User Manuals muttrc(5)
NAME
muttrc - Configuration file for the Mutt Mail User Agent
DESCRIPTION
A mutt configuration file consists of a series of commands.
Each line of the file may contain one or more commands.
When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a
semicolon (;).
The hash mark, or pound sign (#), is used as a comment char-
acter. You can use it to annotate your initialization file.
All text after the comment character to the end of the line
is ignored.
Single quotes (') and double quotes (") can be used to quote
strings which contain spaces or other special characters.
The difference between the two types of quotes is similar to
that of many popular shell programs, namely that a single
quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not
interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash
[see next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string
which should be evaluated. For example, backticks are
evaluated inside of double quotes, but not single quotes.
quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash
and zsh. For example, if want to put quotes (") inside of a
string, you can use to force the next character to be a
literal instead of interpreted character.
means to insert a literal into the line. n and r have
their usual C meanings of linefeed and carriage-return,
respectively.
A at the end of a line can be used to split commands over
multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear
in the middle of command names.
It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix com-
mand in an initialization file. This is accomplished by
enclosing the command in backticks (`command`).
UNIX environment variables can be accessed like the way it
is done in shells like sh and bash: Prepend the name of the
variable by a dollar () sign.
COMANDS
alias [-group name [...] key address [, address [ ... ]
unalias [ * key ]
alias defines an alias key for the given addresses.
Each address will be resolved into either an email
address (user@example.com) or a named email address
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(User Name ). The address may be
specified in either format, or in the format
user@example.com (User Name). unalias removes the
alias corresponding to the given key or all aliases
when * is used as an argument. The optional -group
argument to alias causes the aliased address(es) to be
added to the named group.
group [-group name] [-rx EXPR [ ... ] [-addr address [ ... ]
ungroup [-group name ] [ * [-rx EXPR [ ... ] [-addr address [ ... ]
group is used to directly add either addresses or regu-
lar expressions to the specified group or groups. The
different categories of arguments to the group command
can be in any order. The flags -rx and -addr specify
what the following strings (that cannot begin with a
hyphen) should be interpreted as: either a regular
expression or an email address, respectively. ungroup
is used to remove addresses or regular expressions from
the specified group or groups. The syntax is similar to
the group command, however the special character * can
be used to empty a group of all of its contents.
These address groups can also be created implicitly by
the alias, lists, subscribe and alternates commands by
specifying the optional -group option.
Once defined, these address groups can be used in pat-
terns to search for and limit the display to messages
matching a group.
alternates [-group name] regexp [ , regexp [ ... ]
unalternates [ * regexp [ , regexp [ ... ] ]
alternates is used to inform mutt about alternate
addresses where you receive mail; you can use regular
expressions to specify alternate addresses. This
affects mutt's idea about messages from you, and mes-
sages addressed to you. unalternates removes a regular
expression from the list of known alternates. The
-group flag causes all of the subsequent regular
expressions to be added to the named group.
alternativeorder type[/subtype] [ ... ]
unalternativeorder [ * type/subtype] [...]
alternativeorder command permits you to define an
order of preference which is used by mutt to determine
which part of a multipart/alternative body to display.
A subtype of * matches any subtype, as does an empty
subtype. unalternativeorder removes entries from the
ordered list or deletes the entire list when * is used
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as an argument.
autoview type[/subtype] [ ... ]
unautoview type[/subtype] [ ... ]
This commands permits you to specify that mutt should
automatically convert the given MIME types to
text/plain when displaying messages. For this to work,
there must be a mailcap(5) entry for the given MIME
type with the copiousoutput flag set. A subtype of *
matches any subtype, as does an empty subtype.
mimelookup type[/subtype] [ ... ]
unmimelookup type[/subtype] [ ... ]
This command permits you to define a list of "data"
MIME content types for which mutt will try to determine
the actual file type from the file name, and not use a
mailcap(5) entry given for the original MIME type. For
instance, you may add the application/octet-stream MIME
type to this list.
bind map1,map2,... key function
This command binds the given key for the given map or
maps to the given function. Multiple maps may be speci-
fied by separating them with commas (no whitespace is
allowed).
Valid maps are: generic, alias, attach, browser, edi-
tor, index, compose, pager, pgp, postpone, mix.
For more information on keys and functions, please con-
sult the Mutt Manual.
account-hook [!]regexp command
This hook is executed whenever you access a remote
mailbox. Useful to adjust configuration settings to
different IMAP or POP servers.
charset-hook alias charset
This command defines an alias for a character set.
This is useful to properly display messages which are
tagged with a character set name not known to mutt.
iconv-hook charset local-charset
This command defines a system-specific name for a char-
acter set. This is useful when your system's iconv(3)
implementation does not understand MIME character set
names (such as iso-8859-1), but instead insists on
being fed with implementation-specific character set
names (such as 8859-1). In this specific case, you'd
put this into your configuration file:
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iconv-hook iso-8859-1 8859-1
message-hook [!]pattern command
Before mutt displays (or formats for replying or for-
warding) a message which matches the given pattern (or,
when it is preceded by an exclamation mark, does not
match the pattern), the given command is executed.
When multiple message-hooks match, they are executed
in the order in which they occur in the configuration
file.
folder-hook [!]regexp command
When mutt enters a folder which matches regexp (or,
when regexp is preceded by an exclamation mark, does
not match regexp), the given command is executed.
When several folder-hooks match a given mail folder,
they are executed in the order given in the configura-
tion file.
macro map key sequence [ description ]
This command binds the given sequence of keys to the
given key in the given map or maps. For valid maps,
see bind. To specify multiple maps, put only a comma
between the maps.
color object foreground background [ regexp ]
color index foreground background [ pattern ]
uncolor index pattern [ pattern ... ]
If your terminal supports color, these commands can be
used to assign foreground/background combinations to
certain objects. Valid objects are: attachment, body,
bold, hdrdefault, index, indicator, message, normal,
quoted, search, signature, status, underline. The body
and header objects allow you to restrict the coloriza-
tion to a regular expression. The index object permits
you to select colored messages by pattern.
Valid colors include: white, black, green, cyan, yel-
low, red,
mono object attribute [ regexp ]
mono index attribute [ pattern ]
For terminals which don't support color, you can still
assign attributes to objects. Valid attributes
include: none, bold, underline, reverse, and standout.
[un]ignore pattern [ pattern ... ]
The ignore command permits you to specify header fields
which you usually don't wish to see. Any header field
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whose tag begins with an ignored pattern will be
ignored.
The unignore command permits you to define exceptions
from the above mentioned list of ignored headers.
lists [-group name] regexp [ regexp ... ]
unlists regexp [ regexp ... ]
subscribe [-group name] regexp [ regexp ... ]
unsubscribe regexp [ regexp ... ]
Mutt maintains two lists of mailing list address pat-
terns, a list of subscribed mailing lists, and a list
of known mailing lists. All subscribed mailing lists
are known. Patterns use regular expressions.
The lists command adds a mailing list address to the
list of known mailing lists. The unlists command
removes a mailing list from the lists of known and sub-
scribed mailing lists. The subscribe command adds a
mailing list to the lists of known and subscribed mail-
ing lists. The unsubscribe command removes it from the
list of subscribed mailing lists. The -group flag adds
all of the subsequent regular expressions to the named
group.
mbox-hook [!]pattern mailbox
When mutt changes to a mail folder which matches pat-
tern, mailbox will be used as the mbox folder, i.e.,
read messages will be moved to that folder when the
mail folder is left.
The first matching mbox-hook applies.
mailboxes filename [ filename ... ]
unmailboxes [ * filename ... ]
The mailboxes specifies folders which can receive mail
and which will be checked for new messages. When
changing folders, pressing space will cycle through
folders with new mail. The unmailboxes command is used
to remove a file name from the list of folders which
can receive mail. If "*" is specified as the file
name, the list is emptied.
myhdr string
unmyhdr field
Using myhdr, you can define headers which will be
added to the messages you compose. unmyhdr will
remove the given user-defined headers.
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hdrorder header1 header2 [ ... ]
With this command, you can specify an order in which
mutt will attempt to present headers to you when view-
ing messages.
save-hook [!]pattern filename
When a message matches pattern, the default file name
when saving it will be the given filename.
fcc-hook [!]pattern filename
When an outgoing message matches pattern, the default
file name for storing a copy (fcc) will be the given
filename.
fcc-save-hook [!]pattern filename
This command is an abbreviation for identical fcc-hook
and save-hook commands.
send-hook [!]pattern command
When composing a message matching pattern, command is
executed. When multiple send-hooks match, they are
executed in the order in which they occur in the confi-
guration file.
send2-hook [!]pattern command
Whenever a message matching pattern is changed (either
by editing it or by using the compose menu), command is
executed. When multiple send2-hooks match, they are
executed in the order in which they occur in the confi-
guration file. Possible applications include setting
the $sendmail variable when a message's from header is
changed.
send2-hook execution is not triggered by use of enter-
command from the compose menu.
reply-hook [!]pattern command
When replying to a message matching pattern, command is
executed. When multiple reply-hooks match, they are
executed in the order in which they occur in the confi-
guration file, but all reply-hooks are matched and exe-
cuted before send-hooks, regardless of their order in
the configuration file.
crypt-hook pattern key-id
The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you
can specify the ID of the public key to be used when
encrypting messages to a certain recipient. The mean-
ing of "key ID" is to be taken broadly: This can be a
different e-mail address, a numerical key ID, or even
just an arbitrary search string.
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push string
This command adds the named string to the keyboard
buffer.
set [noinv&?]variable[=value] [ ... ]
toggle variable [ ... ]
unset variable [ ... ]
reset variable [ ... ]
These commands are used to set and manipulate confi-
guration variables.
Mutt knows four basic types of variables: boolean,
number, string and quadoption. Boolean variables can
be set (true), unset (false), or toggled. Number vari-
ables can be assigned a positive integer value.
String variables consist of any number of printable
characters. Strings must be enclosed in quotes if they
contain spaces or tabs. You may also use the C escape
sequences \n and \t for newline and tab, respectively.
Quadoption variables are used to control whether or not
to be prompted for certain actions, or to specify a
default action. A value of yes will cause the action
to be carried out automatically as if you had answered
yes to the question. Similarly, a value of no will
cause the the action to be carried out as if you had
answered no. A value of ask-yes will cause a prompt
with a default answer of yes and ask-no will provide a
default answer of no.
The reset command resets all given variables to the
compile time defaults. If you reset the special vari-
able all, all variables will reset to their compile
time defaults.
source filename
The given file will be evaluated as a configuration
file.
spam pattern format
nospam pattern
These commands define spam-detection patterns from
external spam filters, so that mutt can sort, limit,
and search on ``spam tags'' or ``spam attributes'', or
display them in the index. See the Mutt manual for
details.
unhook [ * hook-type ]
This command will remove all hooks of a given type, or
all hooks when * is used as an argument. hook-type can
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be any of the -hook commands documented above.
PATERNS
In various places with mutt, including some of the abovemen-
tioned hook commands, you can specify patterns to match mes-
sages.
Constructing Patterns
A simple pattern consists of an operator of the form ~char-
acter, possibly followed by a parameter against which mutt
is supposed to match the object specified by this operator.
For some characters, the ~ may be replaced by another char-
acter to alter the behavior of the match. These are
described in the list of operators, below.
With some of these operators, the object to be matched con-
sists of several e-mail addresses. In these cases, the
object is matched if at least one of these e-mail addresses
matches. You can prepend a hat (^) character to such a pat-
tern to indicate that all addresses must match in order to
match the object.
You can construct complex patterns by combining simple pat-
terns with logical operators. Logical AND is specified by
simply concatenating two simple patterns, for instance ~C
mutt-dev ~s bug. Logical OR is specified by inserting a
vertical bar () between two patterns, for instance ~C
mutt-dev ~s bug. Additionally, you can negate a pattern
by prepending a bang (!) character. For logical grouping,
use braces (()). Example: !(~t mutt~c mutt) ~f elkins.
Simple Patterns
Mutt understands the following simple patterns:
~A all messages
~b EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message body.
=b STRING messages which contain STRING in the message
body. If IMAP is enabled, searches for STRING on
the server, rather than downloading each message
and searching it locally.
~B EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the whole mes-
sage.
~c EXPR messages carbon-copied to EXPR
%c GROUP messages carbon-copied to any member of GROUP
~C EXPR messages either to: or cc: EXPR
%C GROUP messages either to: or cc: to any member of
GROUP
~d MIN-MAX messages with date-sent in a Date range
~D deleted messages
~e EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the Sender field
%e GROUP messages which contain a member of GROUP in the
Sender field
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~E expired messages
~f EXPR messages originating from EXPR
%f GROUP messages originating form any member of GROUP
~F flagged messages
~g PGP signed messages
~G PGP encrypted messages
~h EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the message
header
~H EXPR messages with spam tags matching EXPR
~i EXPR messages which match EXPR in the Message-ID
field
~k messages containing PGP key material
~l messages addressed to a known mailing list
(defined by either subscribe or list)
~L EXPR messages either originated or received by EXPR
%L GROUP messages either originated or received by any
member of GROUP
~m MIN-MAX message in the range MIN to MAX
~n MIN-MAX messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX
~N new messages
~O old messages
~p messages addressed to you (as defined by alter-
nates)
~P messages from you (as defined by alternates)
~Q messages which have been replied to
~r MIN-MAX messages with date-received in a Date range
~R read messages
~s EXPR messages having EXPR in the Subject field.
~S superseded messages
~t EXPR messages addressed to EXPR
~T tagged messages
~u messages addressed to a subscribed mailing list
(defined by subscribe commands)
~U unread messages
~v message is part of a collapsed thread.
~V cryptographically verified messages
~x EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the References
field
~X MIN-MAX messages with MIN - MAX attachments
~y EXPR messages which contain EXPR in the X-Label field
~z MIN-MAX messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX
~= duplicated messages (see $duplicatethreads)
~$ unreferenced message (requires threaded view)
~(PATERN) messages in threads containing messages matching
a certain pattern, e.g. all threads containing
messages from you: ~(~P)
In the above, EXPR is a regular expression.
With the ~m, ~n, ~X, and ~z operators, you can also specify
ranges in the forms MIN, MIN-, and -MAX.
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Matching dates
The ~d and ~r operators are used to match date ranges, which
are interpreted to be given in your local time zone.
A date is of the form D[/M[/[cc]Y], that is, a two-digit
date, optionally followed by a two-digit month, optionally
followed by a year specifications. Omitted fields default
to the current month and year.
Mutt understands either two or four digit year specifica-
tions. When given a two-digit year, mutt will interpret
values less than 70 as lying in the 21st century (i.e., 38
means 2038 and not 1938, and 00 is interpreted as 2000), and
values greater than or equal to 70 as lying in the 20th cen-
tury.
Note that this behaviour is Y2K compliant, but that mutt
does have a Y2.07K problem.
If a date range consists of a single date, the operator in
question will match that precise date. If the date range
consists of a dash (-), followed by a date, this range will
match any date before and up to the date given. Similarly,
a date followed by a dash matches the date given and any
later point of time. Two dates, separated by a dash, match
any date which lies in the given range of time.
You can also modify any absolute date by giving an error
range. An error range consists of one of the characters ],
-, *, followed by a positive number, followed by one of the
unit characters y, m, w, or d, specifying a unit of years,
months, weeks, or days. ] increases the maximum date matched
by the given interval of time, - decreases the minimum date
matched by the given interval of time, and * increases the
maximum date and decreases the minimum date matched by the
given interval of time. It is possible to give multiple
error margins, which cumulate. Example: 1/1/2001-1w]2w*3d
You can also specify offsets relative to the current date.
An offset is specified as one of the characters <, >, =,
followed by a positive number, followed by one of the unit
characters y, m, w, or d. > matches dates which are older
than the specified amount of time, an offset which begins
with the character < matches dates which are more recent
than the specified amount of time, and an offset which
begins with the character = matches points of time which are
precisely the given amount of time ago.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
abortnosubject
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
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If set to yes, when composing messages and no subject
is given at the subject prompt, composition will be
aborted. If set to no, composing messages with no sub-
ject given at the subject prompt will never be aborted.
abortunmodified
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
If set to yes, composition will automatically abort
after editing the message body if no changes are made
to the file (this check only happens after the first
edit of the file). When set to no, composition will
never be aborted.
aliasfile
Type: path
Default: ~/.muttrc
The default file in which to save aliases created by
the function. Entries added to this file
are encoded in the character set specified by
$configcharset if it is set or the current character
set otherwise.
Note: Mutt will not automatically source this file; you
must explicitly use the source command for it to be
executed in case this option points to a dedicated
alias file.
The default for this option is the currently used
muttrc file, or ~/.muttrc if no user muttrc was found.
aliasformat
Type: string
Default: %4n %2f %t %-10a %r
Specifies the format of the data displayed for the
alias menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences
are available:
%a alias name
%f flags - currently, a d for an alias marked for
deletion
%n index number
%r address which alias expands to
%t character which indicates if the alias is tagged
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for inclusion
allow8bit
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls whether 8-bit data is converted to 7-bit using
either Quoted- Printable or Base64 encoding when send-
ing mail.
allowansi
Type: boolean
Default: no
Controls whether ANSI color codes in messages (and
color tags in rich text messages) are to be inter-
preted. Messages containing these codes are rare, but
if this option is set, their text will be colored
accordingly. Note that this may override your color
choices, and even present a security problem, since a
message could include a line like
[-- PGP output follows ...
and give it the same color as your attachment color
(see also $crypttimestamp).
arrowcursor
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, an arrow (->) will be used to indicate the
current entry in menus instead of highlighting the
whole line. On slow network or modem links this will
make response faster because there is less that has to
be redrawn on the screen when moving to the next or
previous entries in the menu.
asciichars
Type: boolean
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Default: no
If set, Mutt will use plain ASCI characters when
displaying thread and attachment trees, instead of the
default ACS characters.
askbcc
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, Mutt will prompt you for blind-carbon-copy
(Bcc) recipients before editing an outgoing message.
askcc
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, Mutt will prompt you for carbon-copy (Cc) reci-
pients before editing the body of an outgoing message.
assumedcharset
Type: string
Default:
This variable is a colon-separated list of character
encoding schemes for messages without character encod-
ing indication. Header field values and message body
content without character encoding indication would be
assumed that they are written in one of this list. By
default, all the header fields and message body without
any charset indication are assumed to be in us-ascii.
For example, Japanese users might prefer this:
set assumedcharset=iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shiftjis:utf-8
However, only the first content is valid for the mes-
sage body.
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attachcharset
Type: string
Default:
This variable is a colon-separated list of character
encoding schemes for text file attachments. If unset,
the value of $charset will be used instead. For exam-
ple, the following configuration would work for
Japanese text handling:
set attachcharset=iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shiftjis:utf-8
Note: for Japanese users, iso-2022-* must be put at the
head of the value as shown above if included.
attachformat
Type: string
Default: %u%D%I %t%4n %T%.40d%> [%.7m/%.10M, %.6e%?C?, %C?, %s]
This variable describes the format of the attachment
menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are
understood:
%C charset
%c requires charset conversion (n or c)
%D deleted flag
%d description
%e MIME content-transfer-encoding
%f filename
%I disposition (I for inline, A for attachment)
%m major MIME type
%M MIME subtype
%n attachment number
%Q Q, if MIME part qualifies for attachment counting
%s size
%t tagged flag
%T graphic tree characters
%u unlink (=to delete) flag
%X number of qualifying MIME parts in this part and
its children (please see the attachments section
for possible speed effects)
%>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with
character X
%X pad to the end of the line with character X
%*X soft-fill with character X as pad
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For an explanation of soft-fill, see the $indexformat
documentation.
attachsep
Type: string
Default: \n
The separator to add between attachments when operating
(saving, printing, piping, etc) on a list of tagged
attachments.
attachsplit
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If this variable is unset, when operating (saving,
printing, piping, etc) on a list of tagged attachments,
Mutt will concatenate the attachments and will operate
on them as a single attachment. The $attachsep separa-
tor is added after each attachment. When set, Mutt will
operate on the attachments one by one.
attribution
Type: string
Default: On %d, %n wrote:
This is the string that will precede a message which
has been included in a reply. For a full listing of
defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on
$indexformat.
autoedit
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set along with $editheaders, Mutt will skip the
initial send-menu (prompting for subject and reci-
pients) and allow you to immediately begin editing the
body of your message. The send-menu may still be
accessed once you have finished editing the body of
your message.
Also see $fastreply.
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autotag
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, functions in the index menu which affect a
message will be applied to all tagged messages (if
there are any). When unset, you must first use the
function (bound to ; by default) to make
the next function apply to all tagged messages.
beep
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When this variable is set, mutt will beep when an error
occurs.
beepnew
Type: boolean
Default: no
When this variable is set, mutt will beep whenever it
prints a message notifying you of new mail. This is
independent of the setting of the $beep variable.
bounce
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
Controls whether you will be asked to confirm bouncing
messages. If set to yes you don't get asked if you
want to bounce a message. Setting this variable to no
is not generally useful, and thus not recommended,
because you are unable to bounce messages.
bouncedelivered
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When this variable is set, mutt will include
Delivered-To headers when bouncing messages. Postfix
users may wish to unset this variable.
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braillefriendly
Type: boolean
Default: no
When this variable is set, mutt will place the cursor
at the beginning of the current line in menus, even
when the $arrowcursor variable is unset, making it
easier for blind persons using Braille displays to fol-
low these menus. The option is unset by default
because many visual terminals don't permit making the
cursor invisible.
checkmboxsize
Type: boolean
Default: no
When this variable is set, mutt will use file size
attribute instead of access time when checking for new
mail in mbox and mmdf folders.
This variable is unset by default and should only be
enabled when new mail detection for these folder types
is unreliable or doesn't work.
Note that enabling this variable should happen before
any mailboxes directives occur in configuration files
regarding mbox or mmdf folders because mutt needs to
determine the initial new mail status of such a mailbox
by performing a fast mailbox scan when it is defined.
Afterwards the new mail status is tracked by file size
changes.
charset
Type: string
Default:
Character set your terminal uses to display and enter
textual data. It is also the fallback for
$sendcharset.
Upon startup Mutt tries to derive this value from
environment variables such as $LCTYPE or $LANG.
Note: It should only be set in case Mutt isn't abled to
determine the character set used correctly.
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checknew
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Note: this option only affects maildir and MH style
mailboxes.
When set, Mutt will check for new mail delivered while
the mailbox is open. Especially with MH mailboxes,
this operation can take quite some time since it
involves scanning the directory and checking each file
to see if it has already been looked at. If this vari-
able is unset, no check for new mail is performed while
the mailbox is open.
collapseunread
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When unset, Mutt will not collapse a thread if it con-
tains any unread messages.
uncollapsejump
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, Mutt will jump to the next unread message, if
any, when the current thread is uncollapsed.
composeformat
Type: string
Default: -- Mutt: Compose [Approx. msg size: %l Atts: %a]%>-
Controls the format of the status line displayed in the
compose menu. This string is similar to
$statusformat, but has its own set of printf(3)-like
sequences:
%a total number of attachments
%h local hostname
%l approximate size (in bytes) of the current message
%v Mutt version string
See the text describing the $statusformat option for
more information on how to set $composeformat.
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configcharset
Type: string
Default:
When defined, Mutt will recode commands in rc files
from this encoding to the current character set as
specified by $charset and aliases written to
$aliasfile from the current character set.
Please note that if setting $charset it must be done
before setting $configcharset.
Recoding should be avoided as it may render unconvert-
able characters as question marks which can lead to
undesired side effects (for example in regular expres-
sions).
confirmappend
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when
appending messages to an existing mailbox.
confirmcreate
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when saving
messages to a mailbox which does not yet exist before
creating it.
connecttimeout
Type: number
Default: 30
Causes Mutt to timeout a network connection (for IMAP,
POP or SMTP) after this many seconds if the connection
is not able to be established. A negative value causes
Mutt to wait indefinitely for the connection attempt to
succeed.
contenttype
Type: string
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Default: text/plain
Sets the default Content-Type for the body of newly
composed messages.
copy
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
This variable controls whether or not copies of your
outgoing messages will be saved for later references.
Also see $record, $savename, $forcename and fcc-hook.
cryptusegpgme
Type: boolean
Default: no
This variable controls the use of the GPGME-enabled
crypto backends. If it is set and Mutt was built with
gpgme support, the gpgme code for S/MIME and PGP will
be used instead of the classic code. Note that you
need to set this option in .muttrc; it won't have any
effect when used interactively.
cryptusepka
Type: boolean
Default: no
Controls whether mutt uses PKA (see
http:/www.g10code.de/docs/pka-intro.de.pdf) during
signature verification (only supported by the GPGME
backend).
cryptautopgp
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variable controls whether or not mutt may automat-
ically enable PGP encryption/signing for messages. See
also $cryptautoencrypt, $cryptreplyencrypt,
$cryptautosign, $cryptreplysign and
$smimeisdefault.
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cryptautosmime
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variable controls whether or not mutt may automat-
ically enable S/MIME encryption/signing for messages.
See also $cryptautoencrypt, $cryptreplyencrypt,
$cryptautosign, $cryptreplysign and
$smimeisdefault.
dateformat
Type: string
Default: !%a, %b %d, %Y at %I:%M:%S%p %Z
This variable controls the format of the date printed
by the %d sequence in $indexformat. This is passed to
the strftime(3) function to process the date, see the
man page for the proper syntax.
Unless the first character in the string is a bang (!),
the month and week day names are expanded according to
the locale specified in the variable $locale. If the
first character in the string is a bang, the bang is
discarded, and the month and week day names in the rest
of the string are expanded in the C locale (that is in
US English).
defaulthook
Type: string
Default: ~f %s !~P (~P ~C %s)
This variable controls how message-hook, reply-hook,
send-hook, send2-hook, save-hook, and fcc-hook will be
interpreted if they are specified with only a simple
regexp, instead of a matching pattern. The hooks are
expanded when they are declared, so a hook will be
interpreted according to the value of this variable at
the time the hook is declared.
The default value matches if the message is either from
a user matching the regular expression given, or if it
is from you (if the from address matches alternates)
and is to or cc'ed to a user matching the given regular
expression.
delete
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Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
Controls whether or not messages are really deleted
when closing or synchronizing a mailbox. If set to
yes, messages marked for deleting will automatically be
purged without prompting. If set to no, messages
marked for deletion will be kept in the mailbox.
deleteuntag
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If this option is set, mutt will untag messages when
marking them for deletion. This applies when you
either explicitly delete a message, or when you save it
to another folder.
digestcollapse
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If this option is set, mutt's received-attachments menu
will not show the subparts of individual messages in a
multipart/digest. To see these subparts, press v on
that menu.
displayfilter
Type: path
Default:
When set, specifies a command used to filter messages.
When a message is viewed it is passed as standard input
to $displayfilter, and the filtered message is read
from the standard output.
dotlockprogram
Type: path
Default: /usr/bin/muttdotlock
Contains the path of the muttdotlock(8) binary to be
used by mutt.
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dsnnotify
Type: string
Default:
This variable sets the request for when notification is
returned. The string consists of a comma separated
list (no spaces!) of one or more of the following:
never, to never request notification, failure, to
request notification on transmission failure, delay, to
be notified of message delays, success, to be notified
of successful transmission.
Example:
set dsnnotify=failure,delay
Note: when using $sendmail for delivery, you should not
enable this unless you are either using Sendmail 8.8.x
or greater or a MTA providing a sendmail(1)-compatible
interface supporting the -N option for DSN. For SMTP
delivery, DSN support is autodetected so that it
depends on the server whether DSN will be used or not.
dsnreturn
Type: string
Default:
This variable controls how much of your message is
returned in DSN messages. It may be set to either hdrs
to return just the message header, or full to return
the full message.
Example:
set dsnreturn=hdrs
Note: when using $sendmail for delivery, you should not
enable this unless you are either using Sendmail 8.8.x
or greater or a MTA providing a sendmail(1)-compatible
interface supporting the -R option for DSN. For SMTP
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delivery, DSN support is autodetected so that it
depends on the server whether DSN will be used or not.
duplicatethreads
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variable controls whether mutt, when $sort is set
to threads, threads messages with the same Message-Id
together. If it is set, it will indicate that it
thinks they are duplicates of each other with an equals
sign in the thread tree.
editheaders
Type: boolean
Default: no
This option allows you to edit the header of your out-
going messages along with the body of your message.
Note that changes made to the References: and Date:
headers are ignored for interoperability reasons.
editor
Type: path
Default:
This variable specifies which editor is used by mutt.
It defaults to the value of the $VISUAL, or $EDITOR,
environment variable, or to the string vi if neither of
those are set.
encodefrom
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will quoted-printable encode messages
when they contain the string From (note the trailing
space) in the beginning of a line. This is useful to
avoid the tampering certain mail delivery and transport
agents tend to do with messages (in order to prevent
tools from misinterpreting the line as a mbox message
separator).
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envelopefromaddress
Type: e-mail address
Default:
Manually sets the envelope sender for outgoing mes-
sages. This value is ignored if $useenvelopefrom is
unset.
escape
Type: string
Default: ~
Escape character to use for functions in the builtin
editor.
fastreply
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, the initial prompt for recipients and subject
are skipped when replying to messages, and the initial
prompt for subject is skipped when forwarding messages.
Note: this variable has no effect when the $autoedit
variable is set.
fccattach
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variable controls whether or not attachments on
outgoing messages are saved along with the main body of
your message.
fccclear
Type: boolean
Default: no
When this variable is set, FCs will be stored unen-
crypted and unsigned, even when the actual message is
encrypted and/or signed. (PGP only)
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folder
Type: path
Default: ~/Mail
Specifies the default location of your mailboxes. A ]
or = at the beginning of a pathname will be expanded to
the value of this variable. Note that if you change
this variable (from the default) value you need to make
sure that the assignment occurs before you use ] or =
for any other variables since expansion takes place
when handling the mailboxes command.
folderformat
Type: string
Default: %2C %t %N %F %2l %-8.8u %-8.8g %8s %d %f
This variable allows you to customize the file browser
display to your personal taste. This string is similar
to $indexformat, but has its own set of printf(3)-like
sequences:
%C current file number
%d date/time folder was last modified
%f filename
%F file permissions
%g group name (or numeric gid, if missing)
%l number of hard links
%N N if folder has new mail, blank otherwise
%s size in bytes
%t * if the file is tagged, blank otherwise
%u owner name (or numeric uid, if missing)
%>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with
character X
%X pad to the end of the line with character X
%*X soft-fill with character X as pad
For an explanation of soft-fill, see the $indexformat
documentation.
followupto
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls whether or not the Mail-Followup-To: header
field is generated when sending mail. When set, Mutt
will generate this field when you are replying to a
known mailing list, specified with the subscribe or
lists commands.
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This field has two purposes. First, preventing you
from receiving duplicate copies of replies to messages
which you send to mailing lists, and second, ensuring
that you do get a reply separately for any messages
sent to known lists to which you are not subscribed.
The header will contain only the list's address for
subscribed lists, and both the list address and your
own email address for unsubscribed lists. Without this
header, a group reply to your message sent to a sub-
scribed list will be sent to both the list and your
address, resulting in two copies of the same email for
you.
forcename
Type: boolean
Default: no
This variable is similar to $savename, except that
Mutt will store a copy of your outgoing message by the
username of the address you are sending to even if that
mailbox does not exist.
Also see the $record variable.
forwarddecode
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into
text/plain when forwarding a message. The message
header is also RFC2047 decoded. This variable is only
used, if $mimeforward is unset, otherwise
$mimeforwarddecode is used instead.
forwardedit
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
This quadoption controls whether or not the user is
automatically placed in the editor when forwarding mes-
sages. For those who always want to forward with no
modification, use a setting of no.
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forwardformat
Type: string
Default: [%a: %s]
This variable controls the default subject when for-
warding a message. It uses the same format sequences
as the $indexformat variable.
forwardquote
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, forwarded messages included in the main body
of the message (when $mimeforward is unset) will be
quoted using $indentstring.
from
Type: e-mail address
Default:
When set, this variable contains a default from
address. It can be overridden using myhdr (including
from a send-hook) and $reversename. This variable is
ignored if $usefrom is unset.
This setting defaults to the contents of the environ-
ment variable $EMAIL.
gecosmask
Type: regular expression
Default: ^[^,]*
A regular expression used by mutt to parse the GECOS
field of a password entry when expanding the alias.
The default value will return the string up to the
first , encountered. If the GECOS field contains a
string like lastname, firstname then you should set it
to .*.
This can be useful if you see the following behavior:
you address a e-mail to user ID stevef whose full name
is Steve Franklin. If mutt expands stevef to Franklin
stevef@foo.bar then you should set the $gecosmask to a
regular expression that will match the whole name so
mutt will expand Franklin to Franklin, Steve.
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hdrs
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When unset, the header fields normally added by the
myhdr command are not created. This variable must be
unset before composing a new message or replying in
order to take effect. If set, the user defined header
fields are added to every new message.
header
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, this variable causes Mutt to include the
header of the message you are replying to into the edit
buffer. The $weed setting applies.
help
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, help lines describing the bindings for the
major functions provided by each menu are displayed on
the first line of the screen.
Note: The binding will not be displayed correctly if
the function is bound to a sequence rather than a sin-
gle keystroke. Also, the help line may not be updated
if a binding is changed while Mutt is running. Since
this variable is primarily aimed at new users, neither
of these should present a major problem.
hiddenhost
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will skip the host name part of $host-
name variable when adding the domain part to addresses.
This variable does not affect the generation of
Message-IDs, and it will not lead to the cut-off of
first-level domains.
hidelimited
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Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will not show the presence of messages
that are hidden by limiting, in the thread tree.
hidemissing
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will not show the presence of missing
messages in the thread tree.
hidethreadsubject
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will not show the subject of messages in
the thread tree that have the same subject as their
parent or closest previously displayed sibling.
hidetoplimited
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will not show the presence of messages
that are hidden by limiting, at the top of threads in
the thread tree. Note that when $hidelimited is set,
this option will have no effect.
hidetopmissing
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will not show the presence of missing
messages at the top of threads in the thread tree.
Note that when $hidemissing is set, this option will
have no effect.
history
Type: number
Default: 10
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This variable controls the size (in number of strings
remembered) of the string history buffer per category.
The buffer is cleared each time the variable is set.
historyfile
Type: path
Default: ~/.mutthistory
The file in which Mutt will save its history.
honorfollowupto
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
This variable controls whether or not a Mail-Followup-
To header is honored when group-replying to a message.
hostname
Type: string
Default:
Specifies the fully-qualified hostname of the system
mutt is running on containing the host's name and the
DNS domain it belongs to. It is used as the domain part
(after @) for local email addresses as well as
Message-Id headers.
Its value is determined at startup as follows: If the
node's name as returned by the uname(3) function con-
tains the hostname and the domain, these are used to
construct $hostname. If there is no domain part
returned, Mutt will look for a domain or search line in
/etc/resolv.conf to determine the domain. Optionally,
Mutt can be compiled with a fixed domain name in which
case a detected one is not used.
Also see $usedomain and $hiddenhost.
ignorelinearwhitespace
Type: boolean
Default: no
This option replaces linear-white-space between
encoded-word and text to a single space to prevent the
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display of MIME-encoded Subject: field from being
divided into multiple lines.
ignorelistreplyto
Type: boolean
Default: no
Affects the behaviour of the function when
replying to messages from mailing lists (as defined by
the subscribe or lists commands). When set, if the
Reply-To: field is set to the same value as the To:
field, Mutt assumes that the Reply-To: field was set by
the mailing list to automate responses to the list, and
will ignore this field. To direct a response to the
mailing list when this option is set, use the function; will reply to both the
sender and the list.
imapauthenticators
Type: string
Default:
This is a colon-delimited list of authentication
methods mutt may attempt to use to log in to an IMAP
server, in the order mutt should try them. Authentica-
tion methods are either login or the right side of an
IMAP AUTH=xxx capability string, eg digest-md5, gssapi
or cram-md5. This option is case-insensitive. If it's
unset (the default) mutt will try all available
methods, in order from most-secure to least-secure.
Example:
set imapauthenticators=gssapi:cram-md5:login
Note: Mutt will only fall back to other authentication
methods if the previous methods are unavailable. If a
method is available but authentication fails, mutt will
not connect to the IMAP server.
imapchecksubscribed
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Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will fetch the set of subscribed folders
from your server on connection, and add them to the set
of mailboxes it polls for new mail just as if you had
issued individual mailboxes commands.
imapdelimchars
Type: string
Default: /.
This contains the list of characters which you would
like to treat as folder separators for displaying IMAP
paths. In particular it helps in using the = shortcut
for your folder variable.
imapheaders
Type: string
Default:
Mutt requests these header fields in addition to the
default headers (Date:, From:, Subject:, To:, Cc:,
Message-Id:, References:, Content-Type:, Content-
Description:, In-Reply-To:, Reply-To:, Lines:, List-
Post:, X-Label:) from IMAP servers before displaying
the index menu. You may want to add more headers for
spam detection.
Note: This is a space separated list, items should be
uppercase and not contain the colon, e.g. X-BOGOSITY
X-SPAM-STATUS for the X-Bogosity: and X-Spam-Status:
header fields.
imapidle
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will attempt to use the IMAP IDLE exten-
sion to check for new mail in the current mailbox. Some
servers (dovecot was the inspiration for this option)
react badly to mutt's implementation. If your connec-
tion seems to freeze up periodically, try unsetting
this.
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imapkeepalive
Type: number
Default: 900
This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in
seconds that mutt will wait before polling open IMAP
connections, to prevent the server from closing them
before mutt has finished with them. The default is well
within the RFC-specified minimum amount of time (30
minutes) before a server is allowed to do this, but in
practice the RFC does get violated every now and then.
Reduce this number if you find yourself getting discon-
nected from your IMAP server due to inactivity.
imaplistsubscribed
Type: boolean
Default: no
This variable configures whether IMAP folder browsing
will look for only subscribed folders or all folders.
This can be toggled in the IMAP browser with the
function.
imaplogin
Type: string
Default:
Your login name on the IMAP server.
This variable defaults to the value of $imapuser.
imappass
Type: string
Default:
Specifies the password for your IMAP account. If
unset, Mutt will prompt you for your password when you
invoke the function or try to open an IMAP
folder.
Warning: you should only use this option when you are
on a fairly secure machine, because the superuser can
read your muttrc even if you are the only one who can
read the file.
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imappassive
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will not open new IMAP connections to
check for new mail. Mutt will only check for new mail
over existing IMAP connections. This is useful if you
don't want to be prompted to user/password pairs on
mutt invocation, or if opening the connection is slow.
imappeek
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will avoid implicitly marking your mail
as read whenever you fetch a message from the server.
This is generally a good thing, but can make closing an
IMAP folder somewhat slower. This option exists to
appease speed freaks.
imappipelinedepth
Type: number
Default: 15
Controls the number of IMAP commands that may be queued
up before they are sent to the server. A deeper pipe-
line reduces the amount of time mutt must wait for the
server, and can make IMAP servers feel much more
responsive. But not all servers correctly handle pipe-
lined commands, so if you have problems you might want
to try setting this variable to 0.
Note: Changes to this variable have no effect on open
connections.
imapservernoise
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will display warning messages from the
IMAP server as error messages. Since these messages are
often harmless, or generated due to configuration prob-
lems on the server which are out of the users' hands,
you may wish to suppress them at some point.
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imapuser
Type: string
Default:
The name of the user whose mail you intend to access on
the IMAP server.
This variable defaults to your user name on the local
machine.
implicitautoview
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set to yes, mutt will look for a mailcap entry with
the copiousoutput flag set for every MIME attachment it
doesn't have an internal viewer defined for. If such
an entry is found, mutt will use the viewer defined in
that entry to convert the body part to text form.
include
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
Controls whether or not a copy of the message(s) you
are replying to is included in your reply.
includeonlyfirst
Type: boolean
Default: no
Controls whether or not Mutt includes only the first
attachment of the message you are replying.
indentstring
Type: string
Default: >
Specifies the string to prepend to each line of text
quoted in a message to which you are replying. You are
strongly encouraged not to change this value, as it
tends to agitate the more fanatical netizens.
This option is a format string, please see the
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description of $indexformat for supported printf(3)-
style sequences.
Because for format=lowed style messages the quoting
mechanism is strictly defined, this setting is ignored
if $textflowed is set.
indexformat
Type: string
Default: %4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15L (%?l?%4l&%4c?) %s
This variable allows you to customize the message index
display to your personal taste.
Format strings are similar to the strings used in the C
function printf(3) to format output (see the man page
for more details). The following sequences are defined
in Mutt:
%a address of the author
%A reply-to address (if present; otherwise: address
of author)
%b filename of the original message folder (think
mailbox)
%B the list to which the letter was sent, or else the
folder name (%b).
%c number of characters (bytes) in the message
%C current message number
%d date and time of the message in the format speci-
fied by $dateformat converted to sender's time
zone
%D date and time of the message in the format speci-
fied by $dateformat converted to the local time
zone
%e current message number in thread
%E number of messages in current thread
%f sender (address ] real name), either From: or
Return-Path:
%F author name, or recipient name if the message is
from you
%H spam attribute(s) of this message
%i message-id of the current message
%l number of lines in the message (does not work with
maildir, mh, and possibly IMAP folders)
%L If an address in the To: or Cc: header field
matches an address defined by the users subscribe
command, this displays To , otherwise
the same as %F.
%m total number of message in the mailbox
%M number of hidden messages if the thread is col-
lapsed.
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%N message score
%n author's real name (or address if missing)
%O original save folder where mutt would formerly
have stashed the message: list name or recipient
name if not sent to a list
%P progress indicator for the builtin pager (how much
of the file has been displayed)
%s subject of the message
%S status of the message (N/D/d/!/r/*)
%t To: field (recipients)
%T the appropriate character from the $tochars
string
%u user (login) name of the author
%v first name of the author, or the recipient if the
message is from you
%X number of attachments (please see the attachments
section for possible speed effects)
%y X-Label: field, if present
%Y X-Label: field, if present, and (1) not at part of
a thread tree, (2) at the top of a thread, or (3)
X-Label: is different from preceding message's X-
Label:.
%Z message status flags
%{fmt}
the date and time of the message is converted to
sender's time zone, and fmt is expanded by the
library function strftime(3); a leading bang dis-
ables locales
%[fmt]
the date and time of the message is converted to
the local time zone, and fmt is expanded by the
library function strftime(3); a leading bang dis-
ables locales
%(fmt)
the local date and time when the message was
received. fmt is expanded by the library function
strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales
%
the current local time. fmt is expanded by the
library function strftime(3); a leading bang dis-
ables locales.
%>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with
character X
%X pad to the end of the line with character X
%*X soft-fill with character X as pad
Soft-fill deserves some explanation: Normal right-
justification will print everything to the left of the
%>, displaying padding and whatever lies to the right
only if there's room. By contrast, soft-fill gives
priority to the right-hand side, guaranteeing space to
display it and showing padding only if there's still
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room. If necessary, soft-fill will eat text leftwards
to make room for rightward text.
Note that these expandos are supported in save-hook,
fcc-hook and fcc-save-hook, too.
ispell
Type: path
Default: ispell
How to invoke ispell (GNU's spell-checking software).
keepflagged
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, read messages marked as flagged will not be
moved from your spool mailbox to your $mbox mailbox, or
as a result of a mbox-hook command.
locale
Type: string
Default: C
The locale used by strftime(3) to format dates. Legal
values are the strings your system accepts for the
locale environment variable $LCTIME.
mailcheck
Type: number
Default: 5
This variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt
should look for new mail. Also see the $timeout vari-
able.
mailcappath
Type: string
Default:
This variable specifies which files to consult when
attempting to display MIME bodies not directly
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supported by Mutt.
mailcapsanitize
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, mutt will restrict possible characters in mail-
cap % expandos to a well-defined set of safe charac-
ters. This is the safe setting, but we are not sure it
doesn't break some more advanced MIME stuff.
DON'T CHANGE THIS SETING UNLES YOU ARE REALY SURE
WHAT YOU ARE DOING!
headercache
Type: path
Default:
This variable points to the header cache database. If
pointing to a directory Mutt will contain a header
cache database file per folder, if pointing to a file
that file will be a single global header cache. By
default it is unset so no header caching will be used.
Header caching can greatly improve speed when opening
POP, IMAP MH or Maildir folders, see caching for
details.
maildirheadercacheverify
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Check for Maildir unaware programs other than mutt hav-
ing modified maildir files when the header cache is in
use. This incurs one stat(2) per message every time
the folder is opened (which can be very slow for NFS
folders).
headercachepagesize
Type: string
Default: 16384
When mutt is compiled with either gdbm or bdb4 as the
header cache backend, this option changes the database
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page size. Too large or too small values can waste
space, memory, or CPU time. The default should be more
or less optimal for most use cases.
headercachecompress
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When mutt is compiled with qdbm or tokyocabinet as
header cache backend, this option determines whether
the database will be compressed. Compression results
in database files roughly being one fifth of the usual
diskspace, but the uncompression can result in a slower
opening of cached folder(s) which in general is still
much faster than opening non header cached folders.
maildirtrash
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, messages marked as deleted will be saved with
the maildir trashed flag instead of unlinked. Note:
this only applies to maildir-style mailboxes. Setting
it will have no effect on other mailbox types.
markold
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls whether or not mutt marks new unread messages
as old if you exit a mailbox without reading them.
With this option set, the next time you start mutt, the
messages will show up with an O next to them in the
index menu, indicating that they are old.
markers
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls the display of wrapped lines in the internal
pager. If set, a ] marker is displayed at the beginning
of wrapped lines.
Also see the $smartwrap variable.
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mask
Type: regular expression
Default: !^\.[^.]
A regular expression used in the file browser, option-
ally preceded by the not operator !. Only files whose
names match this mask will be shown. The match is
always case-sensitive.
mbox
Type: path
Default: ~/mbox
This specifies the folder into which read mail in your
$spoolfile folder will be appended.
Also see the $move variable.
mboxtype
Type: folder magic
Default: mbox
The default mailbox type used when creating new fold-
ers. May be any of mbox, MDF, MH and Maildir.
metoo
Type: boolean
Default: no
If unset, Mutt will remove your address (see the alter-
nates command) from the list of recipients when reply-
ing to a message.
menucontext
Type: number
Default: 0
This variable controls the number of lines of context
that are given when scrolling through menus. (Similar
to $pagercontext.)
menumoveoff
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Type: boolean
Default: yes
When unset, the bottom entry of menus will never scroll
up past the bottom of the screen, unless there are less
entries than lines. When set, the bottom entry may
move off the bottom.
menuscroll
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, menus will be scrolled up or down one line
when you attempt to move across a screen boundary. If
unset, the screen is cleared and the next or previous
page of the menu is displayed (useful for slow links to
avoid many redraws).
metakey
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, forces Mutt to interpret keystrokes with the
high bit (bit 8) set as if the user had pressed the Esc
key and whatever key remains after having the high bit
removed. For example, if the key pressed has an ASCI
value of 0xf8, then this is treated as if the user had
pressed Esc then x. This is because the result of
removing the high bit from 0xf8 is 0x78, which is the
ASCI character x.
mhpurge
Type: boolean
Default: no
When unset, mutt will mimic mh's behaviour and rename
deleted messages to , in mh folders
instead of really deleting them. This leaves the mes-
sage on disk but makes programs reading the folder
ignore it. If the variable is set, the message files
will simply be deleted.
This option is similar to $maildirtrash for Maildir
folders.
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mhseqflagged
Type: string
Default: flagged
The name of the MH sequence used for flagged messages.
mhseqreplied
Type: string
Default: replied
The name of the MH sequence used to tag replied mes-
sages.
mhsequnseen
Type: string
Default: unseen
The name of the MH sequence used for unseen messages.
mimeforward
Type: quadoption
Default: no
When set, the message you are forwarding will be
attached as a separate message/rfc822 MIME part instead
of included in the main body of the message. This is
useful for forwarding MIME messages so the receiver can
properly view the message as it was delivered to you.
If you like to switch between MIME and not MIME from
mail to mail, set this variable to ask-no or ask-yes.
Also see $forwarddecode and $mimeforwarddecode.
mimeforwarddecode
Type: boolean
Default: no
Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into
text/plain when forwarding a message while
$mimeforward is set. Otherwise $forwarddecode is used
instead.
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mimeforwardrest
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
When forwarding multiple attachments of a MIME message
from the attachment menu, attachments which cannot be
decoded in a reasonable manner will be attached to the
newly composed message if this option is set.
mixentryformat
Type: string
Default: %4n %c %-16s %a
This variable describes the format of a remailer line
on the mixmaster chain selection screen. The following
printf(3)-like sequences are supported:
%n The running number on the menu.
%c Remailer capabilities.
%s The remailer's short name.
%a The remailer's e-mail address.
mixmaster
Type: path
Default: mixmaster
This variable contains the path to the Mixmaster binary
on your system. It is used with various sets of param-
eters to gather the list of known remailers, and to
finally send a message through the mixmaster chain.
move
Type: quadoption
Default: no
Controls whether or not Mutt will move read messages
from your spool mailbox to your $mbox mailbox, or as a
result of a mbox-hook command.
messagecachedir
Type: path
Default:
Set this to a directory and mutt will cache copies of
messages from your IMAP and POP servers here. You are
free to remove entries at any time.
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When setting this variable to a directory, mutt needs
to fetch every remote message only once and can perform
regular expression searches as fast as for local fold-
ers.
Also see the $messagecacheclean variable.
messagecacheclean
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, mutt will clean out obsolete entries from the
message cache when the mailbox is synchronized. You
probably only want to set it every once in a while,
since it can be a little slow (especially for large
folders).
messageformat
Type: string
Default: %s
This is the string displayed in the attachment menu for
attachments of type message/rfc822. For a full listing
of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on
$indexformat.
narrowtree
Type: boolean
Default: no
This variable, when set, makes the thread tree nar-
rower, allowing deeper threads to fit on the screen.
netinc
Type: number
Default: 10
Operations that expect to transfer a large amount of
data over the network will update their progress every
$netinc kilobytes. If set to 0, no progress messages
will be displayed.
See also $readinc, $writeinc and $netinc.
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pager
Type: path
Default: builtin
This variable specifies which pager you would like to
use to view messages. The value builtin means to use
the builtin pager, otherwise this variable should
specify the pathname of the external pager you would
like to use.
Using an external pager may have some disadvantages:
Additional keystrokes are necessary because you can't
call mutt functions directly from the pager, and screen
resizes cause lines longer than the screen width to be
badly formatted in the help menu.
pagercontext
Type: number
Default: 0
This variable controls the number of lines of context
that are given when displaying the next or previous
page in the internal pager. By default, Mutt will
display the line after the last one on the screen at
the top of the next page (0 lines of context).
pagerformat
Type: string
Default: -%Z- %C/%m: %-20.20n %s%* -- (%P)
This variable controls the format of the one-line mes-
sage status displayed before each message in either the
internal or an external pager. The valid sequences are
listed in the $indexformat section.
pagerindexlines
Type: number
Default: 0
Determines the number of lines of a mini-index which is
shown when in the pager. The current message, unless
near the top or bottom of the folder, will be roughly
one third of the way down this mini-index, giving the
reader the context of a few messages before and after
the message. This is useful, for example, to determine
how many messages remain to be read in the current
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thread. One of the lines is reserved for the status
bar from the index, so a setting of 6 will only show 5
lines of the actual index. A value of 0 results in no
index being shown. If the number of messages in the
current folder is less than $pagerindexlines, then
the index will only use as many lines as it needs.
pagerstop
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, the internal-pager will not move to the next
message when you are at the end of a message and invoke
the function.
cryptautosign
Type: boolean
Default: no
Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt
to cryptographically sign outgoing messages. This can
be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when signing is
not required or encryption is requested as well. If
$smimeisdefault is set, then OpenSL is used instead
to create S/MIME messages and settings can be overrid-
den by use of the smime menu instead of the pgp menu.
(Crypto only)
cryptautoencrypt
Type: boolean
Default: no
Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt
to PGP encrypt outgoing messages. This is probably
only useful in connection to the send-hook command. It
can be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when encryp-
tion is not required or signing is requested as well.
If $smimeisdefault is set, then OpenSL is used
instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be
overridden by use of the smime menu instead. (Crypto
only)
pgpignoresubkeys
Type: boolean
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Default: yes
Setting this variable will cause Mutt to ignore OpenPGP
subkeys. Instead, the principal key will inherit the
subkeys' capabilities. Unset this if you want to play
interesting key selection games. (PGP only)
cryptreplyencrypt
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, automatically PGP or OpenSL encrypt replies to
messages which are encrypted. (Crypto only)
cryptreplysign
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, automatically PGP or OpenSL sign replies to
messages which are signed.
Note: this does not work on messages that are encrypted
and signed! (Crypto only)
cryptreplysignencrypted
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, automatically PGP or OpenSL sign replies to
messages which are encrypted. This makes sense in com-
bination with $cryptreplyencrypt, because it allows
you to sign all messages which are automatically
encrypted. This works around the problem noted in
$cryptreplysign, that mutt is not able to find out
whether an encrypted message is also signed. (Crypto
only)
crypttimestamp
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, mutt will include a time stamp in the lines
surrounding PGP or S/MIME output, so spoofing such
lines is more difficult. If you are using colors to
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mark these lines, and rely on these, you may unset this
setting. (Crypto only)
pgpusegpgagent
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, mutt will use a possibly-running gpg-agent(1)
process. (PGP only)
cryptverifysig
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
If yes, always attempt to verify PGP or S/MIME signa-
tures. If ask-*, ask whether or not to verify the sig-
nature. If \Fino, never attempt to verify crypto-
graphic signatures. (Crypto only)
smimeisdefault
Type: boolean
Default: no
The default behaviour of mutt is to use PGP on all
auto-sign/encryption operations. To override and to use
OpenSL instead this must be set. However, this has no
effect while replying, since mutt will automatically
select the same application that was used to
sign/encrypt the original message. (Note that this
variable can be overridden by unsetting
$cryptautosmime.) (S/MIME only)
smimeaskcertlabel
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This flag controls whether you want to be asked to
enter a label for a certificate about to be added to
the database or not. It is set by default. (S/MIME
only)
smimedecryptusedefaultkey
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Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set (default) this tells mutt to use the default key
for decryption. Otherwise, if managing multiple
certificate-key-pairs, mutt will try to use the
mailbox-address to determine the key to use. It will
ask you to supply a key, if it can't find one. (S/MIME
only)
pgpentryformat
Type: string
Default: %4n %t%f %4l/0x%k %-4a %2c %u
This variable allows you to customize the PGP key
selection menu to your personal taste. This string is
similar to $indexformat, but has its own set of
printf(3)-like sequences:
%n number
%k key id
%u user id
%a algorithm
%l key length
%f flags
%c capabilities
%t trust/validity of the key-uid association
%[]
date of the key where is an strftime(3)
expression
(PGP only)
pgpgoodsign
Type: regular expression
Default:
If you assign a text to this variable, then a PGP sig-
nature is only considered verified if the output from
$pgpverifycommand contains the text. Use this vari-
able if the exit code from the command is 0 even for
bad signatures. (PGP only)
pgpcheckexit
Type: boolean
Default: yes
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If set, mutt will check the exit code of the PGP sub-
process when signing or encrypting. A non-zero exit
code means that the subprocess failed. (PGP only)
pgplongids
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, use 64 bit PGP key IDs, if unset use the normal
32 bit key IDs. (PGP only)
pgpretainablesigs
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, signed and encrypted messages will consist of
nested multipart/signed and multipart/encrypted body
parts.
This is useful for applications like encrypted and
signed mailing lists, where the outer layer
(multipart/encrypted) can be easily removed, while the
inner multipart/signed part is retained. (PGP only)
pgpautoinline
Type: boolean
Default: no
This option controls whether Mutt generates old-style
inline (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages
under certain circumstances. This can be overridden by
use of the pgp menu, when inline is not required.
Note that Mutt might automatically use PGP/MIME for
messages which consist of more than a single MIME part.
Mutt can be configured to ask before sending PGP/MIME
messages when inline (traditional) would not work.
Also see the $pgpmimeauto variable.
Also note that using the old-style PGP message format
is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
pgpreplyinline
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Type: boolean
Default: no
Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt
to create an inline (traditional) message when replying
to a message which is PGP encrypted/signed inline.
This can be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when
inline is not required. This option does not automati-
cally detect if the (replied-to) message is inline;
instead it relies on Mutt internals for previously
checked/flagged messages.
Note that Mutt might automatically use PGP/MIME for
messages which consist of more than a single MIME part.
Mutt can be configured to ask before sending PGP/MIME
messages when inline (traditional) would not work.
Also see the $pgpmimeauto variable.
Also note that using the old-style PGP message format
is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
pgpshowunusable
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, mutt will display non-usable keys on the PGP
key selection menu. This includes keys which have been
revoked, have expired, or have been marked as disabled
by the user. (PGP only)
pgpsignas
Type: string
Default:
If you have more than one key pair, this option allows
you to specify which of your private keys to use. It
is recommended that you use the keyid form to specify
your key (e.g. 0x00112233). (PGP only)
pgpstrictenc
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, Mutt will automatically encode PGP/MIME signed
messages as quoted-printable. Please note that
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unsetting this variable may lead to problems with non-
verifyable PGP signatures, so only change this if you
know what you are doing. (PGP only)
pgptimeout
Type: number
Default: 300
The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase
will expire if not used. (PGP only)
pgpsortkeys
Type: sort order
Default: address
Specifies how the entries in the pgp menu are sorted.
The following are legal values:
address
sort alphabetically by user id
keyid
sort alphabetically by key id
date sort by key creation date
trust
sort by the trust of the key
If you prefer reverse order of the above values, prefix
it with reverse-. (PGP only)
pgpmimeauto
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
This option controls whether Mutt will prompt you for
automatically sending a (signed/encrypted) message
using PGP/MIME when inline (traditional) fails (for any
reason).
Also note that using the old-style PGP message format
is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)
pgpautodecode
Type: boolean
Default: no
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If set, mutt will automatically attempt to decrypt
traditional PGP messages whenever the user performs an
operation which ordinarily would result in the contents
of the message being operated on. For example, if the
user displays a pgp-traditional message which has not
been manually checked with the
function, mutt will automatically check the message for
traditional pgp.
pgpdecodecommand
Type: string
Default:
This format strings specifies a command which is used
to decode application/pgp attachments.
The PGP command formats have their own set of
printf(3)-like sequences:
%p Expands to PGPASFD=0 when a pass phrase is
needed, to an empty string otherwise. Note: This
may be used with a %? construct.
%f Expands to the name of a file containing a mes-
sage.
%s Expands to the name of a file containing the sig-
nature part
of a multipart/signed attachment when
verifying it.
%a The value of $pgpsignas.
%r One or more key IDs.
For examples on how to configure these formats for the
various versions of PGP which are floating around, see
the pgp and gpg sample configuration files in the sam-
ples/ subdirectory which has been installed on your
system alongside the documentation. (PGP only)
pgpgetkeyscommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is invoked whenever mutt will need public
key information. Of the sequences supported by
$pgpdecodecommand, %r is the only printf(3)-like
sequence used with this format. (PGP only)
pgpverifycommand
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Type: string
Default:
This command is used to verify PGP signatures.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpdecryptcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to decrypt a PGP encrypted mes-
sage.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpclearsigncommand
Type: string
Default:
This format is used to create a old-style clearsigned
PGP message. Note that the use of this format is
strongly deprecated.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpsigncommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to create the detached PGP signa-
ture for a multipart/signed PGP/MIME body part.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpencryptsigncommand
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Type: string
Default:
This command is used to both sign and encrypt a body
part.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpencryptonlycommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to encrypt a body part without
signing it.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpimportcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to import a key from a message
into the user's public key ring.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpexportcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to export a public key from the
user's key ring.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgpverifykeycommand
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Type: string
Default:
This command is used to verify key information from the
key selection menu.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgplistsecringcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to list the secret key ring's con-
tents. The output format must be analogous to the one
used by:
gpg --list-keys --with-colons.
This format is also generated by the pgpring utility
which comes with mutt.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
pgplistpubringcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to list the public key ring's con-
tents. The output format must be analogous to the one
used by
gpg --list-keys --with-colons.
This format is also generated by the pgpring utility
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which comes with mutt.
This is a format string, see the $pgpdecodecommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP
only)
forwarddecrypt
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls the handling of encrypted messages when for-
warding a message. When set, the outer layer of
encryption is stripped off. This variable is only used
if $mimeforward is set and $mimeforwarddecode is
unset. (PGP only)
smimetimeout
Type: number
Default: 300
The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase
will expire if not used. (S/MIME only)
smimeencryptwith
Type: string
Default:
This sets the algorithm that should be used for encryp-
tion. Valid choices are des, des3, rc2-40, rc2-64,
rc2-128. If unset, 3des (TripleDES) is used. (S/MIME
only)
smimekeys
Type: path
Default:
Since for S/MIME there is no pubring/secring as with
PGP, mutt has to handle storage and retrieval of
keys/certs by itself. This is very basic right now, and
stores keys and certificates in two different direc-
tories, both named as the hash-value retrieved from
OpenSL. There is an index file which contains
mailbox-address keyid pair, and which can be manually
edited. This option points to the location of the
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private keys. (S/MIME only)
smimecalocation
Type: path
Default:
This variable contains the name of either a directory,
or a file which contains trusted certificates for use
with OpenSL. (S/MIME only)
smimecertificates
Type: path
Default:
Since for S/MIME there is no pubring/secring as with
PGP, mutt has to handle storage and retrieval of keys
by itself. This is very basic right now, and keys and
certificates are stored in two different directories,
both named as the hash-value retrieved from OpenSL.
There is an index file which contains mailbox-address
keyid pairs, and which can be manually edited. This
option points to the location of the certificates.
(S/MIME only)
smimedecryptcommand
Type: string
Default:
This format string specifies a command which is used to
decrypt application/x-pkcs7-mime attachments.
The OpenSL command formats have their own set of
printf(3)-like sequences similar to PGP's:
%f Expands to the name of a file containing a mes-
sage.
%s Expands to the name of a file containing the sig-
nature part
of a multipart/signed attachment when
verifying it.
%k The key-pair specified with $smimedefaultkey
%c One or more certificate IDs.
%a The algorithm used for encryption.
%C CA location: Depending on whether
$smimecalocation
points to a directory or file, this
expands to
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-CApath $smimecalocation or -CAfile
$smimecalocation.
For examples on how to configure these formats, see the
smime.rc in the samples/ subdirectory which has been
installed on your system alongside the documentation.
(S/MIME only)
smimeverifycommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to verify S/MIME signatures of
type multipart/signed.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimeverifyopaquecommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to verify S/MIME signatures of
type application/x-pkcs7-mime.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimesigncommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of
type multipart/signed, which can be read by all mail
clients.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimesignopaquecommand
Type: string
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Default:
This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of
type application/x-pkcs7-signature, which can only be
handled by mail clients supporting the S/MIME exten-
sion.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimeencryptcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to create encrypted S/MIME mes-
sages.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimepk7outcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to extract PKCS7 structures of
S/MIME signatures, in order to extract the public X509
certificate(s).
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimegetcertcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to extract X509 certificates from
a PKCS7 structure.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
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smimegetsignercertcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to extract only the signers X509
certificate from a S/MIME signature, so that the
certificate's owner may get compared to the email's
From: field.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimeimportcertcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to import a certificate via
smimekeys.
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimegetcertemailcommand
Type: string
Default:
This command is used to extract the mail address(es)
used for storing X509 certificates, and for verifica-
tion purposes (to check whether the certificate was
issued for the sender's mailbox).
This is a format string, see the $smimedecryptcommand
command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (S/MIME
only)
smimedefaultkey
Type: string
Default:
This is the default key-pair to use for signing. This
must be set to the keyid (the hash-value that OpenSL
generates) to work properly (S/MIME only)
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sslclientcert
Type: path
Default:
The file containing a client certificate and its asso-
ciated private key.
sslforcetls
Type: boolean
Default: no
If this variable is set, Mutt will require that all
connections to remote servers be encrypted. Furthermore
it will attempt to negotiate TLS even if the server
does not advertise the capability, since it would oth-
erwise have to abort the connection anyway. This option
supersedes $sslstarttls.
sslstarttls
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
If set (the default), mutt will attempt to use STARTLS
on servers advertising the capability. When unset, mutt
will not attempt to use STARTLS regardless of the
server's capabilities.
certificatefile
Type: path
Default: ~/.muttcertificates
This variable specifies the file where the certificates
you trust are saved. When an unknown certificate is
encountered, you are asked if you accept it or not. If
you accept it, the certificate can also be saved in
this file and further connections are automatically
accepted.
You can also manually add CA certificates in this file.
Any server certificate that is signed with one of these
CA certificates is also automatically accepted.
Example:
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set certificatefile=~/.mutt/certificates
sslusesystemcerts
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set to yes, mutt will use CA certificates in the
system-wide certificate store when checking if a server
certificate is signed by a trusted CA.
entropyfile
Type: path
Default:
The file which includes random data that is used to
initialize SL library functions.
sslusesslv2
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variables specifies whether to attempt to use
SLv2 in the SL authentication process.
sslusesslv3
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variables specifies whether to attempt to use
SLv3 in the SL authentication process.
sslusetlsv1
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variables specifies whether to attempt to use
TLSv1 in the SL authentication process.
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sslmindhprimebits
Type: number
Default: 0
This variable specifies the minimum acceptable prime
size (in bits) for use in any Diffie-Hellman key
exchange. A value of 0 will use the default from the
GNUTLS library.
sslcacertificatesfile
Type: path
Default:
This variable specifies a file containing trusted CA
certificates. Any server certificate that is signed
with one of these CA certificates is also automatically
accepted.
Example:
set sslcacertificatesfile=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
pipesplit
Type: boolean
Default: no
Used in connection with the function
following . If this variable is unset,
when piping a list of tagged messages Mutt will con-
catenate the messages and will pipe them all con-
catenated. When set, Mutt will pipe the messages one
by one. In both cases the messages are piped in the
current sorted order, and the $pipesep separator is
added after each message.
pipedecode
Type: boolean
Default: no
Used in connection with the command.
When unset, Mutt will pipe the messages without any
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preprocessing. When set, Mutt will weed headers and
will attempt to decode the messages first.
pipesep
Type: string
Default: \n
The separator to add between messages when piping a
list of tagged messages to an external Unix command.
popauthenticators
Type: string
Default:
This is a colon-delimited list of authentication
methods mutt may attempt to use to log in to an POP
server, in the order mutt should try them. Authentica-
tion methods are either user, apop or any SASL mechan-
ism, eg digest-md5, gssapi or cram-md5. This option is
case-insensitive. If this option is unset (the default)
mutt will try all available methods, in order from
most-secure to least-secure.
Example:
set popauthenticators=digest-md5:apop:user
popauthtryall
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, Mutt will try all available authentication
methods. When unset, Mutt will only fall back to other
authentication methods if the previous methods are una-
vailable. If a method is available but authentication
fails, Mutt will not connect to the POP server.
popcheckinterval
Type: number
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Default: 60
This variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt
should look for new mail in the currently selected
mailbox if it is a POP mailbox.
popdelete
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-no
If set, Mutt will delete successfully downloaded mes-
sages from the POP server when using the
function. When unset, Mutt will download messages but
also leave them on the POP server.
pophost
Type: string
Default:
The name of your POP server for the func-
tion. You can also specify an alternative port, user-
name and password, ie:
[pop[s]:/][username[:password]@]popserver[:port]
where [...] denotes an optional part.
poplast
Type: boolean
Default: no
If this variable is set, mutt will try to use the LAST
POP command for retrieving only unread messages from
the POP server when using the function.
popreconnect
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
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Controls whether or not Mutt will try to reconnect to
the POP server if the connection is lost.
popuser
Type: string
Default:
Your login name on the POP server.
This variable defaults to your user name on the local
machine.
poppass
Type: string
Default:
Specifies the password for your POP account. If unset,
Mutt will prompt you for your password when you open a
POP mailbox.
Warning: you should only use this option when you are
on a fairly secure machine, because the superuser can
read your muttrc even if you are the only one who can
read the file.
postindentstring
Type: string
Default:
Similar to the $attribution variable, Mutt will append
this string after the inclusion of a message which is
being replied to.
postpone
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
Controls whether or not messages are saved in the
$postponed mailbox when you elect not to send immedi-
ately.
Also see the $recall variable.
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postponed
Type: path
Default: ~/postponed
Mutt allows you to indefinitely postpone sending a mes-
sage which you are editing. When you choose to post-
pone a message, Mutt saves it in the mailbox specified
by this variable.
Also see the $postpone variable.
preconnect
Type: string
Default:
If set, a shell command to be executed if mutt fails to
establish a connection to the server. This is useful
for setting up secure connections, e.g. with ssh(1). If
the command returns a nonzero status, mutt gives up
opening the server. Example:
set preconnect=ssh -f -q -L 1234:mailhost.net:143 mailhost.net \
sleep 20 < /dev/null > /dev/null
Mailbox foo on mailhost.net can now be reached as
{localhost:1234}foo.
Note: For this example to work, you must be able to log
in to the remote machine without having to enter a
password.
print
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-no
Controls whether or not Mutt really prints messages.
This is set to ask-no by default, because some people
accidentally hit p often.
printcommand
Type: path
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Default: lpr
This specifies the command pipe that should be used to
print messages.
printdecode
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Used in connection with the command.
If this option is set, the message is decoded before it
is passed to the external command specified by
$printcommand. If this option is unset, no processing
will be applied to the message when printing it. The
latter setting may be useful if you are using some
advanced printer filter which is able to properly for-
mat e-mail messages for printing.
printsplit
Type: boolean
Default: no
Used in connection with the command.
If this option is set, the command specified by
$printcommand is executed once for each message which
is to be printed. If this option is unset, the command
specified by $printcommand is executed only once, and
all the messages are concatenated, with a form feed as
the message separator.
Those who use the enscript(1) program's mail-printing
mode will most likely want to set this option.
promptafter
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If you use an external $pager, setting this variable
will cause Mutt to prompt you for a command when the
pager exits rather than returning to the index menu.
If unset, Mutt will return to the index menu when the
external pager exits.
querycommand
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Type: path
Default:
This specifies the command that mutt will use to make
external address queries. The string should contain a
%s, which will be substituted with the query string the
user types. See query for more information.
queryformat
Type: string
Default: %4c %t %-25.25a %-25.25n %?e?(%e)?
This variable describes the format of the query menu.
The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:
%a destination address
%c current entry number
%e extra information *
%n destination name
%t * if current entry is tagged, a space otherwise
%>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with
X
%X pad to the end of the line with X
%*X soft-fill with character X as pad
For an explanation of soft-fill, see the $indexformat
documentation.
* = can be optionally printed if nonzero, see the
$statusformat documentation.
quit
Type: quadoption
Default: yes
This variable controls whether quit and exit actually
quit from mutt. If this option is set, they do quit,
if it is unset, they have no effect, and if it is set
to ask-yes or ask-no, you are prompted for confirmation
when you try to quit.
quoteregexp
Type: regular expression
Default: ^([ \t]*[>:}#])]
A regular expression used in the internal pager to
determine quoted sections of text in the body of a
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message. Quoted text may be filtered out using the
command, or colored according to the
color quoted family of directives.
Higher levels of quoting may be colored differently
(color quoted1, color quoted2, etc.). The quoting level
is determined by removing the last character from the
matched text and recursively reapplying the regular
expression until it fails to produce a match.
Match detection may be overridden by the $smileys regu-
lar expression.
readinc
Type: number
Default: 10
If set to a value greater than 0, Mutt will display
which message it is currently on when reading a mailbox
or when performing search actions such as search and
limit. The message is printed after this many messages
have been read or searched (e.g., if set to 25, Mutt
will print a message when it is at message 25, and then
again when it gets to message 50). This variable is
meant to indicate progress when reading or searching
large mailboxes which may take some time. When set to
0, only a single message will appear before the reading
the mailbox.
Also see the $writeinc, $netinc and $timeinc vari-
ables and the tuning section of the manual for perfor-
mance considerations.
readonly
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, all folders are opened in read-only mode.
realname
Type: string
Default:
This variable specifies what real or personal name
should be used when sending messages.
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By default, this is the GECOS field from /etc/passwd.
Note that this variable will not be used when the user
has set a real name in the $from variable.
recall
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
Controls whether or not Mutt recalls postponed messages
when composing a new message.
Setting this variable to is not generally useful, and
thus not recommended.
Also see $postponed variable.
record
Type: path
Default: ~/sent
This specifies the file into which your outgoing mes-
sages should be appended. (This is meant as the pri-
mary method for saving a copy of your messages, but
another way to do this is using the myhdr command to
create a Bcc: field with your email address in it.)
The value of $record is overridden by the $forcename
and $savename variables, and the fcc-hook command.
replyregexp
Type: regular expression
Default: ^(re([\[0-9\])*aw):[ \t]*
A regular expression used to recognize reply messages
when threading and replying. The default value
corresponds to the English Re: and the German Aw:.
replyself
Type: boolean
Default: no
If unset and you are replying to a message sent by you,
Mutt will assume that you want to reply to the reci-
pients of that message rather than to yourself.
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Also see the alternates command.
replyto
Type: quadoption
Default: ask-yes
If set, when replying to a message, Mutt will use the
address listed in the Reply-to: header as the recipient
of the reply. If unset, it will use the address in the
From: header field instead. This option is useful for
reading a mailing list that sets the Reply-To: header
field to the list address and you want to send a
private message to the author of a message.
resolve
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, the cursor will be automatically advanced to
the next (possibly undeleted) message whenever a com-
mand that modifies the current message is executed.
reversealias
Type: boolean
Default: no
This variable controls whether or not Mutt will display
the personal name from your aliases in the index menu
if it finds an alias that matches the message's sender.
For example, if you have the following alias:
alias juser abd30425@somewhere.net (Joe User)
and then you receive mail which contains the following
header:
From: abd30425@somewhere.net
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It would be displayed in the index menu as Joe User
instead of abd30425@somewhere.net. This is useful when
the person's e-mail address is not human friendly.
reversename
Type: boolean
Default: no
It may sometimes arrive that you receive mail to a cer-
tain machine, move the messages to another machine, and
reply to some the messages from there. If this vari-
able is set, the default From: line of the reply mes-
sages is built using the address where you received the
messages you are replying to if that address matches
your alternates. If the variable is unset, or the
address that would be used doesn't match your alter-
nates, the From: line will use your address on the
current machine.
Also see the alternates command.
reverserealname
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variable fine-tunes the behaviour of the
$reversename feature. When it is set, mutt will use
the address from incoming messages as-is, possibly
including eventual real names. When it is unset, mutt
will override any such real names with the setting of
the $realname variable.
rfc2047parameters
Type: boolean
Default: no
When this variable is set, Mutt will decode RFC2047-
encoded MIME parameters. You want to set this variable
when mutt suggests you to save attachments to files
named like:
=?iso-8859-1?Q?file=5F=E4=5F991116=2Ezip?=
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When this variable is set interactively, the change
won't be active until you change folders.
Note that this use of RFC2047's encoding is explicitly
prohibited by the standard, but nevertheless encoun-
tered in the wild.
Also note that setting this parameter will not have the
effect that mutt generates this kind of encoding.
Instead, mutt will unconditionally use the encoding
specified in RFC2231.
saveaddress
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, mutt will take the sender's full address when
choosing a default folder for saving a mail. If
$savename or $forcename is set too, the selection of
the Fcc folder will be changed as well.
saveempty
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When unset, mailboxes which contain no saved messages
will be removed when closed (the exception is $spool-
file which is never removed). If set, mailboxes are
never removed.
Note: This only applies to mbox and MDF folders, Mutt
does not delete MH and Maildir directories.
savehistory
Type: number
Default: 0
This variable controls the size of the history (per
category) saved in the $historyfile file.
savename
Type: boolean
Default: no
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This variable controls how copies of outgoing messages
are saved. When set, a check is made to see if a mail-
box specified by the recipient address exists (this is
done by searching for a mailbox in the $folder direc-
tory with the username part of the recipient address).
If the mailbox exists, the outgoing message will be
saved to that mailbox, otherwise the message is saved
to the $record mailbox.
Also see the $forcename variable.
score
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When this variable is unset, scoring is turned off.
This can be useful to selectively disable scoring for
certain folders when the $scorethresholddelete vari-
able and related are used.
scorethresholddelete
Type: number
Default: -1
Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or
lower than the value of this variable are automatically
marked for deletion by mutt. Since mutt scores are
always greater than or equal to zero, the default set-
ting of this variable will never mark a message for
deletion.
scorethresholdflag
Type: number
Default: 9999
Messages which have been assigned a score greater than
or equal to this variable's value are automatically
marked flagged.
scorethresholdread
Type: number
Default: -1
Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or
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lower than the value of this variable are automatically
marked as read by mutt. Since mutt scores are always
greater than or equal to zero, the default setting of
this variable will never mark a message read.
sendcharset
Type: string
Default: us-ascii:iso-8859-1:utf-8
A colon-delimited list of character sets for outgoing
messages. Mutt will use the first character set into
which the text can be converted exactly. If your
$charset is not iso-8859-1 and recipients may not
understand UTF-8, it is advisable to include in the
list an appropriate widely used standard character set
(such as iso-8859-2, koi8-r or iso-2022-jp) either
instead of or after iso-8859-1.
In case the text cannot be converted into one of these
exactly, mutt uses $charset as a fallback.
sendmail
Type: path
Default: /usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -oi
Specifies the program and arguments used to deliver
mail sent by Mutt. Mutt expects that the specified
program interprets additional arguments as recipient
addresses.
sendmailwait
Type: number
Default: 0
Specifies the number of seconds to wait for the $send-
mail process to finish before giving up and putting
delivery in the background.
Mutt interprets the value of this variable as follows:
>0 number of seconds to wait for sendmail to finish
before continuing
0 wait forever for sendmail to finish
<0 always put sendmail in the background without
waiting
Note that if you specify a value other than 0, the
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output of the child process will be put in a temporary
file. If there is some error, you will be informed as
to where to find the output.
shell
Type: path
Default:
Command to use when spawning a subshell. By default,
the user's login shell from /etc/passwd is used.
sigdashes
Type: boolean
Default: yes
If set, a line containing -- (note the trailing space)
will be inserted before your $signature. It is
strongly recommended that you not unset this variable
unless your signature contains just your name. The
reason for this is because many software packages use
-- \n to detect your signature. For example, Mutt has
the ability to highlight the signature in a different
color in the builtin pager.
sigontop
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, the signature will be included before any
quoted or forwarded text. It is strongly recommended
that you do not set this variable unless you really
know what you are doing, and are prepared to take some
heat from netiquette guardians.
signature
Type: path
Default: ~/.signature
Specifies the filename of your signature, which is
appended to all outgoing messages. If the filename
ends with a pipe (), it is assumed that filename is a
shell command and input should be read from its stan-
dard output.
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simplesearch
Type: string
Default: ~f %s ~s %s
Specifies how Mutt should expand a simple search into a
real search pattern. A simple search is one that does
not contain any of the ~ pattern operators. See pat-
terns for more information on search patterns.
For example, if you simply type joe at a search or
limit prompt, Mutt will automatically expand it to the
value specified by this variable by replacing %s with
the supplied string. For the default value, joe would
be expanded to: ~f joe ~s joe.
smartwrap
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls the display of lines longer than the screen
width in the internal pager. If set, long lines are
wrapped at a word boundary. If unset, lines are simply
wrapped at the screen edge. Also see the $markers vari-
able.
smileys
Type: regular expression
Default: (>From )(:[-^]?[][)(><}{/DP])
The pager uses this variable to catch some common false
positives of $quoteregexp, most notably smileys and
not consider a line quoted text if it also matches
$smileys. This mostly happens at the beginning of a
line.
sleeptime
Type: number
Default: 1
Specifies time, in seconds, to pause while displaying
certain informational messages, while moving from
folder to folder and after expunging messages from the
current folder. The default is to pause one second, so
a value of zero for this option suppresses the pause.
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smtpauthenticators
Type: string
Default:
This is a colon-delimited list of authentication
methods mutt may attempt to use to log in to an SMTP
server, in the order mutt should try them. Authentica-
tion methods are any SASL mechanism, eg digest-md5,
gssapi or cram-md5. This option is case-insensitive.
If it is unset (the default) mutt will try all avail-
able methods, in order from most-secure to least-
secure.
Example:
set smtpauthenticators=digest-md5:cram-md5
smtppass
Type: string
Default:
Specifies the password for your SMTP account. If
unset, Mutt will prompt you for your password when you
first send mail via SMTP. See $smtpurl to configure
mutt to send mail via SMTP.
Warning: you should only use this option when you are
on a fairly secure machine, because the superuser can
read your muttrc even if you are the only one who can
read the file.
smtpurl
Type: string
Default:
Defines the SMTP smarthost where sent messages should
relayed for delivery. This should take the form of an
SMTP URL, eg:
smtp[s]:/[user[:pass]@]host[:port]/
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Setting this variable overrides the value of the $send-
mail variable.
sort
Type: sort order
Default: date
Specifies how to sort messages in the index menu.
Valid values are:
- date or date-sent
- date-received
- from
- mailbox-order (unsorted)
- score
- size
- spam
- subject
- threads
- to
You may optionally use the reverse- prefix to specify
reverse sorting order (example: set sort=reverse-date-
sent).
sortalias
Type: sort order
Default: alias
Specifies how the entries in the alias menu are sorted.
The following are legal values:
- address (sort alphabetically by email address)
- alias (sort alphabetically by alias name)
- unsorted (leave in order specified in .muttrc)
sortaux
Type: sort order
Default: date
When sorting by threads, this variable controls how
threads are sorted in relation to other threads, and
how the branches of the thread trees are sorted. This
can be set to any value that $sort can, except threads
(in that case, mutt will just use date-sent). You can
also specify the last- prefix in addition to the
reverse- prefix, but last- must come after reverse-.
The last- prefix causes messages to be sorted against
its siblings by which has the last descendant, using
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the rest of $sortaux as an ordering. For instance,
set sortaux=last-date-received
would mean that if a new message is received in a
thread, that thread becomes the last one displayed (or
the first, if you have set sort=reverse-threads.)
Note: For reversed $sort order $sortaux is reversed
again (which is not the right thing to do, but kept to
not break any existing configuration setting).
sortbrowser
Type: sort order
Default: alpha
Specifies how to sort entries in the file browser. By
default, the entries are sorted alphabetically. Valid
values:
- alpha (alphabetically)
- date
- size
- unsorted
You may optionally use the reverse- prefix to specify
reverse sorting order (example: set
sortbrowser=reverse-date).
sortre
Type: boolean
Default: yes
This variable is only useful when sorting by threads
with $strictthreads unset. In that case, it changes
the heuristic mutt uses to thread messages by subject.
With $sortre set, mutt will only attach a message as
the child of another message by subject if the subject
of the child message starts with a substring matching
the setting of $replyregexp. With $sortre unset,
mutt will attach the message whether or not this is the
case, as long as the non-$replyregexp parts of both
messages are identical.
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spamseparator
Type: string
Default: ,
This variable controls what happens when multiple spam
headers are matched: if unset, each successive header
will overwrite any previous matches value for the spam
label. If set, each successive match will append to the
previous, using this variable's value as a separator.
spoolfile
Type: path
Default:
If your spool mailbox is in a non-default place where
Mutt cannot find it, you can specify its location with
this variable. Mutt will automatically set this vari-
able to the value of the environment variable $MAIL if
it is not set.
statuschars
Type: string
Default: -*%A
Controls the characters used by the %r indicator in
$statusformat. The first character is used when the
mailbox is unchanged. The second is used when the mail-
box has been changed, and it needs to be resynchron-
ized. The third is used if the mailbox is in read-only
mode, or if the mailbox will not be written when exit-
ing that mailbox (You can toggle whether to write
changes to a mailbox with the operation,
bound by default to %). The fourth is used to indicate
that the current folder has been opened in attach- mes-
sage mode (Certain operations like composing a new
mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are not permitted in
this mode).
statusformat
Type: string
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?%?l? %l?]---(%s/%S)-%>-(%P)---
Controls the format of the status line displayed in the
index menu. This string is similar to $indexformat,
but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:
%b number of mailboxes with new mail *
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%d number of deleted messages *
%f the full pathname of the current mailbox
%F number of flagged messages *
%h local hostname
%l size (in bytes) of the current mailbox *
%L size (in bytes) of the messages shown (i.e., which
match the current limit) *
%m the number of messages in the mailbox *
%M the number of messages shown (i.e., which match
the current limit) *
%n number of new messages in the mailbox *
%o number of old unread messages *
%p number of postponed messages *
%P percentage of the way through the index
%r modified/read-only/won't-write/attach-message
indicator, according to $statuschars
%s current sorting mode ($sort)
%S current aux sorting method ($sortaux)
%t number of tagged messages *
%u number of unread messages *
%v Mutt version string
%V currently active limit pattern, if any *
%>X right justify the rest of the string and pad with
X
%X pad to the end of the line with X
%*X soft-fill with character X as pad
For an explanation of soft-fill, see the $indexformat
documentation.
* = can be optionally printed if nonzero
Some of the above sequences can be used to optionally
print a string if their value is nonzero. For example,
you may only want to see the number of flagged messages
if such messages exist, since zero is not particularly
meaningful. To optionally print a string based upon
one of the above sequences, the following construct is
used:
%???
where sequencechar is a character from the table
above, and optionalstring is the string you would like
printed if sequencechar is nonzero. optionalstring
may contain other sequences as well as normal text, but
you may not nest optional strings.
Here is an example illustrating how to optionally print
the number of new messages in a mailbox:
%?n?%n new messages.?
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You can also switch between two strings using the fol-
lowing construct:
%??&?
If the value of sequencechar is non-zero, ifstring
will be expanded, otherwise elsestring will be
expanded.
You can force the result of any printf(3)-like sequence
to be lowercase by prefixing the sequence character
with an underscore () sign. For example, if you want
to display the local hostname in lowercase, you would
use: %h.
If you prefix the sequence character with a colon (:)
character, mutt will replace any dots in the expansion
by underscores. This might be helpful with IMAP folders
that don't like dots in folder names.
statusontop
Type: boolean
Default: no
Setting this variable causes the status bar to be
displayed on the first line of the screen rather than
near the bottom. If $help is set, too it'll be placed
at the bottom.
strictthreads
Type: boolean
Default: no
If set, threading will only make use of the In-Reply-To
and References: fields when you $sort by message
threads. By default, messages with the same subject
are grouped together in pseudo threads.. This may not
always be desirable, such as in a personal mailbox
where you might have several unrelated messages with
the subjects like hi which will get grouped together.
See also $sortre for a less drastic way of controlling
this behaviour.
suspend
Type: boolean
Default: yes
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When unset, mutt won't stop when the user presses the
terminal's susp key, usually ^Z. This is useful if you
run mutt inside an xterm using a command like xterm -e
mutt.
textflowed
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will generate format=flowed bodies with
a content type of text/plain; format=flowed. This for-
mat is easier to handle for some mailing software, and
generally just looks like ordinary text. To actually
make use of this format's features, you'll need support
in your editor.
Note that $indentstring is ignored when this option is
set.
threadreceived
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt uses the date received rather than the
date sent to thread messages by subject.
thoroughsearch
Type: boolean
Default: no
Affects the ~b and ~h search operations described in
section patterns. If set, the headers and
body/attachments of messages to be searched are decoded
before searching. If unset, messages are searched as
they appear in the folder.
Users searching attachments or for non-ASCI characters
should set this value because decoding also includes
MIME parsing/decoding and possible character set
conversions. Otherwise mutt will attempt to match
against the raw message received (for example quoted-
printable encoded or with encoded headers) which may
lead to incorrect search results.
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tilde
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, the internal-pager will pad blank lines to
the bottom of the screen with a tilde (~).
timeinc
Type: number
Default: 0
Along with $readinc, $writeinc, and $netinc, this
variable controls the frequency with which progress
updates are displayed. It suppresses updates less than
$timeinc milliseconds apart. This can improve
throughput on systems with slow terminals, or when run-
ning mutt on a remote system.
Also see the tuning section of the manual for perfor-
mance considerations.
timeout
Type: number
Default: 600
When Mutt is waiting for user input either idleing in
menus or in an interactive prompt, Mutt would block
until input is present. Depending on the context, this
would prevent certain operations from working, like
checking for new mail or keeping an IMAP connection
alive.
This variable controls how many seconds Mutt will at
most wait until it aborts waiting for input, performs
these operations and continues to wait for input.
A value of zero or less will cause Mutt to never time
out.
tmpdir
Type: path
Default:
This variable allows you to specify where Mutt will
place its temporary files needed for displaying and
composing messages. If this variable is not set, the
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environment variable $TMPDIR is used. If $TMPDIR is
not set then /tmp is used.
tochars
Type: string
Default: ]TCFL
Controls the character used to indicate mail addressed
to you. The first character is the one used when the
mail is not addressed to your address. The second is
used when you are the only recipient of the message.
The third is when your address appears in the To:
header field, but you are not the only recipient of the
message. The fourth character is used when your
address is specified in the Cc: header field, but you
are not the only recipient. The fifth character is
used to indicate mail that was sent by you. The sixth
character is used to indicate when a mail was sent to a
mailing-list you subscribe to.
tunnel
Type: string
Default:
Setting this variable will cause mutt to open a pipe to
a command instead of a raw socket. You may be able to
use this to set up preauthenticated connections to your
IMAP/POP3/SMTP server. Example:
set tunnel=ssh -q mailhost.net /usr/local/libexec/imapd
Note: For this example to work you must be able to log
in to the remote machine without having to enter a
password.
use8bitmime
Type: boolean
Default: no
Warning: do not set this variable unless you are using
a version of sendmail which supports the -B8BITMIME
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flag (such as sendmail 8.8.x) or you may not be able to
send mail.
When set, Mutt will invoke $sendmail with the
-B8BITMIME flag when sending 8-bit messages to enable
ESMTP negotiation.
usedomain
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, Mutt will qualify all local addresses (ones
without the @host portion) with the value of $hostname.
If unset, no addresses will be qualified.
useenvelopefrom
Type: boolean
Default: no
When set, mutt will set the envelope sender of the mes-
sage. If $envelopefromaddress is set, it will be
used as the sender address. If unset, mutt will attempt
to derive the sender from the From: header.
Note that this information is passed to sendmail com-
mand using the -f command line switch. Therefore set-
ting this option is not useful if the $sendmail vari-
able already contains -f or if the executable pointed
to by $sendmail doesn't support the -f switch.
usefrom
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, Mutt will generate the From: header field
when sending messages. If unset, no From: header field
will be generated unless the user explicitly sets one
using the myhdr command.
useidn
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, Mutt will show you international domain names
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decoded. Note: You can use IDNs for addresses even if
this is unset. This variable only affects decoding.
useipv6
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, Mutt will look for IPv6 addresses of hosts it
tries to contact. If this option is unset, Mutt will
restrict itself to IPv4 addresses. Normally, the
default should work.
useragent
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will add a User-Agent: header to outgo-
ing messages, indicating which version of mutt was used
for composing them.
visual
Type: path
Default:
Specifies the visual editor to invoke when the ~v com-
mand is given in the builtin editor.
waitkey
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls whether Mutt will ask you to press a key after
an external command has been invoked by these func-
tions: , , ,
, and commands.
It is also used when viewing attachments with
autoview, provided that the corresponding mailcap
entry has a needsterminal flag, and the external pro-
gram is interactive.
When set, Mutt will always ask for a key. When unset,
Mutt will wait for a key only if the external command
returned a non-zero status.
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weed
Type: boolean
Default: yes
When set, mutt will weed headers when displaying, for-
warding, printing, or replying to messages.
wrap
Type: number
Default: 0
When set to a positive value, mutt will wrap text at
$wrap characters. When set to a negative value, mutt
will wrap text so that there are $wrap characters of
empty space on the right side of the terminal.
wrapsearch
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls whether searches wrap around the end.
When set, searches will wrap around the first (or last)
item. When unset, incremental searches will not wrap.
wrapmargin
Type: number
Default: 0
(DEPRECATED) Equivalent to setting $wrap with a nega-
tive value.
writeinc
Type: number
Default: 10
When writing a mailbox, a message will be printed every
$writeinc messages to indicate progress. If set to 0,
only a single message will be displayed before writing
a mailbox.
Also see the $readinc, $netinc and $timeinc vari-
ables and the tuning section of the manual for perfor-
mance considerations.
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writebcc
Type: boolean
Default: yes
Controls whether mutt writes out the Bcc: header when
preparing messages to be sent. Exim users may wish to
unset this. If mutt is set to deliver directly via SMTP
(see $smtpurl), this option does nothing: mutt will
never write out the Bcc: header in this case.
SEE ALSO
iconv(1), iconv(3), mailcap(5), maildir(5), mbox(5),
mutt(1), printf(3), regex(7), strftime(3)
The Mutt Manual
The Mutt home page: http:/www.mutt.org/
AUTHOR
Michael Elkins, and others. Use to con-
tact the developers.
ATRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Availability SUNWmutt
Interface Stability Volatile
NOTES
Source for mutt is available on http:/opensolaris.org.
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