 bels, just as it would not when parsing an actual email.
1780 Note that changes made to the References: and Date: headers are
1782 ignored for interoperability reasons.
1783 editor
1787 Type: path
1788 Default: “”
1789 This variable specifies which editor is used by mutt. It de‐
1791 faults to the value of the $VISUAL, or $EDITOR, environment
1792 variable, or to the string “vi” if neither of those are set.
1793 The $editor string may contain a %s escape, which will be re‐
1795 placed by the name of the file to be edited. If the %s escape
1796 does not appear in $editor, a space and the name to be edited
1797 are appended.
1798 The resulting string is then executed by running
1800 sh -c 'string'
1803 where string is the expansion of $editor described above.
1806 encode_from
1810 Type: boolean
1811 Default: no
1812 When set, mutt will quoted-printable encode messages when they
1814 contain the string “From ” (note the trailing space) in the be‐
1815 ginning of a line. This is useful to avoid the tampering cer‐
1816 tain mail delivery and transport agents tend to do with messages
1817 (in order to prevent tools from misinterpreting the line as a
1818 mbox message separator).
1819 entropy_file
1823 Type: path
1824 Default: “”
1825 The file which includes random data that is used to initialize
1827 SSL library functions.
1828 envelope_from_address
1832 Type: e-mail address
1833 Default: “”
1834 Manually sets the envelope sender for outgoing messages. This
1836 value is ignored if $use_envelope_from is unset.
1837 error_history
1841 Type: number
1842 Default: 30
1843 This variable controls the size (in number of strings remem‐
1845 bered) of the error messages displayed by mutt. These can be
1846 shown with the <error-history> function. The history is cleared
1847 each time this variable is set.
1848 escape
1852 Type: string
1853 Default: “~”
1854 Escape character to use for functions in the built-in editor.
1856 fast_reply
1860 Type: boolean
1861 Default: no
1862 When set, the initial prompt for recipients and subject are
1864 skipped when replying to messages, and the initial prompt for
1865 subject is skipped when forwarding messages.
1866 Note: this variable has no effect when the $autoedit variable is
1868 set.
1869 fcc_attach
1873 Type: quadoption
1874 Default: yes
1875 This variable controls whether or not attachments on outgoing
1877 messages are saved along with the main body of your message.
1878 Note: $fcc_before_send forces the default (set) behavior of this
1880 option.
1881 fcc_before_send
1885 Type: boolean
1886 Default: no
1887 When this variable is set, FCCs will occur before sending the
1889 message. Before sending, the message cannot be manipulated, so
1890 it will be stored the exact same as sent: $fcc_attach and
1891 $fcc_clear will be ignored (using their default values).
1892 When unset, the default, FCCs will occur after sending. Vari‐
1894 ables $fcc_attach and $fcc_clear will be respected, allowing it
1895 to be stored without attachments or encryption/signing if de‐
1896 sired.
1897 fcc_clear
1901 Type: boolean
1902 Default: no
1903 When this variable is set, FCCs will be stored unencrypted and
1905 unsigned, even when the actual message is encrypted and/or
1906 signed.
1907 Note: $fcc_before_send forces the default (unset) behavior of
1909 this option. (PGP only)
1910 See also $pgp_self_encrypt, $smime_self_encrypt.
1912 fcc_delimiter
1916 Type: string
1917 Default: “”
1918 When specified, this allows the ability to Fcc to more than one
1920 mailbox. The fcc value will be split by this delimiter and Mutt
1921 will evaluate each part as a mailbox separately.
1922 See $record, “fcc-hook”, and “fcc-save-hook”.
1924 flag_safe
1928 Type: boolean
1929 Default: no
1930 If set, flagged messages cannot be deleted.
1932 folder
1936 Type: path
1937 Default: “~/Mail”
1938 Specifies the default location of your mailboxes. A “+” or “=”
1940 at the beginning of a pathname will be expanded to the value of
1941 this variable. Note that if you change this variable (from the
1942 default) value you need to make sure that the assignment occurs
1943 before you use “+” or “=” for any other variables since expan‐
1944 sion takes place when handling the “mailboxes” command.
1945 folder_format
1949 Type: string
1950 Default: “%2C %t %N %F %2l %-8.8u %-8.8g %8s %d %f”
1951 This variable allows you to customize the file browser display
1953 to your personal taste. This string is similar to $index_for‐
1954 mat, but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
1955 %C current file number
1956 %d date/time folder was last modified
1957 %D date/time folder was last modified using $date_format.
1958 %f filename (“/” is appended to directory names, “@” to sym‐
1959 bolic links and “*” to executable files)
1960 %F file permissions
1961 %g group name (or numeric gid, if missing)
1962 %l number of hard links
1963 %m number of messages in the mailbox *
1964 %n number of unread messages in the mailbox *
1965 %N N if mailbox has new mail, blank otherwise
1966 %s size in bytes (see formatstrings-size)
1967 %t “*” if the file is tagged, blank otherwise
1968 %u owner name (or numeric uid, if missing)
1969 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with charac‐
1970 ter “X”
1971 %|X pad to the end of the line with character “X”
1972 %*X soft-fill with character “X” as pad
1973 For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format docu‐
1975 mentation.
1976 * = can be optionally printed if nonzero
1978 %m, %n, and %N only work for monitored mailboxes. %m requires
1980 $mail_check_stats to be set. %n requires $mail_check_stats to
1981 be set (except for IMAP mailboxes).
1982 followup_to
1986 Type: boolean
1987 Default: yes
1988 Controls whether or not the “Mail-Followup-To:” header field is
1990 generated when sending mail. When set, Mutt will generate this
1991 field when you are replying to a known mailing list, specified
1992 with the “subscribe” or “lists” commands.
1993 This field has two purposes. First, preventing you from receiv‐
1995 ing duplicate copies of replies to messages which you send to
1996 mailing lists, and second, ensuring that you do get a reply sep‐
1997 arately for any messages sent to known lists to which you are
1998 not subscribed.
1999 The header will contain only the list's address for subscribed
2001 lists, and both the list address and your own email address for
2002 unsubscribed lists. Without this header, a group reply to your
2003 message sent to a subscribed list will be sent to both the list
2004 and your address, resulting in two copies of the same email for
2005 you.
2006 force_name
2010 Type: boolean
2011 Default: no
2012 This variable is similar to $save_name, except that Mutt will
2014 store a copy of your outgoing message by the username of the ad‐
2015 dress you are sending to even if that mailbox does not exist.
2016 Also see the $record variable.
2018 forward_attachments
2022 Type: quadoption
2023 Default: ask-yes
2024 When forwarding inline (i.e. $mime_forward unset or answered
2026 with “no” and $forward_decode set), attachments which cannot be
2027 decoded in a reasonable manner will be attached to the newly
2028 composed message if this quadoption is set or answered with
2029 “yes”.
2030 forward_attribution_intro
2034 Type: string (localized)
2035 Default: “----- Forwarded message from %f -----”
2036 This is the string that will precede a message which has been
2038 forwarded in the main body of a message (when $mime_forward is
2039 unset). For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences
2040 see the section on $index_format. See also $attribution_locale.
2041 forward_attribution_trailer
2045 Type: string (localized)
2046 Default: “----- End forwarded message -----”
2047 This is the string that will follow a message which has been
2049 forwarded in the main body of a message (when $mime_forward is
2050 unset). For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences
2051 see the section on $index_format. See also $attribution_locale.
2052 forward_decode
2056 Type: boolean
2057 Default: yes
2058 Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into text/plain
2060 when forwarding a message. The message header is also RFC2047
2061 decoded. This variable is only used, if $mime_forward is unset,
2062 otherwise $mime_forward_decode is used instead.
2063 forward_decrypt
2067 Type: quadoption
2068 Default: yes
2069 This quadoption controls the handling of encrypted messages when
2071 forwarding or attaching a message. When set to or answered
2072 “yes”, the outer layer of encryption is stripped off.
2073 This variable is used if $mime_forward is set and $mime_for‐
2075 ward_decode is unset. It is also used when attaching a message
2076 via <attach-message> in the compose menu. (PGP only)
2077 forward_edit
2081 Type: quadoption
2082 Default: yes
2083 This quadoption controls whether or not the user is automati‐
2085 cally placed in the editor when forwarding messages. For those
2086 who always want to forward with no modification, use a setting
2087 of “no”.
2088 forward_format
2092 Type: string
2093 Default: “[%a: %s]”
2094 This variable controls the default subject when forwarding a
2096 message. It uses the same format sequences as the $index_format
2097 variable.
2098 forward_quote
2102 Type: boolean
2103 Default: no
2104 When set, forwarded messages included in the main body of the
2106 message (when $mime_forward is unset) will be quoted using $in‐
2107 dent_string.
2108 from
2112 Type: e-mail address
2113 Default: “”
2114 When set, this variable contains a default from address. It can
2116 be overridden using “my_hdr” (including from a “send-hook”) and
2117 $reverse_name. This variable is ignored if $use_from is unset.
2118 This setting defaults to the contents of the environment vari‐
2120 able $EMAIL.
2121 gecos_mask
2125 Type: regular expression
2126 Default: “^[^,]*”
2127 A regular expression used by mutt to parse the GECOS field of a
2129 password entry when expanding the alias. The default value will
2130 return the string up to the first “,” encountered. If the GECOS
2131 field contains a string like “lastname, firstname” then you
2132 should set it to “.*”.
2133 This can be useful if you see the following behavior: you ad‐
2135 dress an e-mail to user ID “stevef” whose full name is “Steve
2136 Franklin”. If mutt expands “stevef” to “”Franklin”
2137 stevef@foo.bar” then you should set the $gecos_mask to a regular
2138 expression that will match the whole name so mutt will expand
2139 “Franklin” to “Franklin, Steve”.
2140 hdrs
2144 Type: boolean
2145 Default: yes
2146 When unset, the header fields normally added by the “my_hdr”
2148 command are not created. This variable must be unset before
2149 composing a new message or replying in order to take effect. If
2150 set, the user defined header fields are added to every new mes‐
2151 sage.
2152 header
2156 Type: boolean
2157 Default: no
2158 When set, this variable causes Mutt to include the header of the
2160 message you are replying to into the edit buffer. The $weed
2161 setting applies.
2162 header_cache
2166 Type: path
2167 Default: “”
2168 This variable points to the header cache database. If pointing
2170 to a directory Mutt will contain a header cache database file
2171 per folder, if pointing to a file that file will be a single
2172 global header cache. By default it is unset so no header caching
2173 will be used.
2174 Header caching can greatly improve speed when opening POP, IMAP
2176 MH or Maildir folders, see “caching” for details.
2177 header_cache_compress
2181 Type: boolean
2182 Default: yes
2183 When mutt is compiled with qdbm, tokyocabinet, or kyotocabinet
2185 as header cache backend, this option determines whether the
2186 database will be compressed. Compression results in database
2187 files roughly being one fifth of the usual diskspace, but the
2188 decompression can result in a slower opening of cached folder(s)
2189 which in general is still much faster than opening non header
2190 cached folders.
2191 header_cache_pagesize
2195 Type: number (long)
2196 Default: 16384
2197 When mutt is compiled with either gdbm or bdb4 as the header
2199 cache backend, this option changes the database page size. Too
2200 large or too small values can waste space, memory, or CPU time.
2201 The default should be more or less optimal for most use cases.
2202 header_color_partial
2206 Type: boolean
2207 Default: no
2208 When set, color header regexps behave like color body regexps:
2210 color is applied to the exact text matched by the regexp. When
2211 unset, color is applied to the entire header.
2212 One use of this option might be to apply color to just the
2214 header labels.
2215 See “color” for more details.
2217 help
2221 Type: boolean
2222 Default: yes
2223 When set, help lines describing the bindings for the major func‐
2225 tions provided by each menu are displayed on the first line of
2226 the screen.
2227 Note: The binding will not be displayed correctly if the func‐
2229 tion is bound to a sequence rather than a single keystroke.
2230 Also, the help line may not be updated if a binding is changed
2231 while Mutt is running. Since this variable is primarily aimed
2232 at new users, neither of these should present a major problem.
2233 hidden_host
2237 Type: boolean
2238 Default: no
2239 When set, mutt will skip the host name part of $hostname vari‐
2241 able when adding the domain part to addresses. This variable
2242 does not affect the generation of Message-IDs, and it will not
2243 lead to the cut-off of first-level domains.
2244 hide_limited
2248 Type: boolean
2249 Default: no
2250 When set, mutt will not show the presence of messages that are
2252 hidden by limiting, in the thread tree.
2253 hide_missing
2257 Type: boolean
2258 Default: yes
2259 When set, mutt will not show the presence of missing messages in
2261 the thread tree.
2262 hide_thread_subject
2266 Type: boolean
2267 Default: yes
2268 When set, mutt will not show the subject of messages in the
2270 thread tree that have the same subject as their parent or clos‐
2271 est previously displayed sibling.
2272 hide_top_limited
2276 Type: boolean
2277 Default: no
2278 When set, mutt will not show the presence of messages that are
2280 hidden by limiting, at the top of threads in the thread tree.
2281 Note that when $hide_limited is set, this option will have no
2282 effect.
2283 hide_top_missing
2287 Type: boolean
2288 Default: yes
2289 When set, mutt will not show the presence of missing messages at
2291 the top of threads in the thread tree. Note that when
2292 $hide_missing is set, this option will have no effect.
2293 history
2297 Type: number
2298 Default: 10
2299 This variable controls the size (in number of strings remem‐
2301 bered) of the string history buffer per category. The buffer is
2302 cleared each time the variable is set.
2303 history_file
2307 Type: path
2308 Default: “~/.mutthistory”
2309 The file in which Mutt will save its history.
2311 Also see $save_history.
2313 history_remove_dups
2317 Type: boolean
2318 Default: no
2319 When set, all of the string history will be scanned for dupli‐
2321 cates when a new entry is added. Duplicate entries in the $his‐
2322 tory_file will also be removed when it is periodically com‐
2323 pacted.
2324 honor_disposition
2328 Type: boolean
2329 Default: no
2330 When set, Mutt will not display attachments with a disposition
2332 of “attachment” inline even if it could render the part to plain
2333 text. These MIME parts can only be viewed from the attachment
2334 menu.
2335 If unset, Mutt will render all MIME parts it can properly trans‐
2337 form to plain text.
2338 honor_followup_to
2342 Type: quadoption
2343 Default: yes
2344 This variable controls whether or not a Mail-Followup-To header
2346 is honored when group-replying to a message.
2347 hostname
2351 Type: string
2352 Default: “”
2353 Specifies the fully-qualified hostname of the system mutt is
2355 running on containing the host's name and the DNS domain it be‐
2356 longs to. It is used as the domain part (after “@”) for local
2357 email addresses as well as Message-Id headers.
2358 Its value is determined at startup as follows: the node's host‐
2360 name is first determined by the uname(3) function. The domain
2361 is then looked up using the gethostname(2) and getaddrinfo(3)
2362 functions. If those calls are unable to determine the domain,
2363 the full value returned by uname is used. Optionally, Mutt can
2364 be compiled with a fixed domain name in which case a detected
2365 one is not used.
2366 Starting in Mutt 2.0, the operations described in the previous
2368 paragraph are performed after the muttrc is processed, instead
2369 of beforehand. This way, if the DNS operations are creating de‐
2370 lays at startup, you can avoid those by manually setting the
2371 value in your muttrc.
2372 Also see $use_domain and $hidden_host.
2374 idn_decode
2378 Type: boolean
2379 Default: yes
2380 When set, Mutt will show you international domain names decoded.
2382 Note: You can use IDNs for addresses even if this is unset.
2383 This variable only affects decoding. (IDN only)
2384 idn_encode
2388 Type: boolean
2389 Default: yes
2390 When set, Mutt will encode international domain names using IDN.
2392 Unset this if your SMTP server can handle newer (RFC 6531) UTF-8
2393 encoded domains. (IDN only)
2394 ignore_linear_white_space
2398 Type: boolean
2399 Default: no
2400 This option replaces linear-white-space between encoded-word and
2402 text to a single space to prevent the display of MIME-encoded
2403 “Subject:” field from being divided into multiple lines.
2404 ignore_list_reply_to
2408 Type: boolean
2409 Default: no
2410 Affects the behavior of the <reply> function when replying to
2412 messages from mailing lists (as defined by the “subscribe” or
2413 “lists” commands). When set, if the “Reply-To:” field is set to
2414 the same value as the “To:” field, Mutt assumes that the “Re‐
2415 ply-To:” field was set by the mailing list to automate responses
2416 to the list, and will ignore this field. To direct a response
2417 to the mailing list when this option is set, use the <list-re‐
2418 ply> function; <group-reply> will reply to both the sender and
2419 the list.
2420 imap_authenticators
2424 Type: string
2425 Default: “”
2426 This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods mutt
2428 may attempt to use to log in to an IMAP server, in the order
2429 mutt should try them. Authentication methods are either “login”
2430 or the right side of an IMAP “AUTH=xxx” capability string, e.g.
2431 “digest-md5”, “gssapi” or “cram-md5”. This option is case-insen‐
2432 sitive. If it's unset (the default) mutt will try all available
2433 methods, in order from most-secure to least-secure.
2434 Example:
2436 set imap_authenticators=”gssapi:cram-md5:login”
2439 Note: Mutt will only fall back to other authentication methods
2442 if the previous methods are unavailable. If a method is avail‐
2443 able but authentication fails, mutt will not connect to the IMAP
2444 server.
2445 imap_check_subscribed
2449 Type: boolean
2450 Default: no
2451 When set, mutt will fetch the set of subscribed folders from
2453 your server on connection, and add them to the set of mailboxes
2454 it polls for new mail just as if you had issued individual
2455 “mailboxes” commands.
2456 imap_condstore
2460 Type: boolean
2461 Default: no
2462 When set, mutt will use the CONDSTORE extension (RFC 7162) if
2464 advertised by the server. Mutt's current implementation is ba‐
2465 sic, used only for initial message fetching and flag updates.
2466 For some IMAP servers, enabling this will slightly speed up
2468 downloading initial messages. Unfortunately, Gmail is not one
2469 those, and displays worse performance when enabled. Your
2470 mileage may vary.
2471 imap_deflate
2475 Type: boolean
2476 Default: no
2477 When set, mutt will use the COMPRESS=DEFLATE extension (RFC
2479 4978) if advertised by the server.
2480 In general a good compression efficiency can be achieved, which
2482 speeds up reading large mailboxes also on fairly good connec‐
2483 tions.
2484 imap_delim_chars
2488 Type: string
2489 Default: “/.”
2490 This contains the list of characters which you would like to
2492 treat as folder separators for displaying IMAP paths. In partic‐
2493 ular it helps in using the “=” shortcut for your folder vari‐
2494 able.
2495 imap_fetch_chunk_size
2499 Type: number (long)
2500 Default: 0
2501 When set to a value greater than 0, new headers will be down‐
2503 loaded in groups of this many headers per request. If you have
2504 a very large mailbox, this might prevent a timeout and discon‐
2505 nect when opening the mailbox, by sending a FETCH per set of
2506 this many headers, instead of a single FETCH for all new head‐
2507 ers.
2508 imap_headers
2512 Type: string
2513 Default: “”
2514 Mutt requests these header fields in addition to the default
2516 headers (“Date:”, “From:”, “Sender:”, “Subject:”, “To:”, “Cc:”,
2517 “Message-Id:”, “References:”, “Content-Type:”, “Content-Descrip‐
2518 tion:”, “In-Reply-To:”, “Reply-To:”, “Lines:”, “List-Post:”,
2519 “X-Label:”) from IMAP servers before displaying the index menu.
2520 You may want to add more headers for spam detection.
2521 Note: This is a space separated list, items should be uppercase
2523 and not contain the colon, e.g. “X-BOGOSITY X-SPAM-STATUS” for
2524 the “X-Bogosity:” and “X-Spam-Status:” header fields.
2525 imap_idle
2529 Type: boolean
2530 Default: no
2531 When set, mutt will attempt to use the IMAP IDLE extension to
2533 check for new mail in the current mailbox. Some servers (dovecot
2534 was the inspiration for this option) react badly to mutt's im‐
2535 plementation. If your connection seems to freeze up periodi‐
2536 cally, try unsetting this.
2537 imap_keepalive
2541 Type: number
2542 Default: 300
2543 This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in seconds
2545 that mutt will wait before polling open IMAP connections, to
2546 prevent the server from closing them before mutt has finished
2547 with them. The default is well within the RFC-specified minimum
2548 amount of time (30 minutes) before a server is allowed to do
2549 this, but in practice the RFC does get violated every now and
2550 then. Reduce this number if you find yourself getting discon‐
2551 nected from your IMAP server due to inactivity.
2552 imap_list_subscribed
2556 Type: boolean
2557 Default: no
2558 This variable configures whether IMAP folder browsing will look
2560 for only subscribed folders or all folders. This can be toggled
2561 in the IMAP browser with the <toggle-subscribed> function.
2562 imap_login
2566 Type: string
2567 Default: “”
2568 Your login name on the IMAP server.
2570 This variable defaults to the value of $imap_user.
2572 imap_oauth_refresh_command
2576 Type: string
2577 Default: “”
2578 The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for autho‐
2580 rizing your connection to your IMAP server. This command will
2581 be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER au‐
2582 thentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.
2583 imap_pass
2587 Type: string
2588 Default: “”
2589 Specifies the password for your IMAP account. If unset, Mutt
2591 will prompt you for your password when you invoke the
2592 <imap-fetch-mail> function or try to open an IMAP folder.
2593 Warning: you should only use this option when you are on a
2595 fairly secure machine, because the superuser can read your mut‐
2596 trc even if you are the only one who can read the file.
2597 imap_passive
2601 Type: boolean
2602 Default: yes
2603 When set, mutt will not open new IMAP connections to check for
2605 new mail. Mutt will only check for new mail over existing IMAP
2606 connections. This is useful if you don't want to be prompted
2607 for user/password pairs on mutt invocation, or if opening the
2608 connection is slow.
2609 imap_peek
2613 Type: boolean
2614 Default: yes
2615 When set, mutt will avoid implicitly marking your mail as read
2617 whenever you fetch a message from the server. This is generally
2618 a good thing, but can make closing an IMAP folder somewhat
2619 slower. This option exists to appease speed freaks.
2620 imap_pipeline_depth
2624 Type: number
2625 Default: 15
2626 Controls the number of IMAP commands that may be queued up be‐
2628 fore they are sent to the server. A deeper pipeline reduces the
2629 amount of time mutt must wait for the server, and can make IMAP
2630 servers feel much more responsive. But not all servers correctly
2631 handle pipelined commands, so if you have problems you might
2632 want to try setting this variable to 0.
2633 Note: Changes to this variable have no effect on open connec‐
2635 tions.
2636 imap_poll_timeout
2640 Type: number
2641 Default: 15
2642 This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in seconds
2644 that mutt will wait for a response when polling IMAP connections
2645 for new mail, before timing out and closing the connection. Set
2646 to 0 to disable timing out.
2647 imap_qresync
2651 Type: boolean
2652 Default: no
2653 When set, mutt will use the QRESYNC extension (RFC 7162) if ad‐
2655 vertised by the server. Mutt's current implementation is basic,
2656 used only for initial message fetching and flag updates.
2657 Note: this feature is currently experimental. If you experience
2659 strange behavior, such as duplicate or missing messages please
2660 file a bug report to let us know.
2661 imap_servernoise
2665 Type: boolean
2666 Default: yes
2667 When set, mutt will display warning messages from the IMAP
2669 server as error messages. Since these messages are often harm‐
2670 less, or generated due to configuration problems on the server
2671 which are out of the users' hands, you may wish to suppress them
2672 at some point.
2673 imap_user
2677 Type: string
2678 Default: “”
2679 The name of the user whose mail you intend to access on the IMAP
2681 server.
2682 This variable defaults to your user name on the local machine.
2684 implicit_autoview
2688 Type: boolean
2689 Default: no
2690 If set to “yes”, mutt will look for a mailcap entry with the
2692 “copiousoutput” flag set for every MIME attachment it doesn't
2693 have an internal viewer defined for. If such an entry is found,
2694 mutt will use the viewer defined in that entry to convert the
2695 body part to text form.
2696 include
2700 Type: quadoption
2701 Default: ask-yes
2702 Controls whether or not a copy of the message(s) you are reply‐
2704 ing to is included in your reply.
2705 include_encrypted
2709 Type: boolean
2710 Default: no
2711 Controls whether or not Mutt includes separately encrypted at‐
2713 tachment contents when replying.
2714 This variable was added to prevent accidental exposure of en‐
2716 crypted contents when replying to an attacker. If a previously
2717 encrypted message were attached by the attacker, they could
2718 trick an unwary recipient into decrypting and including the mes‐
2719 sage in their reply.
2720 include_onlyfirst
2724 Type: boolean
2725 Default: no
2726 Controls whether or not Mutt includes only the first attachment
2728 of the message you are replying.
2729 indent_string
2733 Type: string
2734 Default: “> ”
2735 Specifies the string to prepend to each line of text quoted in a
2737 message to which you are replying. You are strongly encouraged
2738 not to change this value, as it tends to agitate the more fanat‐
2739 ical netizens.
2740 The value of this option is ignored if $text_flowed is set, be‐
2742 cause the quoting mechanism is strictly defined for for‐
2743 mat=flowed.
2744 This option is a format string, please see the description of
2746 $index_format for supported printf(3)-style sequences.
2747 index_format
2751 Type: string
2752 Default: “%4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15L (%?l?%4l&%4c?) %s”
2753 This variable allows you to customize the message index display
2755 to your personal taste.
2756 “Format strings” are similar to the strings used in the C func‐
2758 tion printf(3) to format output (see the man page for more de‐
2759 tails). For an explanation of the %? construct, see the $sta‐
2760 tus_format description. The following sequences are defined in
2761 Mutt:
2762 %a address of the author
2763 %A reply-to address (if present; otherwise: address of au‐
2764 thor)
2765 %b filename of the original message folder (think mailbox)
2766 %B the list to which the letter was sent, or else the folder
2767 name (%b).
2768 %c number of characters (bytes) in the message (see format‐
2769 strings-size)
2770 %C current message number
2771 %d date and time of the message in the format specified by
2772 $date_format converted to sender's time zone
2773 %D date and time of the message in the format specified by
2774 $date_format converted to the local time zone
2775 %e current message number in thread
2776 %E number of messages in current thread
2777 %f sender (address + real name), either From: or Re‐
2778 turn-Path:
2779 %F author name, or recipient name if the message is from you
2780 %H spam attribute(s) of this message
2781 %i message-id of the current message
2782 %l number of lines in the unprocessed message (may not work
2783 with maildir, mh, and IMAP folders)
2784 %L If an address in the “To:” or “Cc:” header field matches
2785 an address defined by the users “subscribe” command, this
2786 displays ”To <list-name>”, otherwise the same as %F.
2787 %m total number of message in the mailbox
2788 %M number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.
2789 %N message score
2790 %n author's real name (or address if missing)
2791 %O original save folder where mutt would formerly have
2792 stashed the message: list name or recipient name if not
2793 sent to a list
2794 %P progress indicator for the built-in pager (how much of
2795 the file has been displayed)
2796 %r comma separated list of “To:” recipients
2797 %R comma separated list of “Cc:” recipients
2798 %s subject of the message
2799 %S single character status of the message
2800 (“N”/“O”/“D”/“d”/“!”/“r”/“*”)
2801 %t “To:” field (recipients)
2802 %T the appropriate character from the $to_chars string
2803 %u user (login) name of the author
2804 %v first name of the author, or the recipient if the message
2805 is from you
2806 %X number of attachments (please see the “attachments” sec‐
2807 tion for possible speed effects)
2808 %y “X-Label:” field, if present
2809 %Y “X-Label:” field, if present, and [4m(1) not at part of a
2810 thread tree, [4m(2) at the top of a thread, or [4m(3) “X-La‐
2811 bel:” is different from preceding message's “X-Label:”.
2812 %Z a three character set of message status flags. the first
2813 character is new/read/replied flags
2814 (“n”/“o”/“r”/“O”/“N”). the second is deleted or encryp‐
2815 tion flags (“D”/“d”/“S”/“P”/“s”/“K”). the third is ei‐
2816 ther tagged/flagged (“*”/“!”), or one of the characters
2817 listed in $to_chars.
2818 %@name@
2819 insert and evaluate format-string from the matching “in‐
2820 dex-format-hook” command
2821 %{fmt} the date and time of the message is converted to sender's
2822 time zone, and “fmt” is expanded by the library function
2823 strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales
2824 %[fmt] the date and time of the message is converted to the lo‐
2825 cal time zone, and “fmt” is expanded by the library func‐
2826 tion strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales
2827 %(fmt) the local date and time when the message was received.
2828 “fmt” is expanded by the library function strftime(3); a
2829 leading bang disables locales
2830 %<fmt> the current local time. “fmt” is expanded by the library
2831 function strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales.
2832 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with charac‐
2833 ter “X”
2834 %|X pad to the end of the line with character “X”
2835 %*X soft-fill with character “X” as pad
2836 Note that for mbox/mmdf, “%l” applies to the unprocessed mes‐
2838 sage, and for maildir/mh, the value comes from the “Lines:”
2839 header field when present (the meaning is normally the same).
2840 Thus the value depends on the encodings used in the different
2841 parts of the message and has little meaning in practice.
2842 “Soft-fill” deserves some explanation: Normal right-justifica‐
2844 tion will print everything to the left of the “%>”, displaying
2845 padding and whatever lies to the right only if there's room. By
2846 contrast, soft-fill gives priority to the right-hand side, guar‐
2847 anteeing space to display it and showing padding only if there's
2848 still room. If necessary, soft-fill will eat text leftwards to
2849 make room for rightward text.
2850 Note that these expandos are supported in “save-hook”, “fcc-
2852 hook”, “fcc-save-hook”, and “index-format-hook”.
2853 They are also supported in the configuration variables $attribu‐
2855 tion, $forward_attribution_intro, $forward_attribution_trailer,
2856 $forward_format, $indent_string, $message_format, $pager_format,
2857 and $post_indent_string.
2858 ispell
2862 Type: path
2863 Default: “/usr/bin/hunspell”
2864 How to invoke ispell (GNU's spell-checking software).
2866 keep_flagged
2870 Type: boolean
2871 Default: no
2872 If set, read messages marked as flagged will not be moved from
2874 your spool mailbox to your $mbox mailbox, or as a result of a
2875 “mbox-hook” command.
2876 local_date_header
2880 Type: boolean
2881 Default: yes
2882 If set, convert the date in the Date header of sent emails into
2884 local (sender's) timezone.
2885 mail_check
2889 Type: number
2890 Default: 5
2891 This variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt should look
2893 for new mail. Also see the $timeout variable.
2894 mail_check_recent
2898 Type: boolean
2899 Default: yes
2900 When set, Mutt will only notify you about new mail that has been
2902 received since the last time you opened the mailbox. When un‐
2903 set, Mutt will notify you if any new mail exists in the mailbox,
2904 regardless of whether you have visited it recently.
2905 When $mark_old is set, Mutt does not consider the mailbox to
2907 contain new mail if only old messages exist.
2908 mail_check_stats
2912 Type: boolean
2913 Default: no
2914 When set, mutt will periodically calculate message statistics of
2916 a mailbox while polling for new mail. It will check for unread,
2917 flagged, and total message counts. Because this operation is
2918 more performance intensive, it defaults to unset, and has a sep‐
2919 arate option, $mail_check_stats_interval, to control how often
2920 to update these counts.
2921 Message statistics can also be explicitly calculated by invoking
2923 the <check-stats> function.
2924 mail_check_stats_interval
2928 Type: number
2929 Default: 60
2930 When $mail_check_stats is set, this variable configures how of‐
2932 ten (in seconds) mutt will update message counts.
2933 mailcap_path
2937 Type: string
2938 Default: “”
2939 This variable specifies which files to consult when attempting
2941 to display MIME bodies not directly supported by Mutt. The de‐
2942 fault value is generated during startup: see the “mailcap” sec‐
2943 tion of the manual.
2944 mailcap_sanitize
2948 Type: boolean
2949 Default: yes
2950 If set, mutt will restrict possible characters in mailcap % ex‐
2952 pandos to a well-defined set of safe characters. This is the
2953 safe setting, but we are not sure it doesn't break some more ad‐
2954 vanced MIME stuff.
2955 DON'T CHANGE THIS SETTING UNLESS YOU ARE REALLY SURE WHAT YOU
2957 ARE DOING!
2958 maildir_header_cache_verify
2962 Type: boolean
2963 Default: yes
2964 Check for Maildir unaware programs other than mutt having modi‐
2966 fied maildir files when the header cache is in use. This incurs
2967 one stat(2) per message every time the folder is opened (which
2968 can be very slow for NFS folders).
2969 maildir_trash
2973 Type: boolean
2974 Default: no
2975 If set, messages marked as deleted will be saved with the
2977 maildir trashed flag instead of unlinked. Note: this only ap‐
2978 plies to maildir-style mailboxes. Setting it will have no ef‐
2979 fect on other mailbox types.
2980 maildir_check_cur
2984 Type: boolean
2985 Default: no
2986 If set, mutt will poll both the new and cur directories of a
2988 maildir folder for new messages. This might be useful if other
2989 programs interacting with the folder (e.g. dovecot) are moving
2990 new messages to the cur directory. Note that setting this op‐
2991 tion may slow down polling for new messages in large folders,
2992 since mutt has to scan all cur messages.
2993 mark_macro_prefix
2997 Type: string
2998 Default: “'”
2999 Prefix for macros created using mark-message. A new macro auto‐
3001 matically generated with <mark-message>a will be composed from
3002 this prefix and the letter a.
3003 mark_old
3007 Type: boolean
3008 Default: yes
3009 Controls whether or not mutt marks new unread messages as old if
3011 you exit a mailbox without reading them. With this option set,
3012 the next time you start mutt, the messages will show up with an
3013 “O” next to them in the index menu, indicating that they are
3014 old.
3015 markers
3019 Type: boolean
3020 Default: yes
3021 Controls the display of wrapped lines in the internal pager. If
3023 set, a “+” marker is displayed at the beginning of wrapped
3024 lines.
3025 Also see the $smart_wrap variable.
3027 mask
3031 Type: regular expression
3032 Default: “!^\.[^.]”
3033 A regular expression used in the file browser, optionally pre‐
3035 ceded by the not operator “!”. Only files whose names match
3036 this mask will be shown. The match is always case-sensitive.
3037 mbox
3041 Type: path
3042 Default: “~/mbox”
3043 This specifies the folder into which read mail in your
3045 $spoolfile folder will be appended.
3046 Also see the $move variable.
3048 mbox_type
3052 Type: folder magic
3053 Default: mbox
3054 The default mailbox type used when creating new folders. May be
3056 any of “mbox”, “MMDF”, “MH” and “Maildir”. This is overridden by
3057 the -m command-line option.
3058 menu_context
3062 Type: number
3063 Default: 0
3064 This variable controls the number of lines of context that are
3066 given when scrolling through menus. (Similar to $pager_context.)
3067 menu_move_off
3071 Type: boolean
3072 Default: yes
3073 When unset, the bottom entry of menus will never scroll up past
3075 the bottom of the screen, unless there are less entries than
3076 lines. When set, the bottom entry may move off the bottom.
3077 menu_scroll
3081 Type: boolean
3082 Default: no
3083 When set, menus will be scrolled up or down one line when you
3085 attempt to move across a screen boundary. If unset, the screen
3086 is cleared and the next or previous page of the menu is dis‐
3087 played (useful for slow links to avoid many redraws).
3088 message_cache_clean
3092 Type: boolean
3093 Default: no
3094 If set, mutt will clean out obsolete entries from the message
3096 cache when the mailbox is synchronized. You probably only want
3097 to set it every once in a while, since it can be a little slow
3098 (especially for large folders).
3099 message_cachedir
3103 Type: path
3104 Default: “”
3105 Set this to a directory and mutt will cache copies of messages
3107 from your IMAP and POP servers here. You are free to remove en‐
3108 tries at any time.
3109 When setting this variable to a directory, mutt needs to fetch
3111 every remote message only once and can perform regular expres‐
3112 sion searches as fast as for local folders.
3113 Also see the $message_cache_clean variable.
3115 message_format
3119 Type: string
3120 Default: “%s”
3121 This is the string displayed in the “attachment” menu for at‐
3123 tachments of type message/rfc822. For a full listing of defined
3124 printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format.
3125 message_id_format
3129 Type: string
3130 Default: “<%z@%f>”
3131 This variable describes the format of the Message-ID generated
3133 when sending messages. Mutt 2.0 introduced a more compact for‐
3134 mat, but this variable allows the ability to choose your own
3135 format. The value may end in “|” to invoke an external filter.
3136 See formatstrings-filters.
3137 Please note that the Message-ID value follows a strict syntax,
3139 and you are responsible for ensuring correctness if you change
3140 this from the default. In particular, the value must follow the
3141 syntax in RFC 5322: “”<” id-left ”@” id-right ”>””. No spaces
3142 are allowed, and id-left should follow the dot-atom-text syntax
3143 in the RFC. The id-right should generally be left at %f.
3144 The old Message-ID format can be used by setting this to:
3146 “<%Y%02m%02d%02H%02M%02S.G%c%p@%f>”
3147 The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
3149 %c step counter looping from “A” to “Z”
3150 %d current day of the month (GMT)
3151 %f $hostname
3152 %H current hour using a 24-hour clock (GMT)
3153 %m current month number (GMT)
3154 %M current minute of the hour (GMT)
3155 %p pid of the running mutt process
3156 %r 3 bytes of pseudorandom data encoded in Base64
3157 %S current second of the minute (GMT)
3158 %x 1 byte of pseudorandom data hex encoded (example: '1b')
3159 %Y current year using 4 digits (GMT)
3160 %z 4 byte timestamp + 8 bytes of pseudorandom data encoded
3161 in Base64
3162 meta_key
3165 Type: boolean
3166 Default: no
3167 If set, forces Mutt to interpret keystrokes with the high bit
3169 (bit 8) set as if the user had pressed the Esc key and whatever
3170 key remains after having the high bit removed. For example, if
3171 the key pressed has an ASCII value of 0xf8, then this is treated
3172 as if the user had pressed Esc then “x”. This is because the
3173 result of removing the high bit from 0xf8 is 0x78, which is the
3174 ASCII character “x”.
3175 metoo
3179 Type: boolean
3180 Default: no
3181 If unset, Mutt will remove your address (see the “alternates”
3183 command) from the list of recipients when replying to a message.
3184 mh_purge
3188 Type: boolean
3189 Default: no
3190 When unset, mutt will mimic mh's behavior and rename deleted
3192 messages to ,<old file name> in mh folders instead of really
3193 deleting them. This leaves the message on disk but makes pro‐
3194 grams reading the folder ignore it. If the variable is set, the
3195 message files will simply be deleted.
3196 This option is similar to $maildir_trash for Maildir folders.
3198 mh_seq_flagged
3202 Type: string
3203 Default: “flagged”
3204 The name of the MH sequence used for flagged messages.
3206 mh_seq_replied
3210 Type: string
3211 Default: “replied”
3212 The name of the MH sequence used to tag replied messages.
3214 mh_seq_unseen
3218 Type: string
3219 Default: “unseen”
3220 The name of the MH sequence used for unseen messages.
3222 mime_forward
3226 Type: quadoption
3227 Default: no
3228 When set, the message you are forwarding will be attached as a
3230 separate message/rfc822 MIME part instead of included in the
3231 main body of the message. This is useful for forwarding MIME
3232 messages so the receiver can properly view the message as it was
3233 delivered to you. If you like to switch between MIME and not
3234 MIME from mail to mail, set this variable to “ask-no” or
3235 “ask-yes”.
3236 Also see $forward_decode and $mime_forward_decode.
3238 mime_forward_decode
3242 Type: boolean
3243 Default: no
3244 Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into text/plain
3246 when forwarding a message while $mime_forward is set. Otherwise
3247 $forward_decode is used instead.
3248 mime_forward_rest
3252 Type: quadoption
3253 Default: yes
3254 When forwarding multiple attachments of a MIME message from the
3256 attachment menu, attachments which cannot be decoded in a rea‐
3257 sonable manner will be attached to the newly composed message if
3258 this option is set.
3259 mime_type_query_command
3263 Type: string
3264 Default: “”
3265 This specifies a command to run, to determine the mime type of a
3267 new attachment when composing a message. Unless
3268 $mime_type_query_first is set, this will only be run if the at‐
3269 tachment's extension is not found in the mime.types file.
3270 The string may contain a “%s”, which will be substituted with
3272 the attachment filename. Mutt will add quotes around the string
3273 substituted for “%s” automatically according to shell quoting
3274 rules, so you should avoid adding your own. If no “%s” is found
3275 in the string, Mutt will append the attachment filename to the
3276 end of the string.
3277 The command should output a single line containing the attach‐
3279 ment's mime type.
3280 Suggested values are “xdg-mime query filetype” or “file -bi”.
3282 mime_type_query_first
3286 Type: boolean
3287 Default: no
3288 When set, the $mime_type_query_command will be run before the
3290 mime.types lookup.
3291 mix_entry_format
3295 Type: string
3296 Default: “%4n %c %-16s %a”
3297 This variable describes the format of a remailer line on the
3299 mixmaster chain selection screen. The following printf(3)-like
3300 sequences are supported:
3301 %n The running number on the menu.
3302 %c Remailer capabilities.
3303 %s The remailer's short name.
3304 %a The remailer's e-mail address.
3305 mixmaster
3308 Type: path
3309 Default: “mixmaster”
3310 This variable contains the path to the Mixmaster binary on your
3312 system. It is used with various sets of parameters to gather
3313 the list of known remailers, and to finally send a message
3314 through the mixmaster chain.
3315 move
3319 Type: quadoption
3320 Default: no
3321 Controls whether or not Mutt will move read messages from your
3323 spool mailbox to your $mbox mailbox, or as a result of a “mbox-
3324 hook” command.
3325 muttlisp_inline_eval
3329 Type: boolean
3330 Default: no
3331 If set, Mutt will evaluate bare parenthesis arguments to com‐
3333 mands as MuttLisp expressions.
3334 narrow_tree
3338 Type: boolean
3339 Default: no
3340 This variable, when set, makes the thread tree narrower, allow‐
3342 ing deeper threads to fit on the screen.
3343 net_inc
3347 Type: number
3348 Default: 10
3349 Operations that expect to transfer a large amount of data over
3351 the network will update their progress every $net_inc kilobytes.
3352 If set to 0, no progress messages will be displayed.
3353 See also $read_inc, $write_inc and $net_inc.
3355 new_mail_command
3359 Type: path
3360 Default: “”
3361 If set, Mutt will call this command after a new message is re‐
3363 ceived. See the $status_format documentation for the values
3364 that can be formatted into this command.
3365 pager
3369 Type: path
3370 Default: “builtin”
3371 This variable specifies which pager you would like to use to
3373 view messages. The value “builtin” means to use the built-in
3374 pager, otherwise this variable should specify the pathname of
3375 the external pager you would like to use.
3376 Using an external pager may have some disadvantages: Additional
3378 keystrokes are necessary because you can't call mutt functions
3379 directly from the pager, and screen resizes cause lines longer
3380 than the screen width to be badly formatted in the help menu.
3381 When using an external pager, also see $prompt_after which de‐
3383 faults set.
3384 pager_context
3388 Type: number
3389 Default: 0
3390 This variable controls the number of lines of context that are
3392 given when displaying the next or previous page in the internal
3393 pager. By default, Mutt will display the line after the last
3394 one on the screen at the top of the next page (0 lines of con‐
3395 text).
3396 This variable also specifies the amount of context given for
3398 search results. If positive, this many lines will be given be‐
3399 fore a match, if 0, the match will be top-aligned.
3400 pager_format
3404 Type: string
3405 Default: “-%Z- %C/%m: %-20.20n %s%* -- (%P)”
3406 This variable controls the format of the one-line message “sta‐
3408 tus” displayed before each message in either the internal or an
3409 external pager. The valid sequences are listed in the $in‐
3410 dex_format section.
3411 pager_index_lines
3415 Type: number
3416 Default: 0
3417 Determines the number of lines of a mini-index which is shown
3419 when in the pager. The current message, unless near the top or
3420 bottom of the folder, will be roughly one third of the way down
3421 this mini-index, giving the reader the context of a few messages
3422 before and after the message. This is useful, for example, to
3423 determine how many messages remain to be read in the current
3424 thread. One of the lines is reserved for the status bar from
3425 the index, so a setting of 6 will only show 5 lines of the ac‐
3426 tual index. A value of 0 results in no index being shown. If
3427 the number of messages in the current folder is less than
3428 $pager_index_lines, then the index will only use as many lines
3429 as it needs.
3430 pager_stop
3434 Type: boolean
3435 Default: no
3436 When set, the internal-pager will not move to the next message
3438 when you are at the end of a message and invoke the <next-page>
3439 function.
3440 pattern_format
3444 Type: string
3445 Default: “%2n %-15e %d”
3446 This variable describes the format of the “pattern completion”
3448 menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
3449 %d pattern description
3450 %e pattern expression
3451 %n index number
3452 pgp_auto_decode
3454 Type: boolean
3455 Default: no
3456 If set, mutt will automatically attempt to decrypt traditional
3458 PGP messages whenever the user performs an operation which ordi‐
3459 narily would result in the contents of the message being oper‐
3460 ated on. For example, if the user displays a pgp-traditional
3461 message which has not been manually checked with the <check-tra‐
3462 ditional-pgp> function, mutt will automatically check the mes‐
3463 sage for traditional pgp.
3464 pgp_autoinline
3468 Type: boolean
3469 Default: no
3470 This option controls whether Mutt generates old-style inline
3472 (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages under certain
3473 circumstances. This can be overridden by use of the pgp menu,
3474 when inline is not required. The GPGME backend does not support
3475 this option.
3476 Note that Mutt might automatically use PGP/MIME for messages
3478 which consist of more than a single MIME part. Mutt can be con‐
3479 figured to ask before sending PGP/MIME messages when inline
3480 (traditional) would not work.
3481 Also see the $pgp_mime_auto variable.
3483 Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is
3485 strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
3486 pgp_check_exit
3490 Type: boolean
3491 Default: yes
3492 If set, mutt will check the exit code of the PGP subprocess when
3494 signing or encrypting. A non-zero exit code means that the sub‐
3495 process failed. (PGP only)
3496 pgp_check_gpg_decrypt_status_fd
3500 Type: boolean
3501 Default: yes
3502 If set, mutt will check the status file descriptor output of
3504 $pgp_decrypt_command and $pgp_decode_command for GnuPG status
3505 codes indicating successful decryption. This will check for the
3506 presence of DECRYPTION_OKAY, absence of DECRYPTION_FAILED, and
3507 that all PLAINTEXT occurs between the BEGIN_DECRYPTION and
3508 END_DECRYPTION status codes.
3509 If unset, mutt will instead match the status fd output against
3511 $pgp_decryption_okay. (PGP only)
3512 pgp_clearsign_command
3516 Type: string
3517 Default: “”
3518 This format is used to create an old-style “clearsigned” PGP
3520 message. Note that the use of this format is strongly depre‐
3521 cated.
3522 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3524 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3525 pgp_decode_command
3529 Type: string
3530 Default: “”
3531 This format strings specifies a command which is used to decode
3533 application/pgp attachments.
3534 The PGP command formats have their own set of printf(3)-like se‐
3536 quences:
3537 %p Expands to PGPPASSFD=0 when a pass phrase is needed, to
3538 an empty string otherwise. Note: This may be used with a
3539 %? construct.
3540 %f Expands to the name of a file containing a message.
3541 %s Expands to the name of a file containing the signature
3542 part
3543 of a multipart/signed attachment when verify‐
3544 ing it.
3545 %a The value of $pgp_sign_as if set, otherwise the value of
3546 $pgp_default_key.
3547 %r One or more key IDs (or fingerprints if available).
3548 For examples on how to configure these formats for the various
3550 versions of PGP which are floating around, see the pgp and gpg
3551 sample configuration files in the samples/ subdirectory which
3552 has been installed on your system alongside the documentation.
3553 (PGP only)
3554 pgp_decrypt_command
3558 Type: string
3559 Default: “”
3560 This command is used to decrypt a PGP encrypted message.
3562 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3564 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3565 pgp_decryption_okay
3569 Type: regular expression
3570 Default: “”
3571 If you assign text to this variable, then an encrypted PGP mes‐
3573 sage is only considered successfully decrypted if the output
3574 from $pgp_decrypt_command contains the text. This is used to
3575 protect against a spoofed encrypted message, with multipart/en‐
3576 crypted headers but containing a block that is not actually en‐
3577 crypted. (e.g. simply signed and ascii armored text).
3578 Note that if $pgp_check_gpg_decrypt_status_fd is set, this vari‐
3580 able is ignored. (PGP only)
3581 pgp_default_key
3585 Type: string
3586 Default: “”
3587 This is the default key-pair to use for PGP operations. It will
3589 be used for encryption (see $postpone_encrypt and $pgp_self_en‐
3590 crypt).
3591 It will also be used for signing unless $pgp_sign_as is set.
3593 The (now deprecated) pgp_self_encrypt_as is an alias for this
3595 variable, and should no longer be used. (PGP only)
3596 pgp_encrypt_only_command
3600 Type: string
3601 Default: “”
3602 This command is used to encrypt a body part without signing it.
3604 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3606 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3607 pgp_encrypt_sign_command
3611 Type: string
3612 Default: “”
3613 This command is used to both sign and encrypt a body part.
3615 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3617 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3618 pgp_entry_format
3622 Type: string
3623 Default: “%4n %t%f %4l/0x%k %-4a %2c %u”
3624 This variable allows you to customize the PGP key selection menu
3626 to your personal taste. This string is similar to $index_format,
3627 but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
3628 %n number
3629 %k key id
3630 %u user id
3631 %a algorithm
3632 %l key length
3633 %f flags
3634 %c capabilities
3635 %t trust/validity of the key-uid association
3636 %[<s>] date of the key where <s> is an strftime(3) expression
3637 (PGP only)
3639 pgp_export_command
3643 Type: string
3644 Default: “”
3645 This command is used to export a public key from the user's key
3647 ring.
3648 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3650 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3651 pgp_getkeys_command
3655 Type: string
3656 Default: “”
3657 This command is invoked whenever Mutt needs to fetch the public
3659 key associated with an email address. Of the sequences sup‐
3660 ported by $pgp_decode_command, %r is the only printf(3)-like se‐
3661 quence used with this format. Note that in this case, %r ex‐
3662 pands to the email address, not the public key ID (the key ID is
3663 unknown, which is why Mutt is invoking this command). (PGP
3664 only)
3665 pgp_good_sign
3669 Type: regular expression
3670 Default: “”
3671 If you assign a text to this variable, then a PGP signature is
3673 only considered verified if the output from $pgp_verify_command
3674 contains the text. Use this variable if the exit code from the
3675 command is 0 even for bad signatures. (PGP only)
3676 pgp_ignore_subkeys
3680 Type: boolean
3681 Default: yes
3682 Setting this variable will cause Mutt to ignore OpenPGP subkeys.
3684 Instead, the principal key will inherit the subkeys' capabili‐
3685 ties. Unset this if you want to play interesting key selection
3686 games. (PGP only)
3687 pgp_import_command
3691 Type: string
3692 Default: “”
3693 This command is used to import a key from a message into the
3695 user's public key ring.
3696 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3698 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3699 pgp_list_pubring_command
3703 Type: string
3704 Default: “”
3705 This command is used to list the public key ring's contents.
3707 The output format must be analogous to the one used by
3708 gpg --list-keys --with-colons --with-fingerprint
3711 This format is also generated by the mutt_pgpring utility which
3714 comes with mutt.
3715 Note: gpg's fixed-list-mode option should not be used. It pro‐
3717 duces a different date format which may result in mutt showing
3718 incorrect key generation dates.
3719 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3721 possible printf(3)-like sequences. Note that in this case, %r
3722 expands to the search string, which is a list of one or more
3723 quoted values such as email address, name, or keyid. (PGP only)
3724 pgp_list_secring_command
3728 Type: string
3729 Default: “”
3730 This command is used to list the secret key ring's contents.
3732 The output format must be analogous to the one used by:
3733 gpg --list-keys --with-colons --with-fingerprint
3736 This format is also generated by the mutt_pgpring utility which
3739 comes with mutt.
3740 Note: gpg's fixed-list-mode option should not be used. It pro‐
3742 duces a different date format which may result in mutt showing
3743 incorrect key generation dates.
3744 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3746 possible printf(3)-like sequences. Note that in this case, %r
3747 expands to the search string, which is a list of one or more
3748 quoted values such as email address, name, or keyid. (PGP only)
3749 pgp_long_ids
3753 Type: boolean
3754 Default: yes
3755 If set, use 64 bit PGP key IDs, if unset use the normal 32 bit
3757 key IDs. NOTE: Internally, Mutt has transitioned to using fin‐
3758 gerprints (or long key IDs as a fallback). This option now only
3759 controls the display of key IDs in the key selection menu and a
3760 few other places. (PGP only)
3761 pgp_mime_auto
3765 Type: quadoption
3766 Default: ask-yes
3767 This option controls whether Mutt will prompt you for automati‐
3769 cally sending a (signed/encrypted) message using PGP/MIME when
3770 inline (traditional) fails (for any reason).
3771 Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is
3773 strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
3774 pgp_replyinline
3778 Type: boolean
3779 Default: no
3780 Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to cre‐
3782 ate an inline (traditional) message when replying to a message
3783 which is PGP encrypted/signed inline. This can be overridden by
3784 use of the pgp menu, when inline is not required. This option
3785 does not automatically detect if the (replied-to) message is in‐
3786 line; instead it relies on Mutt internals for previously
3787 checked/flagged messages.
3788 Note that Mutt might automatically use PGP/MIME for messages
3790 which consist of more than a single MIME part. Mutt can be con‐
3791 figured to ask before sending PGP/MIME messages when inline
3792 (traditional) would not work.
3793 Also see the $pgp_mime_auto variable.
3795 Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is
3797 strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
3798 pgp_retainable_sigs
3802 Type: boolean
3803 Default: no
3804 If set, signed and encrypted messages will consist of nested
3806 multipart/signed and multipart/encrypted body parts.
3807 This is useful for applications like encrypted and signed mail‐
3809 ing lists, where the outer layer (multipart/encrypted) can be
3810 easily removed, while the inner multipart/signed part is re‐
3811 tained. (PGP only)
3812 pgp_self_encrypt
3816 Type: boolean
3817 Default: yes
3818 When set, PGP encrypted messages will also be encrypted using
3820 the key in $pgp_default_key. (PGP only)
3821 pgp_show_unusable
3825 Type: boolean
3826 Default: yes
3827 If set, mutt will display non-usable keys on the PGP key selec‐
3829 tion menu. This includes keys which have been revoked, have ex‐
3830 pired, or have been marked as “disabled” by the user. (PGP
3831 only)
3832 pgp_sign_as
3836 Type: string
3837 Default: “”
3838 If you have a different key pair to use for signing, you should
3840 set this to the signing key. Most people will only need to set
3841 $pgp_default_key. It is recommended that you use the keyid form
3842 to specify your key (e.g. 0x00112233). (PGP only)
3843 pgp_sign_command
3847 Type: string
3848 Default: “”
3849 This command is used to create the detached PGP signature for a
3851 multipart/signed PGP/MIME body part.
3852 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3854 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3855 pgp_sort_keys
3859 Type: sort order
3860 Default: address
3861 Specifies how the entries in the pgp menu are sorted. The fol‐
3863 lowing are legal values:
3864 address
3865 sort alphabetically by user id
3866 keyid sort alphabetically by key id
3867 date sort by key creation date
3868 trust sort by the trust of the key
3869 If you prefer reverse order of the above values, prefix it with
3871 “reverse-”. (PGP only)
3872 pgp_strict_enc
3876 Type: boolean
3877 Default: yes
3878 If set, Mutt will automatically encode PGP/MIME signed messages
3880 as quoted-printable. Please note that unsetting this variable
3881 may lead to problems with non-verifyable PGP signatures, so only
3882 change this if you know what you are doing. (PGP only)
3883 pgp_timeout
3887 Type: number (long)
3888 Default: 300
3889 The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase will ex‐
3891 pire if not used. (PGP only)
3892 pgp_use_gpg_agent
3896 Type: boolean
3897 Default: no
3898 If set, mutt expects a gpg-agent(1) process will handle private
3900 key passphrase prompts. If unset, mutt will prompt for the
3901 passphrase and pass it via stdin to the pgp command.
3902 Note that as of version 2.1, GnuPG automatically spawns an agent
3904 and requires the agent be used for passphrase management. Since
3905 that version is increasingly prevalent, this variable now de‐
3906 faults set.
3907 Mutt works with a GUI or curses pinentry program. A TTY pinen‐
3909 try should not be used.
3910 If you are using an older version of GnuPG without an agent run‐
3912 ning, or another encryption program without an agent, you will
3913 need to unset this variable. (PGP only)
3914 pgp_verify_command
3918 Type: string
3919 Default: “”
3920 This command is used to verify PGP signatures.
3922 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3924 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3925 pgp_verify_key_command
3929 Type: string
3930 Default: “”
3931 This command is used to verify key information from the key se‐
3933 lection menu.
3934 This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for
3936 possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)
3937 pipe_decode
3941 Type: boolean
3942 Default: no
3943 Used in connection with the <pipe-message> function. When un‐
3945 set, Mutt will pipe the messages without any preprocessing. When
3946 set, Mutt will attempt to decode the messages first.
3947 Also see $pipe_decode_weed, which controls whether headers will
3949 be weeded when this is set.
3950 pipe_decode_weed
3954 Type: boolean
3955 Default: yes
3956 For <pipe-message>, when $pipe_decode is set, this further con‐
3958 trols whether Mutt will weed headers.
3959 pipe_sep
3963 Type: string
3964 Default: “\n”
3965 The separator to add between messages when piping a list of
3967 tagged messages to an external Unix command.
3968 pipe_split
3972 Type: boolean
3973 Default: no
3974 Used in connection with the <pipe-message> function following
3976 <tag-prefix>. If this variable is unset, when piping a list of
3977 tagged messages Mutt will concatenate the messages and will pipe
3978 them all concatenated. When set, Mutt will pipe the messages
3979 one by one. In both cases the messages are piped in the current
3980 sorted order, and the $pipe_sep separator is added after each
3981 message.
3982 pop_auth_try_all
3986 Type: boolean
3987 Default: yes
3988 If set, Mutt will try all available authentication methods.
3990 When unset, Mutt will only fall back to other authentication
3991 methods if the previous methods are unavailable. If a method is
3992 available but authentication fails, Mutt will not connect to the
3993 POP server.
3994 pop_authenticators
3998 Type: string
3999 Default: “”
4000 This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods mutt
4002 may attempt to use to log in to an POP server, in the order mutt
4003 should try them. Authentication methods are either “user”,
4004 “apop” or any SASL mechanism, e.g. “digest-md5”, “gssapi” or
4005 “cram-md5”. This option is case-insensitive. If this option is
4006 unset (the default) mutt will try all available methods, in or‐
4007 der from most-secure to least-secure.
4008 Example:
4010 set pop_authenticators=”digest-md5:apop:user”
4013 pop_checkinterval
4018 Type: number
4019 Default: 60
4020 This variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt should look
4022 for new mail in the currently selected mailbox if it is a POP
4023 mailbox.
4024 pop_delete
4028 Type: quadoption
4029 Default: ask-no
4030 If set, Mutt will delete successfully downloaded messages from
4032 the POP server when using the <fetch-mail> function. When un‐
4033 set, Mutt will download messages but also leave them on the POP
4034 server.
4035 pop_host
4039 Type: string
4040 Default: “”
4041 The name of your POP server for the <fetch-mail> function. You
4043 can also specify an alternative port, username and password,
4044 i.e.:
4045 [pop[s]://][username[:password]@]popserver[:port]
4048 where “[...]” denotes an optional part.
4051 pop_last
4055 Type: boolean
4056 Default: no
4057 If this variable is set, mutt will try to use the “LAST” POP
4059 command for retrieving only unread messages from the POP server
4060 when using the <fetch-mail> function.
4061 pop_oauth_refresh_command
4065 Type: string
4066 Default: “”
4067 The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for autho‐
4069 rizing your connection to your POP server. This command will be
4070 run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER au‐
4071 thentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.
4072 pop_pass
4076 Type: string
4077 Default: “”
4078 Specifies the password for your POP account. If unset, Mutt
4080 will prompt you for your password when you open a POP mailbox.
4081 Warning: you should only use this option when you are on a
4083 fairly secure machine, because the superuser can read your mut‐
4084 trc even if you are the only one who can read the file.
4085 pop_reconnect
4089 Type: quadoption
4090 Default: ask-yes
4091 Controls whether or not Mutt will try to reconnect to the POP
4093 server if the connection is lost.
4094 pop_user
4098 Type: string
4099 Default: “”
4100 Your login name on the POP server.
4102 This variable defaults to your user name on the local machine.
4104 post_indent_string
4108 Type: string
4109 Default: “”
4110 Similar to the $attribution variable, Mutt will append this
4112 string after the inclusion of a message which is being replied
4113 to. For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see
4114 the section on $index_format.
4115 postpone
4119 Type: quadoption
4120 Default: ask-yes
4121 Controls whether or not messages are saved in the $postponed
4123 mailbox when you elect not to send immediately.
4124 Also see the $recall variable.
4126 postponed
4130 Type: path
4131 Default: “~/postponed”
4132 Mutt allows you to indefinitely “postpone sending a message”
4134 which you are editing. When you choose to postpone a message,
4135 Mutt saves it in the mailbox specified by this variable.
4136 Also see the $postpone variable.
4138 postpone_encrypt
4142 Type: boolean
4143 Default: no
4144 When set, postponed messages that are marked for encryption will
4146 be self-encrypted. Mutt will first try to encrypt using the
4147 value specified in $pgp_default_key or $smime_default_key. If
4148 those are not set, it will try the deprecated $postpone_en‐
4149 crypt_as. (Crypto only)
4150 postpone_encrypt_as
4154 Type: string
4155 Default: “”
4156 This is a deprecated fall-back variable for $postpone_encrypt.
4158 Please use $pgp_default_key or $smime_default_key. (Crypto
4159 only)
4160 preconnect
4164 Type: string
4165 Default: “”
4166 If set, a shell command to be executed if mutt fails to estab‐
4168 lish a connection to the server. This is useful for setting up
4169 secure connections, e.g. with ssh(1). If the command returns a
4170 nonzero status, mutt gives up opening the server. Example:
4171 set preconnect=”ssh -f -q -L 1234:mailhost.net:143 mailhost.net \
4174 sleep 20 < /dev/null > /dev/null”
4175 Mailbox “foo” on “mailhost.net” can now be reached as “{local‐
4178 host:1234}foo”.
4179 Note: For this example to work, you must be able to log in to
4181 the remote machine without having to enter a password.
4182 print
4186 Type: quadoption
4187 Default: ask-no
4188 Controls whether or not Mutt really prints messages. This is
4190 set to “ask-no” by default, because some people accidentally hit
4191 “p” often.
4192 print_command
4196 Type: path
4197 Default: “lpr”
4198 This specifies the command pipe that should be used to print
4200 messages.
4201 print_decode
4205 Type: boolean
4206 Default: yes
4207 Used in connection with the <print-message> function. If this
4209 option is set, the message is decoded before it is passed to the
4210 external command specified by $print_command. If this option is
4211 unset, no processing will be applied to the message when print‐
4212 ing it. The latter setting may be useful if you are using some
4213 advanced printer filter which is able to properly format e-mail
4214 messages for printing.
4215 Also see $print_decode_weed, which controls whether headers will
4217 be weeded when this is set.
4218 print_decode_weed
4222 Type: boolean
4223 Default: yes
4224 For <print-message>, when $print_decode is set, this further
4226 controls whether Mutt will weed headers.
4227 print_split
4231 Type: boolean
4232 Default: no
4233 Used in connection with the <print-message> function. If this
4235 option is set, the command specified by $print_command is exe‐
4236 cuted once for each message which is to be printed. If this op‐
4237 tion is unset, the command specified by $print_command is exe‐
4238 cuted only once, and all the messages are concatenated, with a
4239 form feed as the message separator.
4240 Those who use the enscript(1) program's mail-printing mode will
4242 most likely want to set this option.
4243 prompt_after
4247 Type: boolean
4248 Default: yes
4249 If you use an external $pager, setting this variable will cause
4251 Mutt to prompt you for a command when the pager exits rather
4252 than returning to the index menu. If unset, Mutt will return to
4253 the index menu when the external pager exits.
4254 query_command
4258 Type: path
4259 Default: “”
4260 This specifies the command Mutt will use to make external ad‐
4262 dress queries. The string may contain a “%s”, which will be
4263 substituted with the query string the user types. Mutt will add
4264 quotes around the string substituted for “%s” automatically ac‐
4265 cording to shell quoting rules, so you should avoid adding your
4266 own. If no “%s” is found in the string, Mutt will append the
4267 user's query to the end of the string. See “query” for more in‐
4268 formation.
4269 query_format
4273 Type: string
4274 Default: “%4c %t %-25.25a %-25.25n %?e?(%e)?”
4275 This variable describes the format of the “query” menu. The fol‐
4277 lowing printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
4278 %a destination address
4279 %c current entry number
4280 %e extra information *
4281 %n destination name
4282 %t “*” if current entry is tagged, a space otherwise
4283 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with “X”
4284 %|X pad to the end of the line with “X”
4285 %*X soft-fill with character “X” as pad
4286 For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format docu‐
4288 mentation.
4289 * = can be optionally printed if nonzero, see the $status_format
4291 documentation.
4292 quit
4296 Type: quadoption
4297 Default: yes
4298 This variable controls whether “quit” and “exit” actually quit
4300 from mutt. If this option is set, they do quit, if it is unset,
4301 they have no effect, and if it is set to ask-yes or ask-no, you
4302 are prompted for confirmation when you try to quit.
4303 quote_regexp
4307 Type: regular expression
4308 Default: “^([ \t]*[|>:}#])+”
4309 A regular expression used in the internal pager to determine
4311 quoted sections of text in the body of a message. Quoted text
4312 may be filtered out using the <toggle-quoted> command, or col‐
4313 ored according to the “color quoted” family of directives.
4314 Higher levels of quoting may be colored differently (“color
4316 quoted1”, “color quoted2”, etc.). The quoting level is deter‐
4317 mined by removing the last character from the matched text and
4318 recursively reapplying the regular expression until it fails to
4319 produce a match.
4320 Match detection may be overridden by the $smileys regular ex‐
4322 pression.
4323 read_inc
4327 Type: number
4328 Default: 10
4329 If set to a value greater than 0, Mutt will display which mes‐
4331 sage it is currently on when reading a mailbox or when perform‐
4332 ing search actions such as search and limit. The message is
4333 printed after this many messages have been read or searched
4334 (e.g., if set to 25, Mutt will print a message when it is at
4335 message 25, and then again when it gets to message 50). This
4336 variable is meant to indicate progress when reading or searching
4337 large mailboxes which may take some time. When set to 0, only a
4338 single message will appear before the reading the mailbox.
4339 Also see the $write_inc, $net_inc and $time_inc variables and
4341 the “tuning” section of the manual for performance considera‐
4342 tions.
4343 read_only
4347 Type: boolean
4348 Default: no
4349 If set, all folders are opened in read-only mode.
4351 realname
4355 Type: string
4356 Default: “”
4357 This variable specifies what “real” or “personal” name should be
4359 used when sending messages.
4360 By default, this is the GECOS field from /etc/passwd. Note that
4362 this variable will not be used when the user has set a real name
4363 in the $from variable.
4364 recall
4368 Type: quadoption
4369 Default: ask-yes
4370 Controls whether or not Mutt recalls postponed messages when
4372 composing a new message.
4373 Setting this variable to yes is not generally useful, and thus
4375 not recommended. Note that the <recall-message> function can be
4376 used to manually recall postponed messages.
4377 Also see $postponed variable.
4379 record
4383 Type: path
4384 Default: “~/sent”
4385 This specifies the file into which your outgoing messages should
4387 be appended. (This is meant as the primary method for saving a
4388 copy of your messages, but another way to do this is using the
4389 “my_hdr” command to create a “Bcc:” field with your email ad‐
4390 dress in it.)
4391 The value of $record is overridden by the $force_name and
4393 $save_name variables, and the “fcc-hook” command. Also see
4394 $copy and $write_bcc.
4395 Multiple mailboxes may be specified if $fcc_delimiter is set to
4397 a string delimiter.
4398 reflow_space_quotes
4402 Type: boolean
4403 Default: yes
4404 This option controls how quotes from format=flowed messages are
4406 displayed in the pager and when replying (with $text_flowed un‐
4407 set). When set, this option adds spaces after each level of
4408 quote marks, turning ”>>>foo” into ”> > > foo”.
4409 Note: If $reflow_text is unset, this option has no effect.
4411 Also, this option does not affect replies when $text_flowed is
4412 set.
4413 reflow_text
4417 Type: boolean
4418 Default: yes
4419 When set, Mutt will reformat paragraphs in text/plain parts
4421 marked format=flowed. If unset, Mutt will display paragraphs
4422 unaltered from how they appear in the message body. See RFC3676
4423 for details on the format=flowed format.
4424 Also see $reflow_wrap, and $wrap.
4426 reflow_wrap
4430 Type: number
4431 Default: 78
4432 This variable controls the maximum paragraph width when refor‐
4434 matting text/plain parts when $reflow_text is set. When the
4435 value is 0, paragraphs will be wrapped at the terminal's right
4436 margin. A positive value sets the paragraph width relative to
4437 the left margin. A negative value set the paragraph width rela‐
4438 tive to the right margin.
4439 Also see $wrap.
4441 reply_regexp
4445 Type: regular expression
4446 Default: “^(re([\[0-9\]+])*|aw):[ \t]*”
4447 A regular expression used to recognize reply messages when
4449 threading and replying. The default value corresponds to the
4450 English ”Re:” and the German ”Aw:”.
4451 reply_self
4455 Type: boolean
4456 Default: no
4457 If unset and you are replying to a message sent by you, Mutt
4459 will assume that you want to reply to the recipients of that
4460 message rather than to yourself.
4461 Also see the “alternates” command.
4463 reply_to
4467 Type: quadoption
4468 Default: ask-yes
4469 If set, when replying to a message, Mutt will use the address
4471 listed in the Reply-to: header as the recipient of the reply.
4472 If unset, it will use the address in the From: header field in‐
4473 stead. This option is useful for reading a mailing list that
4474 sets the Reply-To: header field to the list address and you want
4475 to send a private message to the author of a message.
4476 resolve
4480 Type: boolean
4481 Default: yes
4482 When set, the cursor will be automatically advanced to the next
4484 (possibly undeleted) message whenever a command that modifies
4485 the current message is executed.
4486 resume_draft_files
4490 Type: boolean
4491 Default: no
4492 If set, draft files (specified by -H on the command line) are
4494 processed similarly to when resuming a postponed message. Re‐
4495 cipients are not prompted for; send-hooks are not evaluated; no
4496 alias expansion takes place; user-defined headers and signatures
4497 are not added to the message.
4498 resume_edited_draft_files
4502 Type: boolean
4503 Default: yes
4504 If set, draft files previously edited (via -E -H on the command
4506 line) will have $resume_draft_files automatically set when they
4507 are used as a draft file again.
4508 The first time a draft file is saved, mutt will add a header,
4510 X-Mutt-Resume-Draft to the saved file. The next time the draft
4511 file is read in, if mutt sees the header, it will set $re‐
4512 sume_draft_files.
4513 This option is designed to prevent multiple signatures, user-de‐
4515 fined headers, and other processing effects from being made mul‐
4516 tiple times to the draft file.
4517 reverse_alias
4521 Type: boolean
4522 Default: no
4523 This variable controls whether or not Mutt will display the
4525 “personal” name from your aliases in the index menu if it finds
4526 an alias that matches the message's sender. For example, if you
4527 have the following alias:
4528 alias juser abd30425@somewhere.net (Joe User)
4531 and then you receive mail which contains the following header:
4534 From: abd30425@somewhere.net
4537 It would be displayed in the index menu as “Joe User” instead of
4540 “abd30425@somewhere.net.” This is useful when the person's
4541 e-mail address is not human friendly.
4542 reverse_name
4546 Type: boolean
4547 Default: no
4548 It may sometimes arrive that you receive mail to a certain ma‐
4550 chine, move the messages to another machine, and reply to some
4551 the messages from there. If this variable is set, the default
4552 From: line of the reply messages is built using the address
4553 where you received the messages you are replying to if that ad‐
4554 dress matches your “alternates”. If the variable is unset, or
4555 the address that would be used doesn't match your “alternates”,
4556 the From: line will use your address on the current machine.
4557 Also see the “alternates” command and $reverse_realname.
4559 reverse_realname
4563 Type: boolean
4564 Default: yes
4565 This variable fine-tunes the behavior of the $reverse_name fea‐
4567 ture.
4568 When it is unset, Mutt will remove the real name part of a
4570 matching address. This allows the use of the email address
4571 without having to also use what the sender put in the real name
4572 field.
4573 When it is set, Mutt will use the matching address as-is.
4575 In either case, a missing real name will be filled in afterwards
4577 using the value of $realname.
4578 rfc2047_parameters
4582 Type: boolean
4583 Default: no
4584 When this variable is set, Mutt will decode RFC2047-encoded MIME
4586 parameters. You want to set this variable when mutt suggests you
4587 to save attachments to files named like:
4588 =?iso-8859-1?Q?file=5F=E4=5F991116=2Ezip?=
4591 When this variable is set interactively, the change won't be ac‐
4594 tive until you change folders.
4595 Note that this use of RFC2047's encoding is explicitly prohib‐
4597 ited by the standard, but nevertheless encountered in the wild.
4598 Also note that setting this parameter will not have the effect
4600 that mutt generates this kind of encoding. Instead, mutt will
4601 unconditionally use the encoding specified in RFC2231.
4602 save_address
4606 Type: boolean
4607 Default: no
4608 If set, mutt will take the sender's full address when choosing a
4610 default folder for saving a mail. If $save_name or $force_name
4611 is set too, the selection of the Fcc folder will be changed as
4612 well.
4613 save_empty
4617 Type: boolean
4618 Default: yes
4619 When unset, mailboxes which contain no saved messages will be
4621 removed when closed (the exception is $spoolfile which is never
4622 removed). If set, mailboxes are never removed.
4623 Note: This only applies to mbox and MMDF folders, Mutt does not
4625 delete MH and Maildir directories.
4626 save_history
4630 Type: number
4631 Default: 0
4632 This variable controls the size of the history (per category)
4634 saved in the $history_file file.
4635 save_name
4639 Type: boolean
4640 Default: no
4641 This variable controls how copies of outgoing messages are
4643 saved. When set, a check is made to see if a mailbox specified
4644 by the recipient address exists (this is done by searching for a
4645 mailbox in the $folder directory with the username part of the
4646 recipient address). If the mailbox exists, the outgoing message
4647 will be saved to that mailbox, otherwise the message is saved to
4648 the $record mailbox.
4649 Also see the $force_name variable.
4651 score
4655 Type: boolean
4656 Default: yes
4657 When this variable is unset, scoring is turned off. This can be
4659 useful to selectively disable scoring for certain folders when
4660 the $score_threshold_delete variable and related are used.
4661 score_threshold_delete
4665 Type: number
4666 Default: -1
4667 Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or lower than
4669 the value of this variable are automatically marked for deletion
4670 by mutt. Since mutt scores are always greater than or equal to
4671 zero, the default setting of this variable will never mark a
4672 message for deletion.
4673 score_threshold_flag
4677 Type: number
4678 Default: 9999
4679 Messages which have been assigned a score greater than or equal
4681 to this variable's value are automatically marked ”flagged”.
4682 score_threshold_read
4686 Type: number
4687 Default: -1
4688 Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or lower than
4690 the value of this variable are automatically marked as read by
4691 mutt. Since mutt scores are always greater than or equal to
4692 zero, the default setting of this variable will never mark a
4693 message read.
4694 search_context
4698 Type: number
4699 Default: 0
4700 For the pager, this variable specifies the number of lines shown
4702 before search results. By default, search results will be
4703 top-aligned.
4704 send_charset
4708 Type: string
4709 Default: “us-ascii:iso-8859-1:utf-8”
4710 A colon-delimited list of character sets for outgoing messages.
4712 Mutt will use the first character set into which the text can be
4713 converted exactly. If your $charset is not “iso-8859-1” and re‐
4714 cipients may not understand “UTF-8”, it is advisable to include
4715 in the list an appropriate widely used standard character set
4716 (such as “iso-8859-2”, “koi8-r” or “iso-2022-jp”) either instead
4717 of or after “iso-8859-1”.
4718 In case the text cannot be converted into one of these exactly,
4720 mutt uses $charset as a fallback.
4721 send_multipart_alternative
4725 Type: quadoption
4726 Default: no
4727 If set, Mutt will generate a multipart/alternative container and
4729 an alternative part using the filter script specified in
4730 $send_multipart_alternative_filter. See the section “MIME Mul‐
4731 tipart/Alternative” (alternative-order).
4732 Note that enabling multipart/alternative is not compatible with
4734 inline PGP encryption. Mutt will prompt to use PGP/MIME in that
4735 case.
4736 send_multipart_alternative_filter
4740 Type: path
4741 Default: “”
4742 This specifies a filter script, which will convert the main
4744 (composed) message of the email to an alternative format. The
4745 message will be piped to the filter's stdin. The expected out‐
4746 put of the filter is the generated mime type, e.g. text/html,
4747 followed by a blank line, and then the converted content. See
4748 the section “MIME Multipart/Alternative” (alternative-order).
4749 sendmail
4753 Type: path
4754 Default: “/usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -oi”
4755 Specifies the program and arguments used to deliver mail sent by
4757 Mutt. Mutt expects that the specified program interprets addi‐
4758 tional arguments as recipient addresses. Mutt appends all re‐
4759 cipients after adding a -- delimiter (if not already present).
4760 Additional flags, such as for $use_8bitmime, $use_envelope_from,
4761 $dsn_notify, or $dsn_return will be added before the delimiter.
4762 See also: $write_bcc.
4764 sendmail_wait
4768 Type: number
4769 Default: 0
4770 Specifies the number of seconds to wait for the $sendmail
4772 process to finish before giving up and putting delivery in the
4773 background.
4774 Mutt interprets the value of this variable as follows:
4776 >0 number of seconds to wait for sendmail to finish before
4777 continuing
4778 0 wait forever for sendmail to finish
4779 <0 always put sendmail in the background without waiting
4780 Note that if you specify a value other than 0, the output of the
4782 child process will be put in a temporary file. If there is some
4783 error, you will be informed as to where to find the output.
4784 shell
4788 Type: path
4789 Default: “”
4790 Command to use when spawning a subshell. By default, the user's
4792 login shell from /etc/passwd is used.
4793 sidebar_delim_chars
4797 Type: string
4798 Default: “/.”
4799 This contains the list of characters which you would like to
4801 treat as folder separators for displaying paths in the sidebar.
4802 Local mail is often arranged in directories: `dir1/dir2/mail‐
4804 box'.
4805 set sidebar_delim_chars='/'
4808 IMAP mailboxes are often named: `folder1.folder2.mailbox'.
4811 set sidebar_delim_chars='.'
4814 See also: $sidebar_short_path, $sidebar_folder_indent, $side‐
4817 bar_indent_string.
4818 sidebar_divider_char
4822 Type: string
4823 Default: “|”
4824 This specifies the characters to be drawn between the sidebar
4826 (when visible) and the other Mutt panels. ASCII and Unicode
4827 line-drawing characters are supported.
4828 sidebar_folder_indent
4832 Type: boolean
4833 Default: no
4834 Set this to indent mailboxes in the sidebar.
4836 See also: $sidebar_short_path, $sidebar_indent_string, $side‐
4838 bar_delim_chars.
4839 sidebar_format
4843 Type: string
4844 Default: “%B%* %n”
4845 This variable allows you to customize the sidebar display. This
4847 string is similar to $index_format, but has its own set of
4848 printf(3)-like sequences:
4849 %B Name of the mailbox
4850 %S * Size of mailbox (total number of messages)
4851 %N * Number of unread messages in the mailbox
4852 %n N if mailbox has new mail, blank otherwise
4853 %F * Number of Flagged messages in the mailbox
4854 %! “!” : one flagged message; “!!” : two flagged messages;
4855 “n!” : n flagged messages (for n > 2). Otherwise prints
4856 nothing.
4857 %d * @ Number of deleted messages
4858 %L * @ Number of messages after limiting
4859 %t * @ Number of tagged messages
4860 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with “X”
4861 %|X pad to the end of the line with “X”
4862 %*X soft-fill with character “X” as pad
4863 * = Can be optionally printed if nonzero @ = Only applicable to
4865 the current folder
4866 In order to use %S, %N, %F, and %!, $mail_check_stats must be
4868 set. When thus set, a suggested value for this option is
4869 ”%B%?F? [%F]?%* %?N?%N/?%S”.
4870 sidebar_indent_string
4874 Type: string
4875 Default: “ ”
4876 This specifies the string that is used to indent mailboxes in
4878 the sidebar. It defaults to two spaces.
4879 See also: $sidebar_short_path, $sidebar_folder_indent, $side‐
4881 bar_delim_chars.
4882 sidebar_new_mail_only
4886 Type: boolean
4887 Default: no
4888 When set, the sidebar will only display mailboxes containing
4890 new, or flagged, mail.
4891 See also: sidebar_whitelist.
4893 sidebar_next_new_wrap
4897 Type: boolean
4898 Default: no
4899 When set, the <sidebar-next-new> command will not stop and the
4901 end of the list of mailboxes, but wrap around to the beginning.
4902 The <sidebar-prev-new> command is similarly affected, wrapping
4903 around to the end of the list.
4904 sidebar_relative_shortpath_indent
4908 Type: boolean
4909 Default: no
4910 When set, this option changes how $sidebar_short_path and $side‐
4912 bar_folder_indent perform shortening and indentation: both will
4913 look at the previous sidebar entries and shorten/indent relative
4914 to the most recent parent.
4915 An example of this option set/unset for mailboxes listed in this
4917 order, with $sidebar_short_path=yes, $sidebar_folder_indent=yes,
4918 and $sidebar_indent_string=”→”:
4919 mailbox
4920 set unset
4921 =a.b =a.b →b
4922 =a.b.c.d
4923 →c.d →→→d
4924 =a.b.e →e →→e
4925 The second line illustrates most clearly. With this option set,
4927 =a.b.c.d is shortened relative to =a.b, becoming c.d; it is also
4928 indented one place relative to =a.b. With this option unset
4929 =a.b.c.d is always shortened to the last part of the mailbox, d
4930 and is indented three places, with respect to $folder (repre‐
4931 sented by '=').
4932 When set, the third line will also be indented and shortened
4934 relative to the first line.
4935 sidebar_short_path
4939 Type: boolean
4940 Default: no
4941 By default the sidebar will show the mailbox's path, relative to
4943 the $folder variable. Setting sidebar_shortpath=yes will shorten
4944 the names relative to the previous name. Here's an example:
4945 shortpath=no
4946 shortpath=yes shortpath=yes, folderindent=yes, in‐
4947 dentstr=”..”
4948 fruit fruit fruit
4949 fruit.apple
4950 apple ..apple
4951 fruit.banana
4952 banana ..banana
4953 fruit.cherry
4954 cherry ..cherry
4955 See also: $sidebar_delim_chars, $sidebar_folder_indent, $side‐
4957 bar_indent_string.
4958 sidebar_sort_method
4962 Type: sort order
4963 Default: unsorted
4964 Specifies how to sort mailbox entries in the sidebar. By de‐
4966 fault, the entries are sorted alphabetically. Valid values:
4967 ‐ alpha (alphabetically)
4968 ‐ count (all message count)
4969 ‐ flagged (flagged message count)
4970 ‐ name (alphabetically)
4971 ‐ new (unread message count)
4972 ‐ path (alphabetically)
4973 ‐ unread (unread message count)
4974 ‐ unsorted
4975 You may optionally use the “reverse-” prefix to specify reverse
4977 sorting order (example: “set sidebar_sort_method=reverse-al‐
4978 pha”).
4979 sidebar_use_mailbox_shortcuts
4983 Type: boolean
4984 Default: no
4985 When set, sidebar mailboxes will be displayed with mailbox
4987 shortcut prefixes ”=” or ”~”.
4988 When unset, the sidebar will trim off a matching $folder prefix
4990 but otherwise not use mailbox shortcuts.
4991 sidebar_visible
4995 Type: boolean
4996 Default: no
4997 This specifies whether or not to show sidebar. The sidebar shows
4999 a list of all your mailboxes.
5000 See also: $sidebar_format, $sidebar_width
5002 sidebar_width
5006 Type: number
5007 Default: 30
5008 This controls the width of the sidebar. It is measured in
5010 screen columns. For example: sidebar_width=20 could display 20
5011 ASCII characters, or 10 Chinese characters.
5012 sig_dashes
5016 Type: boolean
5017 Default: yes
5018 If set, a line containing “-- ” (note the trailing space) will
5020 be inserted before your $signature. It is strongly recommended
5021 that you not unset this variable unless your signature contains
5022 just your name. The reason for this is because many software
5023 packages use “-- \n” to detect your signature. For example,
5024 Mutt has the ability to highlight the signature in a different
5025 color in the built-in pager.
5026 sig_on_top
5030 Type: boolean
5031 Default: no
5032 If set, the signature will be included before any quoted or for‐
5034 warded text. It is strongly recommended that you do not set
5035 this variable unless you really know what you are doing, and are
5036 prepared to take some heat from netiquette guardians.
5037 signature
5041 Type: path
5042 Default: “~/.signature”
5043 Specifies the filename of your signature, which is appended to
5045 all outgoing messages. If the filename ends with a pipe (“|”),
5046 it is assumed that filename is a shell command and input should
5047 be read from its standard output.
5048 simple_search
5052 Type: string
5053 Default: “~f %s | ~s %s”
5054 Specifies how Mutt should expand a simple search into a real
5056 search pattern. A simple search is one that does not contain
5057 any of the “~” pattern modifiers. See “patterns” for more in‐
5058 formation on search patterns.
5059 For example, if you simply type “joe” at a search or limit
5061 prompt, Mutt will automatically expand it to the value specified
5062 by this variable by replacing “%s” with the supplied string.
5063 For the default value, “joe” would be expanded to: “~f joe | ~s
5064 joe”.
5065 size_show_bytes
5069 Type: boolean
5070 Default: no
5071 If set, message sizes will display bytes for values less than 1
5073 kilobyte. See formatstrings-size.
5074 size_show_fractions
5078 Type: boolean
5079 Default: yes
5080 If set, message sizes will be displayed with a single decimal
5082 value for sizes from 0 to 10 kilobytes and 1 to 10 megabytes.
5083 See formatstrings-size.
5084 size_show_mb
5088 Type: boolean
5089 Default: yes
5090 If set, message sizes will display megabytes for values greater
5092 than or equal to 1 megabyte. See formatstrings-size.
5093 size_units_on_left
5097 Type: boolean
5098 Default: no
5099 If set, message sizes units will be displayed to the left of the
5101 number. See formatstrings-size.
5102 sleep_time
5106 Type: number
5107 Default: 1
5108 Specifies time, in seconds, to pause while displaying certain
5110 informational messages, while moving from folder to folder and
5111 after expunging messages from the current folder. The default
5112 is to pause one second, so a value of zero for this option sup‐
5113 presses the pause.
5114 smart_wrap
5118 Type: boolean
5119 Default: yes
5120 Controls the display of lines longer than the screen width in
5122 the internal pager. If set, long lines are wrapped at a word
5123 boundary. If unset, lines are simply wrapped at the screen
5124 edge. Also see the $markers variable.
5125 smileys
5129 Type: regular expression
5130 Default: “(>From )|(:[-^]?[][)(><}{|/DP])”
5131 The pager uses this variable to catch some common false posi‐
5133 tives of $quote_regexp, most notably smileys and not consider a
5134 line quoted text if it also matches $smileys. This mostly hap‐
5135 pens at the beginning of a line.
5136 smime_ask_cert_label
5140 Type: boolean
5141 Default: yes
5142 This flag controls whether you want to be asked to enter a label
5144 for a certificate about to be added to the database or not. It
5145 is set by default. (S/MIME only)
5146 smime_ca_location
5150 Type: path
5151 Default: “”
5152 This variable contains the name of either a directory, or a file
5154 which contains trusted certificates for use with OpenSSL.
5155 (S/MIME only)
5156 smime_certificates
5160 Type: path
5161 Default: “”
5162 Since for S/MIME there is no pubring/secring as with PGP, mutt
5164 has to handle storage and retrieval of keys by itself. This is
5165 very basic right now, and keys and certificates are stored in
5166 two different directories, both named as the hash-value re‐
5167 trieved from OpenSSL. There is an index file which contains
5168 mailbox-address keyid pairs, and which can be manually edited.
5169 This option points to the location of the certificates. (S/MIME
5170 only)
5171 smime_decrypt_command
5175 Type: string
5176 Default: “”
5177 This format string specifies a command which is used to decrypt
5179 application/x-pkcs7-mime attachments.
5180 The OpenSSL command formats have their own set of printf(3)-like
5182 sequences similar to PGP's:
5183 %f Expands to the name of a file containing a message.
5184 %s Expands to the name of a file containing the signature
5185 part
5186 of a multipart/signed attachment when verify‐
5187 ing it.
5188 %k The key-pair specified with $smime_default_key
5189 %c One or more certificate IDs.
5190 %a The algorithm used for encryption.
5191 %d The message digest algorithm specified with
5192 $smime_sign_digest_alg.
5193 %C CA location: Depending on whether $smime_ca_location
5194 points to a directory or file, this expands to
5195 “-CApath $smime_ca_location” or “-CAfile
5196 $smime_ca_location”.
5197 For examples on how to configure these formats, see the smime.rc
5199 in the samples/ subdirectory which has been installed on your
5200 system alongside the documentation. (S/MIME only)
5201 smime_decrypt_use_default_key
5205 Type: boolean
5206 Default: yes
5207 If set (default) this tells mutt to use the default key for de‐
5209 cryption. Otherwise, if managing multiple certificate-key-pairs,
5210 mutt will try to use the mailbox-address to determine the key to
5211 use. It will ask you to supply a key, if it can't find one.
5212 (S/MIME only)
5213 smime_default_key
5217 Type: string
5218 Default: “”
5219 This is the default key-pair to use for S/MIME operations, and
5221 must be set to the keyid (the hash-value that OpenSSL generates)
5222 to work properly.
5223 It will be used for encryption (see $postpone_encrypt and
5225 $smime_self_encrypt). If GPGME is enabled, this is the key id
5226 displayed by gpgsm.
5227 It will be used for decryption unless $smime_decrypt_use_de‐
5229 fault_key is unset.
5230 It will also be used for signing unless $smime_sign_as is set.
5232 The (now deprecated) smime_self_encrypt_as is an alias for this
5234 variable, and should no longer be used. (S/MIME only)
5235 smime_encrypt_command
5239 Type: string
5240 Default: “”
5241 This command is used to create encrypted S/MIME messages.
5243 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5245 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5246 smime_encrypt_with
5250 Type: string
5251 Default: “aes256”
5252 This sets the algorithm that should be used for encryption.
5254 Valid choices are “aes128”, “aes192”, “aes256”, “des”, “des3”,
5255 “rc2-40”, “rc2-64”, “rc2-128”. (S/MIME only)
5256 smime_get_cert_command
5260 Type: string
5261 Default: “”
5262 This command is used to extract X509 certificates from a PKCS7
5264 structure.
5265 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5267 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5268 smime_get_cert_email_command
5272 Type: string
5273 Default: “”
5274 This command is used to extract the mail address(es) used for
5276 storing X509 certificates, and for verification purposes (to
5277 check whether the certificate was issued for the sender's mail‐
5278 box).
5279 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5281 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5282 smime_get_signer_cert_command
5286 Type: string
5287 Default: “”
5288 This command is used to extract only the signers X509 certifi‐
5290 cate from a S/MIME signature, so that the certificate's owner
5291 may get compared to the email's “From:” field.
5292 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5294 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5295 smime_import_cert_command
5299 Type: string
5300 Default: “”
5301 This command is used to import a certificate via smime_keys.
5303 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5305 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5306 smime_is_default
5310 Type: boolean
5311 Default: no
5312 The default behavior of mutt is to use PGP on all auto-sign/en‐
5314 cryption operations. To override and to use OpenSSL instead this
5315 must be set. However, this has no effect while replying, since
5316 mutt will automatically select the same application that was
5317 used to sign/encrypt the original message. (Note that this
5318 variable can be overridden by unsetting $crypt_autosmime.)
5319 (S/MIME only)
5320 smime_keys
5324 Type: path
5325 Default: “”
5326 Since for S/MIME there is no pubring/secring as with PGP, mutt
5328 has to handle storage and retrieval of keys/certs by itself.
5329 This is very basic right now, and stores keys and certificates
5330 in two different directories, both named as the hash-value re‐
5331 trieved from OpenSSL. There is an index file which contains
5332 mailbox-address keyid pair, and which can be manually edited.
5333 This option points to the location of the private keys. (S/MIME
5334 only)
5335 smime_pk7out_command
5339 Type: string
5340 Default: “”
5341 This command is used to extract PKCS7 structures of S/MIME sig‐
5343 natures, in order to extract the public X509 certificate(s).
5344 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5346 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5347 smime_self_encrypt
5351 Type: boolean
5352 Default: yes
5353 When set, S/MIME encrypted messages will also be encrypted using
5355 the certificate in $smime_default_key. (S/MIME only)
5356 smime_sign_as
5360 Type: string
5361 Default: “”
5362 If you have a separate key to use for signing, you should set
5364 this to the signing key. Most people will only need to set
5365 $smime_default_key. (S/MIME only)
5366 smime_sign_command
5370 Type: string
5371 Default: “”
5372 This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of type multi‐
5374 part/signed, which can be read by all mail clients.
5375 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5377 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. NOTE: %c and %k will de‐
5378 fault to $smime_sign_as if set, otherwise $smime_default_key.
5379 (S/MIME only)
5380 smime_sign_digest_alg
5384 Type: string
5385 Default: “sha256”
5386 This sets the algorithm that should be used for the signature
5388 message digest. Valid choices are “md5”, “sha1”, “sha224”,
5389 “sha256”, “sha384”, “sha512”. (S/MIME only)
5390 smime_sign_opaque_command
5394 Type: string
5395 Default: “”
5396 This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of type appli‐
5398 cation/x-pkcs7-signature, which can only be handled by mail
5399 clients supporting the S/MIME extension.
5400 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5402 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5403 smime_timeout
5407 Type: number (long)
5408 Default: 300
5409 The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase will ex‐
5411 pire if not used. (S/MIME only)
5412 smime_verify_command
5416 Type: string
5417 Default: “”
5418 This command is used to verify S/MIME signatures of type multi‐
5420 part/signed.
5421 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5423 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5424 smime_verify_opaque_command
5428 Type: string
5429 Default: “”
5430 This command is used to verify S/MIME signatures of type appli‐
5432 cation/x-pkcs7-mime.
5433 This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command
5435 for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME only)
5436 smtp_authenticators
5440 Type: string
5441 Default: “”
5442 This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods mutt
5444 may attempt to use to log in to an SMTP server, in the order
5445 mutt should try them. Authentication methods are any SASL mech‐
5446 anism, e.g. “digest-md5”, “gssapi” or “cram-md5”. This option
5447 is case-insensitive. If it is “unset” (the default) mutt will
5448 try all available methods, in order from most-secure to
5449 least-secure.
5450 Example:
5452 set smtp_authenticators=”digest-md5:cram-md5”
5455 smtp_oauth_refresh_command
5460 Type: string
5461 Default: “”
5462 The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for autho‐
5464 rizing your connection to your SMTP server. This command will
5465 be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER au‐
5466 thentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.
5467 smtp_pass
5471 Type: string
5472 Default: “”
5473 Specifies the password for your SMTP account. If unset, Mutt
5475 will prompt you for your password when you first send mail via
5476 SMTP. See $smtp_url to configure mutt to send mail via SMTP.
5477 Warning: you should only use this option when you are on a
5479 fairly secure machine, because the superuser can read your mut‐
5480 trc even if you are the only one who can read the file.
5481 smtp_url
5485 Type: string
5486 Default: “”
5487 Defines the SMTP smarthost where sent messages should relayed
5489 for delivery. This should take the form of an SMTP URL, e.g.:
5490 smtp[s]://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]
5493 where “[...]” denotes an optional part. Setting this variable
5496 overrides the value of the $sendmail variable.
5497 Also see $write_bcc.
5499 sort
5503 Type: sort order
5504 Default: date
5505 Specifies how to sort messages in the “index” menu. Valid val‐
5507 ues are:
5508 ‐ date or date-sent
5509 ‐ date-received
5510 ‐ from
5511 ‐ mailbox-order (unsorted)
5512 ‐ score
5513 ‐ size
5514 ‐ spam
5515 ‐ subject
5516 ‐ threads
5517 ‐ to
5518 You may optionally use the “reverse-” prefix to specify reverse
5520 sorting order (example: “set sort=reverse-date-sent”).
5521 sort_alias
5525 Type: sort order
5526 Default: alias
5527 Specifies how the entries in the “alias” menu are sorted. The
5529 following are legal values:
5530 ‐ address (sort alphabetically by email address)
5531 ‐ alias (sort alphabetically by alias name)
5532 ‐ unsorted (leave in order specified in .muttrc)
5533 sort_aux
5536 Type: sort order
5537 Default: date
5538 This provides a secondary sort for messages in the “index” menu,
5540 used when the $sort value is equal for two messages.
5541 When sorting by threads, this variable controls how threads are
5543 sorted in relation to other threads, and how the branches of the
5544 thread trees are sorted. This can be set to any value that
5545 $sort can, except “threads” (in that case, mutt will just use
5546 “date-sent”). You can also specify the “last-” prefix in addi‐
5547 tion to the “reverse-” prefix, but “last-” must come after “re‐
5548 verse-”. The “last-” prefix causes messages to be sorted
5549 against its siblings by which has the last descendant, using the
5550 rest of $sort_aux as an ordering. For instance,
5551 set sort_aux=last-date-received
5554 would mean that if a new message is received in a thread, that
5557 thread becomes the last one displayed (or the first, if you have
5558 “set sort=reverse-threads”.)
5559 Note: For reversed-threads $sort order, $sort_aux is reversed
5561 again (which is not the right thing to do, but kept to not break
5562 any existing configuration setting).
5563 sort_browser
5567 Type: sort order
5568 Default: alpha
5569 Specifies how to sort entries in the file browser. By default,
5571 the entries are sorted alphabetically. Valid values:
5572 ‐ alpha (alphabetically)
5573 ‐ count
5574 ‐ date
5575 ‐ size
5576 ‐ unread
5577 ‐ unsorted
5578 You may optionally use the “reverse-” prefix to specify reverse
5580 sorting order (example: “set sort_browser=reverse-date”).
5581 sort_browser_mailboxes
5585 Type: sort order
5586 Default: unsorted
5587 Specifies how to sort entries in the mailbox browser. By de‐
5589 fault, the entries are unsorted, displayed in the same order as
5590 listed in the “mailboxes” command. Valid values:
5591 ‐ alpha (alphabetically)
5592 ‐ count
5593 ‐ date
5594 ‐ size
5595 ‐ unread
5596 ‐ unsorted
5597 You may optionally use the “reverse-” prefix to specify reverse
5599 sorting order (example: “set sort_browser_mailboxes=reverse-al‐
5600 pha”).
5601 sort_re
5605 Type: boolean
5606 Default: yes
5607 This variable is only useful when sorting by threads with
5609 $strict_threads unset. In that case, it changes the heuristic
5610 mutt uses to thread messages by subject. With $sort_re set,
5611 mutt will only attach a message as the child of another message
5612 by subject if the subject of the child message starts with a
5613 substring matching the setting of $reply_regexp. With $sort_re
5614 unset, mutt will attach the message whether or not this is the
5615 case, as long as the non-$reply_regexp parts of both messages
5616 are identical.
5617 spam_separator
5621 Type: string
5622 Default: “,”
5623 This variable controls what happens when multiple spam headers
5625 are matched: if unset, each successive header will overwrite any
5626 previous matches value for the spam label. If set, each succes‐
5627 sive match will append to the previous, using this variable's
5628 value as a separator.
5629 spoolfile
5633 Type: path
5634 Default: “”
5635 If your spool mailbox is in a non-default place where Mutt can‐
5637 not find it, you can specify its location with this variable.
5638 Mutt will initially set this variable to the value of the envi‐
5639 ronment variable $MAIL or $MAILDIR if either is defined.
5640 ssl_ca_certificates_file
5644 Type: path
5645 Default: “/etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt”
5646 This variable specifies a file containing trusted CA certifi‐
5648 cates. Any server certificate that is signed with one of these
5649 CA certificates is also automatically accepted. (GnuTLS only)
5650 Example:
5652 set ssl_ca_certificates_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
5655 ssl_client_cert
5660 Type: path
5661 Default: “”
5662 The file containing a client certificate and its associated pri‐
5664 vate key.
5665 ssl_force_tls
5669 Type: boolean
5670 Default: yes
5671 If this variable is set, Mutt will require that all connections
5673 to remote servers be encrypted. Furthermore it will attempt to
5674 negotiate TLS even if the server does not advertise the capabil‐
5675 ity, since it would otherwise have to abort the connection any‐
5676 way. This option supersedes $ssl_starttls.
5677 ssl_min_dh_prime_bits
5681 Type: number
5682 Default: 0
5683 This variable specifies the minimum acceptable prime size (in
5685 bits) for use in any Diffie-Hellman key exchange. A value of 0
5686 will use the default from the GNUTLS library. (GnuTLS only)
5687 ssl_starttls
5691 Type: quadoption
5692 Default: yes
5693 If set (the default), mutt will attempt to use STARTTLS on
5695 servers advertising the capability. When unset, mutt will not
5696 attempt to use STARTTLS regardless of the server's capabilities.
5697 Note that STARTTLS is subject to many kinds of attacks, includ‐
5699 ing the ability of a machine-in-the-middle to suppress the ad‐
5700 vertising of support. Setting $ssl_force_tls is recommended if
5701 you rely on STARTTLS.
5702 ssl_use_sslv2
5706 Type: boolean
5707 Default: no
5708 If set , Mutt will use SSLv2 when communicating with servers
5710 that request it. N.B. As of 2011, SSLv2 is considered insecure,
5711 and using is inadvisable. See
5712 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6176 . (OpenSSL only)
5713 ssl_use_sslv3
5717 Type: boolean
5718 Default: no
5719 If set , Mutt will use SSLv3 when communicating with servers
5721 that request it. N.B. As of 2015, SSLv3 is considered insecure,
5722 and using it is inadvisable. See
5723 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7525 .
5724 ssl_use_tlsv1
5728 Type: boolean
5729 Default: no
5730 If set , Mutt will use TLSv1.0 when communicating with servers
5732 that request it. N.B. As of 2015, TLSv1.0 is considered inse‐
5733 cure, and using it is inadvisable. See
5734 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7525 .
5735 ssl_use_tlsv1_1
5739 Type: boolean
5740 Default: no
5741 If set , Mutt will use TLSv1.1 when communicating with servers
5743 that request it. N.B. As of 2015, TLSv1.1 is considered inse‐
5744 cure, and using it is inadvisable. See
5745 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7525 .
5746 ssl_use_tlsv1_2
5750 Type: boolean
5751 Default: yes
5752 If set , Mutt will use TLSv1.2 when communicating with servers
5754 that request it.
5755 ssl_use_tlsv1_3
5759 Type: boolean
5760 Default: yes
5761 If set , Mutt will use TLSv1.3 when communicating with servers
5763 that request it.
5764 ssl_usesystemcerts
5768 Type: boolean
5769 Default: yes
5770 If set to yes, mutt will use CA certificates in the system-wide
5772 certificate store when checking if a server certificate is
5773 signed by a trusted CA. (OpenSSL only)
5774 ssl_verify_dates
5778 Type: boolean
5779 Default: yes
5780 If set (the default), mutt will not automatically accept a
5782 server certificate that is either not yet valid or already ex‐
5783 pired. You should only unset this for particular known hosts,
5784 using the <account-hook> function.
5785 ssl_verify_host
5789 Type: boolean
5790 Default: yes
5791 If set (the default), mutt will not automatically accept a
5793 server certificate whose host name does not match the host used
5794 in your folder URL. You should only unset this for particular
5795 known hosts, using the <account-hook> function.
5796 ssl_verify_host_override
5800 Type: string
5801 Default: “”
5802 Defines an alternate host name to verify the server certificate
5804 against. This should not be set unless you are sure what you
5805 are doing, but it might be useful for connection to a .onion
5806 host without a properly configured host name in the certificate.
5807 See $ssl_verify_host.
5808 ssl_verify_partial_chains
5812 Type: boolean
5813 Default: no
5814 This option should not be changed from the default unless you
5816 understand what you are doing.
5817 Setting this variable to yes will permit verifying partial cer‐
5819 tification chains, i. e. a certificate chain where not the root,
5820 but an intermediate certificate CA, or the host certificate, are
5821 marked trusted (in $certificate_file), without marking the root
5822 signing CA as trusted.
5823 (OpenSSL 1.0.2b and newer only).
5825 ssl_ciphers
5829 Type: string
5830 Default: “@SYSTEM”
5831 Contains a colon-separated list of ciphers to use when using
5833 SSL. For OpenSSL, see ciphers(1) for the syntax of the string.
5834 For GnuTLS, this option will be used in place of ”NORMAL” at the
5836 start of the priority string. See gnutls_priority_init(3) for
5837 the syntax and more details. (Note: GnuTLS version 2.1.7 or
5838 higher is required.)
5839 status_chars
5843 Type: string
5844 Default: “-*%A”
5845 Controls the characters used by the “%r” indicator in $sta‐
5847 tus_format. The first character is used when the mailbox is un‐
5848 changed. The second is used when the mailbox has been changed,
5849 and it needs to be resynchronized. The third is used if the
5850 mailbox is in read-only mode, or if the mailbox will not be
5851 written when exiting that mailbox (You can toggle whether to
5852 write changes to a mailbox with the <toggle-write> operation,
5853 bound by default to “%”). The fourth is used to indicate that
5854 the current folder has been opened in attach- message mode (Cer‐
5855 tain operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding,
5856 etc. are not permitted in this mode).
5857 status_format
5861 Type: string (localized)
5862 Default: “-%r-Mutt: %f [Msgs:%?M?%M/?%m%?n? New:%n?%?o? Old:%o?%?d? Del:%d?%?F? Flag:%F?%?t? Tag:%t?%?p? Post:%p?%?b? Inc:%b?%?B? Back:%B?%?l? %l?]---(%s/%S)-%>-(%P)---”
5863 Controls the format of the status line displayed in the “index”
5865 menu. This string is similar to $index_format, but has its own
5866 set of printf(3)-like sequences:
5867 %b number of mailboxes with new mail *
5868 %B number of backgrounded editing sessions *
5869 %d number of deleted messages *
5870 %f the full pathname of the current mailbox
5871 %F number of flagged messages *
5872 %h local hostname
5873 %l size (in bytes) of the current mailbox (see format‐
5874 strings-size) *
5875 %L size (in bytes) of the messages shown (i.e., which match
5876 the current limit) (see formatstrings-size) *
5877 %m the number of messages in the mailbox *
5878 %M the number of messages shown (i.e., which match the cur‐
5879 rent limit) *
5880 %n number of new messages in the mailbox *
5881 %o number of old unread messages *
5882 %p number of postponed messages *
5883 %P percentage of the way through the index
5884 %r modified/read-only/won't-write/attach-message indicator,
5885 according to $status_chars
5886 %R number of read messages *
5887 %s current sorting mode ($sort)
5888 %S current aux sorting method ($sort_aux)
5889 %t number of tagged messages *
5890 %u number of unread messages *
5891 %v Mutt version string
5892 %V currently active limit pattern, if any *
5893 %>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with “X”
5894 %|X pad to the end of the line with “X”
5895 %*X soft-fill with character “X” as pad
5896 For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format docu‐
5898 mentation.
5899 * = can be optionally printed if nonzero
5901 Some of the above sequences can be used to optionally print a
5903 string if their value is nonzero. For example, you may only
5904 want to see the number of flagged messages if such messages ex‐
5905 ist, since zero is not particularly meaningful. To optionally
5906 print a string based upon one of the above sequences, the fol‐
5907 lowing construct is used:
5908 %?<sequence_char>?<optional_string>?
5910 where sequence_char is a character from the table above, and op‐
5912 tional_string is the string you would like printed if se‐
5913 quence_char is nonzero. optional_string may contain other se‐
5914 quences as well as normal text, but you may not nest optional
5915 strings.
5916 Here is an example illustrating how to optionally print the num‐
5918 ber of new messages in a mailbox:
5919 %?n?%n new messages.?
5921 You can also switch between two strings using the following con‐
5923 struct:
5924 %?<sequence_char>?<if_string>&<else_string>?
5926 If the value of sequence_char is non-zero, if_string will be ex‐
5928 panded, otherwise else_string will be expanded.
5929 You can force the result of any printf(3)-like sequence to be
5931 lowercase by prefixing the sequence character with an underscore
5932 (“_”) sign. For example, if you want to display the local host‐
5933 name in lowercase, you would use: “%_h”.
5934 If you prefix the sequence character with a colon (“:”) charac‐
5936 ter, mutt will replace any dots in the expansion by underscores.
5937 This might be helpful with IMAP folders that don't like dots in
5938 folder names.
5939 status_on_top
5943 Type: boolean
5944 Default: no
5945 Setting this variable causes the “status bar” to be displayed on
5947 the first line of the screen rather than near the bottom. If
5948 $help is set, too it'll be placed at the bottom.
5949 strict_threads
5953 Type: boolean
5954 Default: no
5955 If set, threading will only make use of the “In-Reply-To” and
5957 “References:” fields when you $sort by message threads. By de‐
5958 fault, messages with the same subject are grouped together in
5959 “pseudo threads.”. This may not always be desirable, such as in
5960 a personal mailbox where you might have several unrelated mes‐
5961 sages with the subjects like “hi” which will get grouped to‐
5962 gether. See also $sort_re for a less drastic way of controlling
5963 this behavior.
5964 suspend
5968 Type: boolean
5969 Default: yes
5970 When unset, mutt won't stop when the user presses the terminal's
5972 susp key, usually “^Z”. This is useful if you run mutt inside an
5973 xterm using a command like “xterm -e mutt”.
5974 text_flowed
5978 Type: boolean
5979 Default: no
5980 When set, mutt will generate “format=flowed” bodies with a con‐
5982 tent type of “text/plain; format=flowed”. This format is easier
5983 to handle for some mailing software, and generally just looks
5984 like ordinary text. To actually make use of this format's fea‐
5985 tures, you'll need support in your editor.
5986 The option only controls newly composed messages. Postponed
5988 messages, resent messages, and draft messages (via -H on the
5989 command line) will use the content-type of the source message.
5990 Note that $indent_string is ignored when this option is set.
5992 thorough_search
5996 Type: boolean
5997 Default: yes
5998 Affects the ~b, ~B, and ~h search operations described in sec‐
6000 tion “patterns”. If set, the headers and body/attachments of
6001 messages to be searched are decoded before searching. If unset,
6002 messages are searched as they appear in the folder.
6003 Users searching attachments or for non-ASCII characters should
6005 set this value because decoding also includes MIME parsing/de‐
6006 coding and possible character set conversions. Otherwise mutt
6007 will attempt to match against the raw message received (for ex‐
6008 ample quoted-printable encoded or with encoded headers) which
6009 may lead to incorrect search results.
6010 thread_received
6014 Type: boolean
6015 Default: no
6016 When set, mutt uses the date received rather than the date sent
6018 to thread messages by subject.
6019 tilde
6023 Type: boolean
6024 Default: no
6025 When set, the internal-pager will pad blank lines to the bottom
6027 of the screen with a tilde (“~”).
6028 time_inc
6032 Type: number
6033 Default: 0
6034 Along with $read_inc, $write_inc, and $net_inc, this variable
6036 controls the frequency with which progress updates are dis‐
6037 played. It suppresses updates less than $time_inc milliseconds
6038 apart. This can improve throughput on systems with slow termi‐
6039 nals, or when running mutt on a remote system.
6040 Also see the “tuning” section of the manual for performance con‐
6042 siderations.
6043 timeout
6047 Type: number
6048 Default: 600
6049 When Mutt is waiting for user input either idling in menus or in
6051 an interactive prompt, Mutt would block until input is present.
6052 Depending on the context, this would prevent certain operations
6053 from working, like checking for new mail or keeping an IMAP con‐
6054 nection alive.
6055 This variable controls how many seconds Mutt will at most wait
6057 until it aborts waiting for input, performs these operations and
6058 continues to wait for input.
6059 A value of zero or less will cause Mutt to never time out.
6061 tmpdir
6065 Type: path
6066 Default: “”
6067 This variable allows you to specify where Mutt will place its
6069 temporary files needed for displaying and composing messages.
6070 If this variable is not set, the environment variable $TMPDIR is
6071 used. If $TMPDIR is not set then “/tmp” is used.
6072 to_chars
6076 Type: string
6077 Default: “ +TCFL”
6078 Controls the character used to indicate mail addressed to you.
6080 The first character is the one used when the mail is not ad‐
6081 dressed to your address. The second is used when you are the
6082 only recipient of the message. The third is when your address
6083 appears in the “To:” header field, but you are not the only re‐
6084 cipient of the message. The fourth character is used when your
6085 address is specified in the “Cc:” header field, but you are not
6086 the only recipient. The fifth character is used to indicate
6087 mail that was sent by you. The sixth character is used to indi‐
6088 cate when a mail was sent to a mailing-list you subscribe to.
6089 trash
6093 Type: path
6094 Default: “”
6095 If set, this variable specifies the path of the trash folder
6097 where the mails marked for deletion will be moved, instead of
6098 being irremediably purged.
6099 NOTE: When you delete a message in the trash folder, it is re‐
6101 ally deleted, so that you have a way to clean the trash.
6102 ts_icon_format
6106 Type: string (localized)
6107 Default: “M%?n?AIL&ail?”
6108 Controls the format of the icon title, as long as “$ts_enabled”
6110 is set. This string is identical in formatting to the one used
6111 by “$status_format”.
6112 ts_enabled
6116 Type: boolean
6117 Default: no
6118 Controls whether mutt tries to set the terminal status line and
6120 icon name. Most terminal emulators emulate the status line in
6121 the window title.
6122 ts_status_format
6126 Type: string (localized)
6127 Default: “Mutt with %?m?%m messages&no messages?%?n? [%n NEW]?”
6128 Controls the format of the terminal status line (or window ti‐
6130 tle), provided that “$ts_enabled” has been set. This string is
6131 identical in formatting to the one used by “$status_format”.
6132 tunnel
6136 Type: string
6137 Default: “”
6138 Setting this variable will cause mutt to open a pipe to a com‐
6140 mand instead of a raw socket. You may be able to use this to set
6141 up preauthenticated connections to your IMAP/POP3/SMTP server.
6142 Example:
6143 set tunnel=”ssh -q mailhost.net /usr/local/libexec/imapd”
6146 Note: For this example to work you must be able to log in to the
6149 remote machine without having to enter a password.
6150 When set, Mutt uses the tunnel for all remote connections.
6152 Please see “account-hook” in the manual for how to use different
6153 tunnel commands per connection.
6154 tunnel_is_secure
6158 Type: boolean
6159 Default: yes
6160 When set, Mutt will assume the $tunnel connection does not need
6162 STARTTLS to be enabled. It will also allow IMAP PREAUTH server
6163 responses inside a tunnel to proceed. This is appropriate if
6164 $tunnel uses ssh or directly invokes the server locally.
6165 When unset, Mutt will negotiate STARTTLS according to the
6167 ssl_starttls and ssl_force_tls variables. If ssl_force_tls is
6168 set, Mutt will abort connecting if an IMAP server responds with
6169 PREAUTH. This setting is appropriate if $tunnel does not pro‐
6170 vide security and could be tampered with by attackers.
6171 uncollapse_jump
6175 Type: boolean
6176 Default: no
6177 When set, Mutt will jump to the next unread message, if any,
6179 when the current thread is uncollapsed.
6180 uncollapse_new
6184 Type: boolean
6185 Default: yes
6186 When set, Mutt will automatically uncollapse any collapsed
6188 thread that receives a new message. When unset, collapsed
6189 threads will remain collapsed. the presence of the new message
6190 will still affect index sorting, though.
6191 use_8bitmime
6195 Type: boolean
6196 Default: no
6197 Warning: do not set this variable unless you are using a version
6199 of sendmail which supports the -B8BITMIME flag (such as sendmail
6200 8.8.x) or you may not be able to send mail.
6201 When set, Mutt will invoke $sendmail with the -B8BITMIME flag
6203 when sending 8-bit messages to enable ESMTP negotiation.
6204 use_domain
6208 Type: boolean
6209 Default: yes
6210 When set, Mutt will qualify all local addresses (ones without
6212 the “@host” portion) with the value of $hostname. If unset, no
6213 addresses will be qualified.
6214 use_envelope_from
6218 Type: boolean
6219 Default: no
6220 When set, mutt will set the envelope sender of the message. If
6222 $envelope_from_address is set, it will be used as the sender ad‐
6223 dress. If unset, mutt will attempt to derive the sender from the
6224 “From:” header.
6225 Note that this information is passed to sendmail command using
6227 the -f command line switch. Therefore setting this option is not
6228 useful if the $sendmail variable already contains -f or if the
6229 executable pointed to by $sendmail doesn't support the -f
6230 switch.
6231 use_from
6235 Type: boolean
6236 Default: yes
6237 When set, Mutt will generate the “From:” header field when send‐
6239 ing messages. If unset, no “From:” header field will be gener‐
6240 ated unless the user explicitly sets one using the “my_hdr” com‐
6241 mand.
6242 use_ipv6
6246 Type: boolean
6247 Default: yes
6248 When set, Mutt will look for IPv6 addresses of hosts it tries to
6250 contact. If this option is unset, Mutt will restrict itself to
6251 IPv4 addresses. Normally, the default should work.
6252 user_agent
6256 Type: boolean
6257 Default: no
6258 When set, mutt will add a “User-Agent:” header to outgoing mes‐
6260 sages, indicating which version of mutt was used for composing
6261 them.
6262 visual
6266 Type: path
6267 Default: “”
6268 Specifies the visual editor to invoke when the “~v” command is
6270 given in the built-in editor.
6271 wait_key
6275 Type: boolean
6276 Default: yes
6277 Controls whether Mutt will ask you to press a key after an ex‐
6279 ternal command has been invoked by these functions: <shell-es‐
6280 cape>, <pipe-message>, <pipe-entry>, <print-message>, and
6281 <print-entry> commands.
6282 It is also used when viewing attachments with “auto_view”, pro‐
6284 vided that the corresponding mailcap entry has a needsterminal
6285 flag, and the external program is interactive.
6286 When set, Mutt will always ask for a key. When unset, Mutt will
6288 wait for a key only if the external command returned a non-zero
6289 status.
6290 weed
6294 Type: boolean
6295 Default: yes
6296 When set, mutt will weed headers when displaying, forwarding, or
6298 replying to messages.
6299 Also see $copy_decode_weed, $pipe_decode_weed, $print_de‐
6301 code_weed.
6302 wrap
6306 Type: number
6307 Default: 0
6308 When set to a positive value, mutt will wrap text at $wrap char‐
6310 acters. When set to a negative value, mutt will wrap text so
6311 that there are $wrap characters of empty space on the right side
6312 of the terminal. Setting it to zero makes mutt wrap at the ter‐
6313 minal width.
6314 Also see $reflow_wrap.
6316 wrap_headers
6320 Type: number
6321 Default: 78
6322 This option specifies the number of characters to use for wrap‐
6324 ping an outgoing message's headers. Allowed values are between
6325 78 and 998 inclusive.
6326 Note: This option usually shouldn't be changed. RFC5233 recom‐
6328 mends a line length of 78 (the default), so please only change
6329 this setting when you know what you're doing.
6330 wrap_search
6334 Type: boolean
6335 Default: yes
6336 Controls whether searches wrap around the end.
6338 When set, searches will wrap around the first (or last) item.
6340 When unset, incremental searches will not wrap.
6341 wrapmargin
6345 Type: number
6346 Default: 0
6347 (DEPRECATED) Equivalent to setting $wrap with a negative value.
6349 write_bcc
6353 Type: boolean
6354 Default: no
6355 Controls whether mutt writes out the “Bcc:” header when prepar‐
6357 ing messages to be sent. Some MTAs, such as Exim and Courier,
6358 do not strip the “Bcc:” header; so it is advisable to leave this
6359 unset unless you have a particular need for the header to be in
6360 the sent message.
6361 If mutt is set to deliver directly via SMTP (see $smtp_url),
6363 this option does nothing: mutt will never write out the “Bcc:”
6364 header in this case.
6365 Note this option only affects the sending of messages. Fcc'ed
6367 copies of a message will always contain the “Bcc:” header if one
6368 exists.
6369 write_inc
6373 Type: number
6374 Default: 10
6375 When writing a mailbox, a message will be printed every
6377 $write_inc messages to indicate progress. If set to 0, only a
6378 single message will be displayed before writing a mailbox.
6379 Also see the $read_inc, $net_inc and $time_inc variables and the
6381 “tuning” section of the manual for performance considerations.
6382
6386 iconv(1), iconv(3), mailcap(5), maildir(5), mbox(5), mutt(1),
6387 printf(3), regex(7), strftime(3)
6388 The Mutt Manual
6390 The Mutt home page: http://www.mutt.org/
6392
6394 Michael Elkins, and others. Use <mutt-dev@mutt.org> to contact the de‐
6395 velopers.
6396Unix January 2019 muttrc(5)