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ConfigTricks

Mutt provides several means to achieve dynamic configuration: the various "*-hook" cmds, the "` `" (backticks) cmd-substitution known from many shells, and "macros". You can do already a lot with them as they are, but you can combine them to achieve more or use them in ways not used before. Add, correct, or expand the list with your ideas. Keep in mind that with some variation the tricks can do things not listed here. Get creative.

(ab)use "macros" as variables.

You can use Mutt macros to store things, some what like the usage of variables. The key idea is to use macros that dynamically define other macros or themselves. One use of this is to toggle an option between two values, so the macro must "remember" the last setting. For example, if you want the 'S' key to toggle between `sort=threads` and `sort=date`, write two muttrc snippets:

 # ~/.mutt/sort-threads.rc
 set sort=threads
 macro index S "<enter-command>source ~/.mutt/sort-date.rc<enter>"

 # ~/.mutt/sort-date.rc
 set sort=date
 macro index S "<enter-command>source ~/.mutt/sort-threads.rc<enter>"

Then add "`source ~/.mutt/sort-threads.rc`" (or `-date`) to your main muttrc. You can also use macros instead of the auxillary files (see MacroSamples), but this is a bit harder due to the quoting necessary.
Another idea was here: http://marc.info/?l=mutt-dev&m=108194999008846&w=2
NOTE: since 1.5.13 there is real "generic-vars in mutt" support ("`my_...`"), some things can be done easier with real vars, others with this trick.

See also: Keyboard Macros

"source" files without error for non-existing files.

Useful for site-installation for many users, some of which might not have personal aliases (yet).

 source `FILE=$HOME/.muttaliases; if [ ! -s "$FILE" ]; then FILE=/dev/null;fi;echo "$FILE"`

You might put this if/then/else construction into a script for easier reuse at different places.

 source `muttsource $HOME/.muttaliases`

monthly set of folders

Maybe in combination with procmail recipes to sort into folders by month.

 set folder=$HOME/mail/`date +"%y%m"`

or

 set mbox=$HOME/mail/received-`date +"%y%m"`
 set record=$HOME/mail/sent-`date +"%y%m"`

(Beware, `date` is evaluated only once, so you have to restart Mutt (or re-source .muttrc) when the month changes)

Building a list of "mailboxes" on the fly

If you keep "mailboxes" in a separate directory from non-"mailboxes", then you don't have to manually list them in your muttrc.

 mailboxes `echo ~/mail/inbox/*`

Filename globbing must be enabled in the `$SHELL` for this to work.

A more advanced way for maildirs(!) that takes into account subdirs and other goodies is:

 mailboxes `find ~/mail/ -type d -name cur -printf '%h '`

Using an incantation similar to the above, exclude the .Spam folder:

 mailboxes `find ~/.maildir/ -type d -name cur -printf '%h\n'|grep -v '/home/user/.maildir/.Spam$'|tr "\n" " "`

And finally, to list both mboxes and maildirs:

 mailboxes `find ~/mail '(' -type d '(' -name 'cur' -o -name 'new' ')' -prune -printf '%h ' ')' -o '(' -type f -printf '%p ' ')'`

The last line lists any regular file that is not under a new/ or cur/ directory while taking maildirs. Note: if "find" has no -printf, there is no simple solution to work with "sed", because mbox folders can be named "new" and "cur", too;

 mailboxes `$SHELL -c "echo \`find ~/mail -type d '(' -name 'cur' -o -name 'new' ')' -prune -print | sed -e '/[^/]*$' \`"`

 mailboxes `$SHELL -c "echo \`find ~/mail '(' -type d '(' -name 'cur' -o -name 'new' -o name 'tmp' ')' -prune ')' -o -type f -print \`"`

-printf or the '$SHELL -c "echo...' work-around is necessary to avoid new-lines because mutt takes only the 1st line of output from ` ` substitutions.

Expunging old messages

Sometimes you don't want to keep complete archives of mailing list messages. You can purge old messages almost automatically using the folder hook command. For example:

  `folder-hook ubuntu-users             'push <tag-pattern>~r>1w!~F<enter>'`

would tag all messages older than 1 week except flagged ones when entering a mailbox matching "ubuntu-users". Then apply function `` with "`~T`" as pattern, and all tagged messages will be erased as soon as you leave the folder or press the "$" key. Or for the brave

  `folder-hook ubuntu-users             'push <delete-pattern>~r>1w!~F<enter><sync>'`

NOTE: The usual hook-traps apply, see DebugConfig.

Spell Checking with Vim

NOTE: Vim 7 has spell-checking built-in, use "`:set spell`" to enable.
To enable it "automatically" when you're using vim within mutt, put

` set editor="vim -c 'set spell spelllang=de,en'" `

in your .muttrc-file. You can use more than one language, e.g. de,en. To get new language files, please read the vim-help ":help spelling" and ":help spell-load".

The following is for Vim 6:
You can automatically start a spell checker if you use vim as your editor. Download the engspchk.tar.bz2 script from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=195 and uncompress it in your $HOME/.vim dir. Then change your .muttrc file to include the following:

  `set editor='vim "+normal \\ec" +/^$/'`

This will start up the e-mail editing session in Spell checking mode, auto-highlighting spelling mistakes for you.

Sanity check for missing parts/attachments before sending.

Have a look at the ConfigTricks/CheckAttach script to be used as "$sendmail" replacement to remind you of missing attachments. Can be adapted to make any test you need, if you don't trust yourself. Take care, advanced shell-knowledge recommended.

Set From header before sending

Add your identities, example:

 alias identity_1         Chuck Norris                   <chuck@example.COM>
 alias identity_2         Harry Callahan                 <harry@example.ORG>
 ...

Macro: macro compose v "<edit-from>^Uidentity\_<tab>" "Select from"
Write email and while in compose menu press 'v' - you should see a menu with all your identities, choose one, press Enter, done.

An extension of this, which lowers the number of keys to press and supports making other identity-specific settings (e.g. SMTP server to use), can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20151118125103/http://dione.no-ip.org/wordpress/computing/rotating-identities-with-mutt/.

See also User defined headers

Generating a dynamic muttrc file

Mutt does not have support for conditional statements in its configuration file. However, you can create a shell script which outputs muttrc commands and have Mutt read the output of the script instead.
Example: Suppose you want to set the value of "$editor" based upon whether or not you are currently using a graphical user desktop. You might create the following shell script as "detectgui.sh":

     #!/bin/sh
     if [ x$DISPLAY != x ]; then
       echo 'set editor="gvim -f"'
     else
       echo 'set editor=vim'
     fi

Then in your `~/.muttrc`, you can use the following command:

` source '~/bin/detectgui.sh|'`

Generating send-hooks from addresses in a flat text file

I want the following hook to look/work like,

  send-hook "~t `cat ~/recipients_list` "  'set signature=...

I want the matching of everything in the recipients_list file to be case insensitive without having to specify each address in the file with a regex.

Save this script as `~/bin/hooks.sh`:

     #!/usr/bin/env python
     for s in open('recipient_list'):
         print 'send-hook ~t "' + s.lower() + '" set signature...'

In your ~/.muttrc:

 source '~/bin/hook.sh|'

See also Syntax of initialization files and Reading initialization commands from another file.

Good Handle For PGP-Inline

You dont like to use procmail to move pgp-inline message into pgp-mime like here http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Mutt-GnuPG-PGP-HOWTO-8.html ?
You can economize this very large procmail-recipe into one message-hook. This hook also does not destroy german umlauts (ÜÖÄ):

  `message-hook '!~g !~G ~b "^-----BEGIN PGP (SIGNED )?MESSAGE"' 'exec check-traditional-pgp'`

See also: UseGPG

Address Completion in vim

If you configure mutt to edit the headers of your mail while composing your mails with vim, you can use the autocomplete feature to save some typing.
See: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3128
install the mutt-evo-query script in your path (included in the zip file), copy `address-search.vim` to `~/.mutt/address-search.vim`, add to your vimrc:

  au !BufRead /tmp/mutt* source ~/.mutt/address-search.vim

Now while editing your mail type:

`To: start<C-x><C-u>`

And a you will be presented with a list of all contact that have "start" as a substring, with you cycle through the matches.