Mutt for GMail IMAP on Mac OS X

January 27, 2010 by Vijay Kiran

Mutt is an advanced email client for *nix systems that runs in a terminal . Here’s how you can use mutt on Mac OS X [Snow] Leopard and configure for GMail account with IMAP.

All mail clients suck. [mutt] just sucks less.

First download and install MacPorts. Open a terminal window and install Mutt 1.5.20 using the following command.

sudo port install mutt-devel +compress +date_conditional +deepif +gdbm +gpgme +headercache +idn +sidebar +smtp +ssl +trash +sasl

Now open up your favorite editor to create ~/.muttrc – You can use the following muttrc as a starter or you can use muttrcbuilder to create the file and copy it to your ~/.muttrc file.

Make sure that you create the ~/.mutt/cache and ~/.mutt/certificates before you start mutt.

#account settings
set from="YOUR_GMAIL_ADDRESS"
set realname = "REAL_NAME"
set imap_user = "YOUR_GMAIL_ADDRESS"
set imap_pass = "PASSWORD"
set smtp_url = "smtp://[email protected]:587"
set smtp_pass = "GMAIL_PASSWORD"
 
set folder = "imaps://imap.gmail.com:993"
set spoolfile = "+INBOX"
set postponed = "+[Gmail]/Drafts"
set trash = "imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Trash"
set record = "+[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
set header_cache =~/.mutt/cache/headers
set message_cachedir =~/.mutt/cache/bodies
set certificate_file =~/.mutt/certificates
 
set move = no  #Stop asking to "move read messages to mbox"!
set imap_keepalive = 900
 
# Header related stuff
ignore "Authentication-Results:"
ignore "DomainKey-Signature:"
ignore "DKIM-Signature:"
hdr_order Date From To Cc
 
ignore *
unignore from: date subject to cc
unignore x-mailing-list: posted-to:
unignore x-mailer:
 
# Sorting, Markers etc.
set markers=no # don't put '+' at the beginning of wrapped lines
set pager_index_lines= 10 # how large is the index window?
set sort = 'threads'
set sort_aux = 'last-date-received'
 
# Set which Editor to use for composing Emails.
set editor= '/usr/bin/emacs'
 
# set up the sidebar
set sidebar_width=24
set sidebar_visible=yes
set sidebar_delim='|'
set sidebar_sort=no
 
# which mailboxes to list in the sidebar,
# you can add your Labels in Gmail to the Sidebar.
mailboxes =All\ Mail =INBOX =Drafts =Sent\ Mail  =Trash
 
# color of folders with new mail
color sidebar_new yellow default
 
#Sidebar Navigation
bind index \CP sidebar-prev
bind index \CN sidebar-next
bind index \CO sidebar-open
bind pager \CP sidebar-prev
bind pager \CN sidebar-next
bind pager \CO sidebar-open
 
# b toggles sidebar visibility
macro index b 'toggle sidebar_visible'
macro pager b 'toggle sidebar_visible'
 
# Remap bounce-message function to "B"
bind index B bounce-message
 
#make mutt colorful!
color attachment brightmagenta default
color error      brightred    default
color hdrdefault red          default
color indicator  brightyellow red
color markers    brightcyan   default
color message    brightcyan   default
color normal     default      default
color quoted     brightblue   default
color search     default      green
color signature  red          default
color status     yellow       blue
color tilde      magenta      default
color tree       magenta      default

Here’s how it is going to look like:

Some useful commands to get started:
? - Help b - Toggle Side Bar m- New Email q- Close current 'pane' or Quit c - Change to a new folder y - Send (After composing the message)

http://www.d2ma.com Andrew

Hi Vijay – A quick thank you for this excellent article which helped me enormously in setting up mutt on OSX.

Perhaps you can give me a bit of advice? I have more than one IMAP account I want to get mail from – do I have to go down the fetchmail route or do you think I can sort it through the muttrc file and use hooks?

Cheers

Andrew