1aerc-tutorial(7)       Miscellaneous Information Manual       aerc-tutorial(7)
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NAME

6       aerc - the world's best email client
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INTRODUCTION

9       Welcome to aerc! This tutorial will guide you through your first steps
10       in using the client. This tutorial is a man page - you can read it
11       again later with :help tutorial from aerc, or man aerc-tutorial from
12       your terminal.
13
14       First, let's introduce some basic keybindings. For convention, we'll
15       use <C-p> to represent Ctrl+p, which matches the convention used for
16       writing keybindings for aerc.
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18       <C-p>, <C-n>
19           Cycles to the previous or next tab
20
21       Try using these now to switch between your message list and the tuto‐
22       rial. In your message list, we use vim-style keys to get around.
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24       k, j
25           Scrolls up and down between messages
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27       <C-u>, <C-d>
28           Scrolls half a page up or down
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30       g, G
31           Selects the first or last message, respectively
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33       K, J
34           Switches between folders in the sidebar
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36       <Enter>
37           Opens the selected message
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39       You can also search the selected folder with /, or filter with \. When
40       searching you can use n and p to jump to the next and previous result.
41       Filtering hides any non-matching message.
42

THE MESSAGE VIEWER

44       Press <Enter> to open a message. By default, the message viewer will
45       display your message using less(1). This should also have familiar,
46       vim-like keybindings for scrolling around in your message.
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48       Multipart messages (messages with attachments, or messages with several
49       alternative formats) show a part selector on the bottom of the message
50       viewer.
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52       <C-k>, <C-j>
53           Cycle between parts of a multipart message
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55       q
56           Close the message viewer
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58       To show HTML messages, uncomment the text/html filter in your aerc.conf
59       file (which is probably in ~/.config/aerc/) and install its dependen‐
60       cies: w3m and dante-utils.
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62       You can also do many tasks you could do in the message list from here,
63       like replying to emails, deleting the email, or view the next and pre‐
64       vious message (J and K).
65

COMPOSING MESSAGES

67       Return to the message list by pressing q to dismiss the message viewer.
68       Once there, let's compose a message.
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70       C
71           Compose a new message
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73       rr
74           Reply-all to a message
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76       rq
77           Reply-all to a message, and pre-fill the editor with a quoted ver‐
78           sion of the message being replied to
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80       Rr
81           Reply to a message
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83       Rq
84           Reply to a message, and pre-fill the editor with a quoted version
85           of the message being replied to
86
87       For now, let's use C to compose a new message. The message composer
88       will appear. You should see To, From, and Subject lines, as well as
89       your $EDITOR. You can use <Tab> or <C-j> and <C-k> to cycle between
90       these fields (tab won't cycle between fields once you enter the editor,
91       but <C-j> and <C-k> will).
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93       Let's send an email to yourself. Note that the To and From headers ex‐
94       pect RFC 5322 addresses, e.g. John Doe <john@example.org>, or simply
95       <john@example.org>. Separate multiple recipients with commas. Go ahead
96       and fill out an email, then close the editor.
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98       The message review screen is shown next. You have a chance now to re‐
99       vise the email before it's sent. Press y to send the email if it looks
100       good.
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102       Note: when using the terminal in the message view, you can summon
103       aerc's ex command line by using <C-x>. ':' is sent to the editor.
104

USING THE TERMINAL

106       aerc comes with an embedded terminal, which you've already used to view
107       and edit emails. We can also use this for other purposes, such as ref‐
108       erencing a git repository while reviewing a patch. From the message
109       list, we can use the following keybindings to open a terminal:
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111       <C-t>
112           Opens a new terminal tab, running your shell
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114       $, !
115           Prompts for a command to run, then opens a new terminal tab running
116           that command
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118       |
119           Prompts for a command to run, then pipes the selected email into
120           that command and displays the result on a new terminal tab
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122       Try pressing $ and entering "top". You can also use the :cd command to
123       change aerc's working directory, and the directory in which new termi‐
124       nals run. Use :pwd to see it again if you're not sure where you are.
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ADDITIONAL NOTES

127   COMMANDS
128       Every keybinding is ultimately bound to an aerc command. You can also
129       summon the command line by pressing ':', then entering one of these
130       commands. See aerc(1) or :help for a full list of commands.
131
132   MESSAGE FILTERS
133       When displaying messages in the message viewer, aerc will pipe them
134       through a message filter first. This allows you to decode messages in
135       non-plaintext formats, add syntax highlighting, etc. aerc ships with a
136       few default filters:
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138       •   Emails which begin with "[PATCH" will be piped into a filter for
139           rendering git-format-patch and hg export emails.
140       •   text/html is rendered with w3m in a network sandbox
141       •   text/* is rendered with a simple filter for coloring quoted text
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143
144   CUSTOMIZING AERC
145       Aerc is highly customizable. Review aerc-config(5) (or use :help con‐
146       fig) to learn more about how to add custom keybindings, install new
147       message filters, change its appearance and behavior, and so on.
148

AUTHORS

150       Originally created by Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> and maintained by
151       Robin Jarry <robin@jarry.cc> who is assisted by other open source con‐
152       tributors. For more information about aerc development, see
153       https://sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/.
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157                                  2022-11-02                  aerc-tutorial(7)
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