Manpages

NAME

mutt - The Mutt Mail User Agent

SYNOPSIS

[-b bcc-addr] [-c cc-addr] [-s subject]
[-a file ... --] to-addr ...

[-s subject] [-a file ... --] to-addr ... < message

DESCRIPTION

Mutt is a small but very powerful text based program for reading and sending electronic mail under unix operating systems, including support for color terminals, MIME, OpenPGP, and a threaded sorting mode.

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

OPTIONS

-A alias

Print an expanded version of the given alias and exit.

-a file ...

Attach a file using MIME. Separating file and to-addr arguments with “--” is mandatory. For example:

mutt -a image.jpg -- to-addr
mutt -a img.jpg *.png -- to-addr-1 to-addr-2

The -a option must be placed at the end of command line options.

-b bcc-addr

Specify a blind carbon copy (BCC) address.

-c cc-addr

Specify a carbon copy (CC) address.

-d level

If Mutt was compiled with +DEBUG log debugging output to ~/.muttdebug0. Level can range from -5 to 5 and affects verbosity. A value of zero disables debugging. A value less than zero disables automatic log file rotation; the log level is then its absolute value. A value of 2 (-2) is recommended for most diagnosis.

-e command

Specify a configuration command to be run after processing of initialization files.

-f mailbox

Specify a mailbox to load.

-F rcfile

Use rcfile instead of the user configuration file.

-H draft

Specify a draft file which contains header and body to use to send a message. If draft is “-”, then data is read from stdin. The draft file is expected to contain just an RFC822 email — headers and a body. Although it is not an mbox file, if an mbox "From " line is present, it will be silently discarded. Draft files are processed the same in interactive and batch mode; they are not passed through untouched. For example, encrypted draft files will be decrypted.

-i include

Specify an include file to be inserted into the body of a message. Ignored if -H is set. If include is “-”, then data is read from stdin.

-m type

Specify a default mailbox type for newly created folders. Can be one of the following: mbox, MMDF, MH or Maildir. See also $mbox_type in the manual.

-Q variable

Query a configuration variable. The query is performed after all configuration files have been parsed, and any commands given on the command line have been executed.

-s subject

Specify the subject of the message. Must be enclosed in quotes if it contains spaces.

ENVIRONMENT

EDITOR, VISUAL

Specifies the editor to use when composing messages. If both EDITOR and VISUAL are set, VISUAL takes precedence. If neither EDITOR nor VISUAL are set, the default is vi(1).

EGDSOCKET, RANDFILE

Paths used to initialize the random engine for SSL library.

MAILDIR

Full path of the user’s spool mailbox if MAIL is unset. Commonly used when the spool mailbox is a maildir(5) folder.

MAILCAPS

Path to search for mailcap files.

MM_NOASK

If this variable is set, mailcap are always used without prompting first.

PGPPATH

Directory in which the user’s PGP public keyring can be found. When used with the original PGP program, mutt and mutt_pgpring(1) rely on this being set.

REPLYTO

Default Reply-To address.

LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG

Used to determine charset and locale to use.

TEXTDOMAINDIR

Directory containing translation files. If set, this path overwrite the Mutt installation directory. Used for testing translation changes.

FILES

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

User configuration files.

/etc/Muttrc or /usr/share/mutt/Muttrc

System-wide configuration file.

/tmp/muttXXXXXX

Temporary files created by Mutt.

~/.muttdebug0

File containing debugging output. Log files are automatically rotated by mutt changing the number at the end. See -d option above.

~/.mailcap

User definition for handling non-text MIME types.

/etc/mailcap

System definition for handling non-text MIME types.

~/.mime.types

User’s personal mapping between MIME types and file extensions.

/etc/mime.types

System mapping between MIME types and file extensions.

/usr/bin/mutt_dotlock

The privileged dotlocking program.

/usr/share/doc/mutt/manual.txt.gz

The Mutt manual.

BUGS

None. Mutts have fleas, not bugs.

FLEAS

Suspend/resume while editing a file with an external editor does not work under SunOS 4.x if you use the curses lib in /usr/5lib. It does work with the S-Lang library, however.

Resizing the screen while using an external pager causes Mutt to go haywire on some systems.

Suspend/resume does not work under Ultrix.

The help line for the index menu is not updated if you change the bindings for one of the functions listed while Mutt is running.

For a more up-to-date list of bugs, errm, fleas, please visit the mutt project’s bug tracking system under https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/issues.

NO WARRANTIES

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

SEE ALSO

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

Mutt Home Page: http://www.mutt.org/

The Mutt manual

RFC5322 — Internet Message Format: https://tools.ietf.org/rfcmarkup/5322 (obsoletes RFC2822 and RFC822)

AUTHOR

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