Chapter 9. Reference

When the body of the message matches $abort_noattach_regexp and there are no attachments, this quadoption controls whether to abort sending the message.

Specifies a regular expression to match against the body of the message, to determine if an attachment was mentioned but mistakenly forgotten. If it matches, $abort_noattach will be consulted to determine if message sending will be aborted.

Like other regular expressions in Mutt, the search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper case letter, and case insensitive otherwise.

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 subject given at the subject prompt will never be aborted.

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.

The default file in which to save aliases created by the <create-alias> function. Entries added to this file are encoded in the character set specified by $config_charset 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.

Specifies the format of the data displayed for the “alias” menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are available:

Controls whether 8-bit data is converted to 7-bit using either Quoted- Printable or Base64 encoding when sending mail.

Controls whether ANSI color codes in messages (and color tags in rich text messages) are to be interpreted. 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 $crypt_timestamp).

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.

If set, Mutt will use plain ASCII characters when displaying thread and attachment trees, instead of the default ACS characters.

If set, Mutt will prompt you for blind-carbon-copy (Bcc) recipients before editing an outgoing message.

If set, Mutt will prompt you for carbon-copy (Cc) recipients before editing the body of an outgoing message.

This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding schemes for messages without character encoding 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 assumed_charset="iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8"

However, only the first content is valid for the message body.

This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding schemes for text file attachments. Mutt uses this setting to guess which encoding files being attached are encoded in to convert them to a proper character set given in $send_charset.

If unset, the value of $charset will be used instead. For example, the following configuration would work for Japanese text handling:

set attach_charset="iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8"

Note: for Japanese users, “iso-2022-*” must be put at the head of the value as shown above if included.

This variable describes the format of the “attachment” menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:

For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format documentation.

The separator to add between attachments when operating (saving, printing, piping, etc) on a list of tagged attachments.

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 $attach_sep separator is added after each attachment. When set, Mutt will operate on the attachments one by one.

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 $index_format.

The locale used by strftime(3) to format dates in the attribution string. Legal values are the strings your system accepts for the locale environment variable $LC_TIME.

This variable is to allow the attribution date format to be customized by recipient or folder using hooks. By default, Mutt will use your locale environment, so there is no need to set this except to override that default.

When set, Mutt assumes the presence of a List-Post header means the recipient is subscribed to the list. Unless the mailing list is in the “unsubscribe” or “unlist” lists, it will be added to the “subscribe” list. Parsing and checking these things slows header reading down, so this option is disabled by default.

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 <tag-prefix> function (bound to “;” by default) to make the next function apply to all tagged messages.

When set, enables autocrypt, which provides passive encryption protection with keys exchanged via headers. See “autocryptdoc” for more details. (Autocrypt only)

This variable describes the format of the “autocrypt account” menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood

(Autocrypt only)

This variable sets where autocrypt files are stored, including the GPG keyring and sqlite database. See “autocryptdoc” for more details. (Autocrypt only)

When set, replying to an autocrypt email automatically enables autocrypt in the reply. You may want to unset this if you're using the same key for autocrypt as normal web-of-trust, so that autocrypt isn't forced on for all encrypted replies. (Autocrypt only)

When set along with $edit_headers, Mutt will skip the initial send-menu (prompting for subject and recipients) 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.

Note: when this option is set, you cannot use send-hooks that depend on the recipients when composing a new (non-reply) message, as the initial list of recipients is empty.

Also see $fast_reply.

When set, Mutt will run $editor in the background during message composition. A landing page will display, waiting for the $editor to exit. The landing page may be exited, allowing perusal of the mailbox, or even for other messages to be composed. Backgrounded sessions may be returned to via the <background-compose-menu> function.

For background editing to work properly, $editor must be set to an editor that does not try to use the Mutt terminal: for example a graphical editor, or a script launching (and waiting for) the editor in another Gnu Screen window.

For more details, see “bgedit” ("Background Editing" in the manual).

When set, if there are any background edit sessions, you will be prompted to confirm exiting Mutt, in addition to the $quit prompt.

This variable describes the format of the “background compose” menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:

When this variable is set, mutt will beep when an error occurs.

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.

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.

When this variable is set, mutt will include Delivered-To headers when bouncing messages. Postfix users may wish to unset this variable.

When this variable is set, mutt will place the cursor at the beginning of the current line in menus, even when the $arrow_cursor variable is unset, making it easier for blind persons using Braille displays to follow these menus. The option is unset by default because many visual terminals don't permit making the cursor invisible.

When this variable is set, mutt will abbreviate mailbox names in the browser mailbox list, using '~' and '=' shortcuts.

The default "alpha" setting of $sort_browser uses locale-based sorting (using strcoll(3)), which ignores some punctuation. This can lead to some situations where the order doesn't make intuitive sense. In those cases, it may be desirable to unset this variable.

When this variable is set, the browser will attempt to keep the cursor on the same mailbox when performing various functions. These include moving up a directory, toggling between mailboxes and directory listing, creating/renaming a mailbox, toggling subscribed mailboxes, and entering a new mask.

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:

set certificate_file=~/.mutt/certificates

When this variable is set, the <change-folder> function mailbox suggestion will start at the next folder in your “mailboxes” list, instead of starting at the first folder in the list.

Character set your terminal uses to display and enter textual data. It is also the fallback for $send_charset.

Upon startup Mutt tries to derive this value from environment variables such as $LC_CTYPE or $LANG.

Note: It should only be set in case Mutt isn't able to determine the character set used correctly.

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.

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 variable is unset, no check for new mail is performed while the mailbox is open.

When unset, Mutt will not collapse a thread if it contains any unread messages.

Controls the format of the status line displayed in the “compose” menu. This string is similar to $status_format, but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:

See the text describing the $status_format option for more information on how to set $compose_format.

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 $alias_file from the current character set.

Please note that if setting $charset it must be done before setting $config_charset.

Recoding should be avoided as it may render unconvertable characters as question marks which can lead to undesired side effects (for example in regular expressions).

When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when appending messages to an existing mailbox.

When set, Mutt will prompt for confirmation when saving messages to a mailbox which does not yet exist before creating it.

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.

Sets the default Content-Type for the body of newly composed messages.

This variable controls whether or not copies of your outgoing messages will be saved for later references. Also see $record, $save_name, $force_name and “fcc-hook”.

When set, Mutt will recurse inside multipart/alternatives while performing attachment searching and counting (see attachments).

Traditionally, multipart/alternative parts have simply represented different encodings of the main content of the email. Unfortunately, some mail clients have started to place email attachments inside one of alternatives. Setting this will allow Mutt to find and count matching attachments hidden there, and include them in the index via %X or through ~X pattern matching.

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 encryption is not required or signing is requested as well. If $smime_is_default is set, then OpenSSL is used instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be overridden by use of the smime menu instead. (Crypto only)

This variable controls whether or not mutt may automatically enable PGP encryption/signing for messages. See also $crypt_autoencrypt, $crypt_replyencrypt, $crypt_autosign, $crypt_replysign and $smime_is_default.

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 $smime_is_default is set, then OpenSSL is used instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be overridden by use of the smime menu instead of the pgp menu. (Crypto only)

This variable controls whether or not mutt may automatically enable S/MIME encryption/signing for messages. See also $crypt_autoencrypt, $crypt_replyencrypt, $crypt_autosign, $crypt_replysign and $smime_is_default.

If set, then you will be prompted for confirmation of keys when using the crypt-hook command. If unset, no such confirmation prompt will be presented. This is generally considered unsafe, especially where typos are concerned.

Setting this variable will cause Mutt to automatically enable and disable encryption, based on whether all message recipient keys can be located by Mutt.

When this option is enabled, Mutt will enable/disable encryption each time the TO, CC, and BCC lists are edited. If $edit_headers is set, Mutt will also do so each time the message is edited.

While this is set, encryption can't be manually enabled/disabled. The pgp or smime menus provide a selection to temporarily disable this option for the current message.

If $crypt_autoencrypt or $crypt_replyencrypt enable encryption for a message, this option will be disabled for that message. It can be manually re-enabled in the pgp or smime menus. (Crypto only)

When set, this modifies the behavior of $crypt_opportunistic_encrypt to only search for "strong keys", that is, keys with full validity according to the web-of-trust algorithm. A key with marginal or no validity will not enable opportunistic encryption.

For S/MIME, the behavior depends on the backend. Classic S/MIME will filter for certificates with the 't' (trusted) flag in the .index file. The GPGME backend will use the same filters as with OpenPGP, and depends on GPGME's logic for assigning the GPGME_VALIDITY_FULL and GPGME_VALIDITY_ULTIMATE validity flag.

When set, Mutt will display protected headers ("Memory Hole") in the pager, and will update the index and header cache with revised headers. Protected headers are stored inside the encrypted or signed part of an an email, to prevent disclosure or tampering. For more information see https://github.com/autocrypt/memoryhole. Currently Mutt only supports the Subject header.

Encrypted messages using protected headers often substitute the exposed Subject header with a dummy value (see $crypt_protected_headers_subject). Mutt will update its concept of the correct subject after the message is opened, i.e. via the <display-message> function. If you reply to a message before opening it, Mutt will end up using the dummy Subject header, so be sure to open such a message first. (Crypto only)

When $crypt_protected_headers_read is set, and a message with a protected Subject is opened, Mutt will save the updated Subject into the header cache by default. This allows searching/limiting based on the protected Subject header if the mailbox is re-opened, without having to re-open the message each time. However, for mbox/mh mailbox types, or if header caching is not set up, you would need to re-open the message each time the mailbox was reopened before you could see or search/limit on the protected subject again.

When this variable is set, Mutt additionally saves the protected Subject back in the clear-text message headers. This provides better usability, but with the tradeoff of reduced security. The protected Subject header, which may have previously been encrypted, is now stored in clear-text in the message headers. Copying the message elsewhere, via Mutt or external tools, could expose this previously encrypted data. Please make sure you understand the consequences of this before you enable this variable. (Crypto only)

When $crypt_protected_headers_write is set, and the message is marked for encryption, this will be substituted into the Subject field in the message headers. To prevent a subject from being substituted, unset this variable, or set it to the empty string. (Crypto only)

When set, Mutt will generate protected headers ("Memory Hole") for signed and encrypted emails. Protected headers are stored inside the encrypted or signed part of an an email, to prevent disclosure or tampering. For more information see https://github.com/autocrypt/memoryhole. Currently Mutt only supports the Subject header. (Crypto only)

If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL encrypt replies to messages which are encrypted. (Crypto only)

If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages which are signed.

Note: this does not work on messages that are encrypted and signed! (Crypto only)

If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages which are encrypted. This makes sense in combination with $crypt_replyencrypt, because it allows you to sign all messages which are automatically encrypted. This works around the problem noted in $crypt_replysign, that mutt is not able to find out whether an encrypted message is also signed. (Crypto only)

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 mark these lines, and rely on these, you may unset this setting. (Crypto only)

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.

Note that the GPGME backend does not support creating old-style inline (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages (see $pgp_autoinline).

Controls whether mutt uses PKA (see http://www.g10code.de/docs/pka-intro.de.pdf) during signature verification (only supported by the GPGME backend).

If “yes”, always attempt to verify PGP or S/MIME signatures. If “ask-*”, ask whether or not to verify the signature. If “no”, never attempt to verify cryptographic signatures. (Crypto only)

This variable controls the format of the date printed by the “%d” sequence in $index_format. 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. 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

When set, specifies a command used to filter messages. When a message is viewed it is passed as standard input to $display_filter, and the filtered message is read from the standard output.

Contains the path of the mutt_dotlock(8) binary to be used by mutt.

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 dsn_notify="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 auto-detected so that it depends on the server whether DSN will be used or not.

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 dsn_return=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 delivery, DSN support is auto-detected so that it depends on the server whether DSN will be used or not.

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.

This option allows you to edit the header of your outgoing messages along with the body of your message.

Although the compose menu may have localized header labels, the labels passed to your editor will be standard RFC 2822 headers, (e.g. To:, Cc:, Subject:). Headers added in your editor must also be RFC 2822 headers, or one of the pseudo headers listed in “edit-header”. Mutt will not understand localized header labels, just as it would not when parsing an actual email.

Note that changes made to the References: and Date: headers are ignored for interoperability reasons.

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.

The $editor string may contain a %s escape, which will be replaced by the name of the file to be edited. If the %s escape does not appear in $editor, a space and the name to be edited are appended.

The resulting string is then executed by running

sh -c 'string'

where string is the expansion of $editor described above.

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).

The file which includes random data that is used to initialize SSL library functions.

Manually sets the envelope sender for outgoing messages. This value is ignored if $use_envelope_from is unset.

This variable controls the size (in number of strings remembered) of the error messages displayed by mutt. These can be shown with the <error-history> function. The history is cleared each time this variable is set.

Escape character to use for functions in the built-in editor.

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.

This variable controls whether or not attachments on outgoing messages are saved along with the main body of your message.

When this variable is set, FCCs will occur before sending the message. Before sending, the message cannot be manipulated, so it will be stored the exact same as sent: $fcc_attach and $fcc_clear will be ignored (using their default values).

When unset, the default, FCCs will occur after sending. Variables $fcc_attach and $fcc_clear will be respected, allowing it to be stored without attachments or encryption/signing if desired.

When this variable is set, FCCs will be stored unencrypted and unsigned, even when the actual message is encrypted and/or signed. (PGP only)

When specified, this allows the ability to Fcc to more than one mailbox. The fcc value will be split by this delimiter and Mutt will evaluate each part as a mailbox separately.

See $record, “fcc-hook”, and “fcc-save-hook”.

If set, flagged messages cannot be deleted.

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.

This variable allows you to customize the file browser display to your personal taste. This string is similar to $index_format, but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:

For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format documentation.

* = can be optionally printed if nonzero

%m, %n, and %N only work for monitored mailboxes. %m requires $mail_check_stats to be set. %n requires $mail_check_stats to be set (except for IMAP mailboxes).

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.

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 subscribed list will be sent to both the list and your address, resulting in two copies of the same email for you.

This variable is similar to $save_name, 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.

When forwarding inline (i.e. $mime_forward unset or answered with “no” and $forward_decode set), attachments which cannot be decoded in a reasonable manner will be attached to the newly composed message if this quadoption is set or answered with “yes”.

This is the string that will precede a message which has been forwarded in the main body of a message (when $mime_forward is unset). For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format. See also $attribution_locale.

This is the string that will follow a message which has been forwarded in the main body of a message (when $mime_forward is unset). For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format. See also $attribution_locale.

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 $mime_forward is unset, otherwise $mime_forward_decode is used instead.

Controls the handling of encrypted messages when forwarding a message. When set, the outer layer of encryption is stripped off. This variable is only used if $mime_forward is set and $mime_forward_decode is unset. (PGP only)

This quadoption controls whether or not the user is automatically placed in the editor when forwarding messages. For those who always want to forward with no modification, use a setting of “no”.

This variable controls the default subject when forwarding a message. It uses the same format sequences as the $index_format variable.

When set, forwarded messages included in the main body of the message (when $mime_forward is unset) will be quoted using $indent_string.

When set, this variable contains a default from address. It can be overridden using “my_hdr” (including from a “send-hook”) and $reverse_name. This variable is ignored if $use_from is unset.

This setting defaults to the contents of the environment variable $EMAIL.

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 an 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 $gecos_mask to a regular expression that will match the whole name so mutt will expand “Franklin” to “Franklin, Steve”.

When unset, the header fields normally added by the “my_hdr” 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.

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.

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.

When mutt is compiled with qdbm, tokyocabinet, or kyotocabinet 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 decompression can result in a slower opening of cached folder(s) which in general is still much faster than opening non header cached folders.

When mutt is compiled with either gdbm or bdb4 as the header cache backend, this option changes the database 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.

When set, color header regexps behave like color body regexps: color is applied to the exact text matched by the regexp. When unset, color is applied to the entire header.

One use of this option might be to apply color to just the header labels.

See “color” for more details.

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 single 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.

When set, mutt will skip the host name part of $hostname 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.

When set, mutt will not show the presence of messages that are hidden by limiting, in the thread tree.

When set, mutt will not show the presence of missing messages in the thread tree.

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.

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 $hide_limited is set, this option will have no effect.

When set, mutt will not show the presence of missing messages at the top of threads in the thread tree. Note that when $hide_missing is set, this option will have no effect.

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.

The file in which Mutt will save its history.

Also see $save_history.

When set, all of the string history will be scanned for duplicates when a new entry is added. Duplicate entries in the $history_file will also be removed when it is periodically compacted.

When set, Mutt will not display attachments with a disposition of “attachment” inline even if it could render the part to plain text. These MIME parts can only be viewed from the attachment menu.

If unset, Mutt will render all MIME parts it can properly transform to plain text.

This variable controls whether or not a Mail-Followup-To header is honored when group-replying to a message.

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: the node's hostname is first determined by the uname(3) function. The domain is then looked up using the gethostname(2) and getaddrinfo(3) functions. If those calls are unable to determine the domain, the full value returned by uname is used. Optionally, Mutt can be compiled with a fixed domain name in which case a detected one is not used.

Also see $use_domain and $hidden_host.

When set, Mutt will show you international domain names decoded. Note: You can use IDNs for addresses even if this is unset. This variable only affects decoding. (IDN only)

When set, Mutt will encode international domain names using IDN. Unset this if your SMTP server can handle newer (RFC 6531) UTF-8 encoded domains. (IDN only)

This option replaces linear-white-space between encoded-word and text to a single space to prevent the display of MIME-encoded “Subject:” field from being divided into multiple lines.

Affects the behavior of the <reply> 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 <list-reply> function; <group-reply> will reply to both the sender and the list.

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. Authentication methods are either “login” or the right side of an IMAP “AUTH=xxx” capability string, e.g. “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 imap_authenticators="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.

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.

When set, mutt will use the CONDSTORE extension (RFC 7162) if advertised by the server. Mutt's current implementation is basic, used only for initial message fetching and flag updates.

For some IMAP servers, enabling this will slightly speed up downloading initial messages. Unfortunately, Gmail is not one those, and displays worse performance when enabled. Your mileage may vary.

When set, mutt will use the COMPRESS=DEFLATE extension (RFC 4978) if advertised by the server.

In general a good compression efficiency can be achieved, which speeds up reading large mailboxes also on fairly good connections.

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.

When set to a value greater than 0, new headers will be downloaded in groups of this many headers per request. If you have a very large mailbox, this might prevent a timeout and disconnect when opening the mailbox, by sending a FETCH per set of this many headers, instead of a single FETCH for all new headers.

Mutt requests these header fields in addition to the default headers (“Date:”, “From:”, “Sender:”, “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.

When set, mutt will attempt to use the IMAP IDLE extension 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 connection seems to freeze up periodically, try unsetting this.

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 disconnected from your IMAP server due to inactivity.

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 <toggle-subscribed> function.

Your login name on the IMAP server.

This variable defaults to the value of $imap_user.

The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for authorizing your connection to your IMAP server. This command will be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER authentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.

Specifies the password for your IMAP account. If unset, Mutt will prompt you for your password when you invoke the <imap-fetch-mail> 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.

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 for user/password pairs on mutt invocation, or if opening the connection is slow.

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.

Controls the number of IMAP commands that may be queued up before they are sent to the server. A deeper pipeline 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 pipelined 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.

This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in seconds that mutt will wait for a response when polling IMAP connections for new mail, before timing out and closing the connection. Set to 0 to disable timing out.

When set, mutt will use the QRESYNC extension (RFC 7162) if advertised by the server. Mutt's current implementation is basic, used only for initial message fetching and flag updates.

Note: this feature is currently experimental. If you experience strange behavior, such as duplicate or missing messages please file a bug report to let us know.

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 problems on the server which are out of the users' hands, you may wish to suppress them at some point.

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.

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.

Controls whether or not a copy of the message(s) you are replying to is included in your reply.

Controls whether or not Mutt includes separately encrypted attachment contents when replying.

This variable was added to prevent accidental exposure of encrypted contents when replying to an attacker. If a previously encrypted message were attached by the attacker, they could trick an unwary recipient into decrypting and including the message in their reply.

Controls whether or not Mutt includes only the first attachment of the message you are replying.

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.

The value of this option is ignored if $text_flowed is set, because the quoting mechanism is strictly defined for format=flowed.

This option is a format string, please see the description of $index_format for supported printf(3)-style sequences.

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). For an explanation of the %? construct, see the $status_format description. The following sequences are defined in Mutt:

Note that for mbox/mmdf, “%l” applies to the unprocessed message, and for maildir/mh, the value comes from the “Lines:” header field when present (the meaning is normally the same). Thus the value depends on the encodings used in the different parts of the message and has little meaning in practice.

“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 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”, “fcc-save-hook”, and “index-format-hook”.

They are also supported in the configuration variables $attribution, $forward_attribution_intro, $forward_attribution_trailer, $forward_format, $indent_string, $message_format, $pager_format, and $post_indent_string.

How to invoke ispell (GNU's spell-checking software).

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.

This variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt should look for new mail. Also see the $timeout variable.

When set, Mutt will only notify you about new mail that has been received since the last time you opened the mailbox. When unset, Mutt will notify you if any new mail exists in the mailbox, regardless of whether you have visited it recently.

When $mark_old is set, Mutt does not consider the mailbox to contain new mail if only old messages exist.

When set, mutt will periodically calculate message statistics of a mailbox while polling for new mail. It will check for unread, flagged, and total message counts. Because this operation is more performance intensive, it defaults to unset, and has a separate option, $mail_check_stats_interval, to control how often to update these counts.

Message statistics can also be explicitly calculated by invoking the <check-stats> function.

When $mail_check_stats is set, this variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt will update message counts.

This variable specifies which files to consult when attempting to display MIME bodies not directly supported by Mutt. The default value is generated during startup: see the “mailcap” section of the manual.

If set, mutt will restrict possible characters in mailcap % expandos to a well-defined set of safe characters. This is the safe setting, but we are not sure it doesn't break some more advanced MIME stuff.

DON'T CHANGE THIS SETTING UNLESS YOU ARE REALLY SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Check for Maildir unaware programs other than mutt having 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).

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.

If set, mutt will poll both the new and cur directories of a maildir folder for new messages. This might be useful if other programs interacting with the folder (e.g. dovecot) are moving new messages to the cur directory. Note that setting this option may slow down polling for new messages in large folders, since mutt has to scan all cur messages.

Prefix for macros created using mark-message. A new macro automatically generated with <mark-message>a will be composed from this prefix and the letter a.

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.

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 $smart_wrap variable.

A regular expression used in the file browser, optionally preceded by the not operator “!”. Only files whose names match this mask will be shown. The match is always case-sensitive.

This specifies the folder into which read mail in your $spoolfile folder will be appended.

Also see the $move variable.

The default mailbox type used when creating new folders. May be any of “mbox”, “MMDF”, “MH” and “Maildir”. This is overridden by the -m command-line option.

This variable controls the number of lines of context that are given when scrolling through menus. (Similar to $pager_context.)

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.

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).

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).

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.

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 folders.

Also see the $message_cache_clean variable.

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 $index_format.

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 ASCII 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 ASCII character “x”.

If unset, Mutt will remove your address (see the “alternates” command) from the list of recipients when replying to a message.

When unset, mutt will mimic mh's behavior and rename deleted messages to ,<old file name> in mh folders instead of really deleting them. This leaves the message 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 $maildir_trash for Maildir folders.

The name of the MH sequence used for flagged messages.

The name of the MH sequence used to tag replied messages.

The name of the MH sequence used for unseen messages.

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 $forward_decode and $mime_forward_decode.

Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into text/plain when forwarding a message while $mime_forward is set. Otherwise $forward_decode is used instead.

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.

This specifies a command to run, to determine the mime type of a new attachment when composing a message. Unless $mime_type_query_first is set, this will only be run if the attachment's extension is not found in the mime.types file.

The string may contain a “%s”, which will be substituted with the attachment filename. Mutt will add quotes around the string substituted for “%s” automatically according to shell quoting rules, so you should avoid adding your own. If no “%s” is found in the string, Mutt will append the attachment filename to the end of the string.

The command should output a single line containing the attachment's mime type.

Suggested values are “xdg-mime query filetype” or “file -bi”.

When set, the $mime_type_query_command will be run before the mime.types lookup.

This variable describes the format of a remailer line on the mixmaster chain selection screen. The following printf(3)-like sequences are supported:

This variable contains the path to the Mixmaster binary on your system. It is used with various sets of parameters to gather the list of known remailers, and to finally send a message through the mixmaster chain.

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.

This variable, when set, makes the thread tree narrower, allowing deeper threads to fit on the screen.

Operations that expect to transfer a large amount of data over the network will update their progress every $net_inc kilobytes. If set to 0, no progress messages will be displayed.

See also $read_inc, $write_inc and $net_inc.

If set, Mutt will call this command after a new message is received. See the $status_format documentation for the values that can be formatted into this command.

This variable specifies which pager you would like to use to view messages. The value “builtin” means to use the built-in 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.

When using an external pager, also see $prompt_after which defaults set.

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).

This variable also specifies the amount of context given for search results. If positive, this many lines will be given before a match, if 0, the match will be top-aligned.

This variable controls the format of the one-line message “status” displayed before each message in either the internal or an external pager. The valid sequences are listed in the $index_format section.

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 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 $pager_index_lines, then the index will only use as many lines as it needs.

When set, the internal-pager will not move to the next message when you are at the end of a message and invoke the <next-page> function.

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 <check-traditional-pgp> function, mutt will automatically check the message for traditional pgp.

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. The GPGME backend does not support this option.

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 $pgp_mime_auto variable.

Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)

If set, mutt will check the exit code of the PGP subprocess when signing or encrypting. A non-zero exit code means that the subprocess failed. (PGP only)

If set, mutt will check the status file descriptor output of $pgp_decrypt_command and $pgp_decode_command for GnuPG status codes indicating successful decryption. This will check for the presence of DECRYPTION_OKAY, absence of DECRYPTION_FAILED, and that all PLAINTEXT occurs between the BEGIN_DECRYPTION and END_DECRYPTION status codes.

If unset, mutt will instead match the status fd output against $pgp_decryption_okay. (PGP only)

This format is used to create an old-style “clearsigned” PGP message. Note that the use of this format is strongly deprecated.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

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:

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 samples/ subdirectory which has been installed on your system alongside the documentation. (PGP only)

This command is used to decrypt a PGP encrypted message.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

If you assign text to this variable, then an encrypted PGP message is only considered successfully decrypted if the output from $pgp_decrypt_command contains the text. This is used to protect against a spoofed encrypted message, with multipart/encrypted headers but containing a block that is not actually encrypted. (e.g. simply signed and ascii armored text).

Note that if $pgp_check_gpg_decrypt_status_fd is set, this variable is ignored. (PGP only)

This is the default key-pair to use for PGP operations. It will be used for encryption (see $postpone_encrypt and $pgp_self_encrypt).

It will also be used for signing unless $pgp_sign_as is set.

The (now deprecated) pgp_self_encrypt_as is an alias for this variable, and should no longer be used. (PGP only)

This command is used to encrypt a body part without signing it.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

This command is used to both sign and encrypt a body part.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

This variable allows you to customize the PGP key selection menu to your personal taste. This string is similar to $index_format, but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:

(PGP only)

This command is used to export a public key from the user's key ring.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

This command is invoked whenever Mutt needs to fetch the public key associated with an email address. Of the sequences supported by $pgp_decode_command, %r is the only printf(3)-like sequence used with this format. Note that in this case, %r expands to the email address, not the public key ID (the key ID is unknown, which is why Mutt is invoking this command). (PGP only)

If you assign a text to this variable, then a PGP signature is only considered verified if the output from $pgp_verify_command contains the text. Use this variable if the exit code from the command is 0 even for bad signatures. (PGP only)

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)

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 $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

This command is used to list the public key ring's contents. The output format must be analogous to the one used by

gpg --list-keys --with-colons --with-fingerprint

This format is also generated by the mutt_pgpring utility which comes with mutt.

Note: gpg's fixed-list-mode option should not be used. It produces a different date format which may result in mutt showing incorrect key generation dates.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. Note that in this case, %r expands to the search string, which is a list of one or more quoted values such as email address, name, or keyid. (PGP only)

This command is used to list the secret key ring's contents. The output format must be analogous to the one used by:

gpg --list-keys --with-colons --with-fingerprint

This format is also generated by the mutt_pgpring utility which comes with mutt.

Note: gpg's fixed-list-mode option should not be used. It produces a different date format which may result in mutt showing incorrect key generation dates.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. Note that in this case, %r expands to the search string, which is a list of one or more quoted values such as email address, name, or keyid. (PGP only)

If set, use 64 bit PGP key IDs, if unset use the normal 32 bit key IDs. NOTE: Internally, Mutt has transitioned to using fingerprints (or long key IDs as a fallback). This option now only controls the display of key IDs in the key selection menu and a few other places. (PGP only)

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)

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 automatically 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 $pgp_mime_auto variable.

Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)

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)

When set, PGP encrypted messages will also be encrypted using the key in $pgp_default_key. (PGP only)

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)

If you have a different key pair to use for signing, you should set this to the signing key. Most people will only need to set $pgp_default_key. It is recommended that you use the keyid form to specify your key (e.g. 0x00112233). (PGP only)

This command is used to create the detached PGP signature for a multipart/signed PGP/MIME body part.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

Specifies how the entries in the pgp menu are sorted. The following are legal values:

If you prefer reverse order of the above values, prefix it with “reverse-”. (PGP only)

If set, Mutt will automatically encode PGP/MIME signed messages as quoted-printable. Please note that 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)

The number of seconds after which a cached passphrase will expire if not used. (PGP only)

If set, mutt expects a gpg-agent(1) process will handle private key passphrase prompts. If unset, mutt will prompt for the passphrase and pass it via stdin to the pgp command.

Note that as of version 2.1, GnuPG automatically spawns an agent and requires the agent be used for passphrase management. Since that version is increasingly prevalent, this variable now defaults set.

Mutt works with a GUI or curses pinentry program. A TTY pinentry should not be used.

If you are using an older version of GnuPG without an agent running, or another encryption program without an agent, you will need to unset this variable. (PGP only)

This command is used to verify PGP signatures.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

This command is used to verify key information from the key selection menu.

This is a format string, see the $pgp_decode_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. (PGP only)

Used in connection with the <pipe-message> command. When unset, Mutt will pipe the messages without any preprocessing. When set, Mutt will weed headers and will attempt to decode the messages first.

The separator to add between messages when piping a list of tagged messages to an external Unix command.

Used in connection with the <pipe-message> function following <tag-prefix>. If this variable is unset, when piping a list of tagged messages Mutt will concatenate the messages and will pipe them all concatenated. When set, Mutt will pipe the messages one by one. In both cases the messages are piped in the current sorted order, and the $pipe_sep separator is added after each message.

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 unavailable. If a method is available but authentication fails, Mutt will not connect to the POP server.

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. Authentication methods are either “user”, “apop” or any SASL mechanism, e.g. “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 pop_authenticators="digest-md5:apop:user"

This variable configures how often (in seconds) mutt should look for new mail in the currently selected mailbox if it is a POP mailbox.

If set, Mutt will delete successfully downloaded messages from the POP server when using the <fetch-mail> function. When unset, Mutt will download messages but also leave them on the POP server.

The name of your POP server for the <fetch-mail> function. You can also specify an alternative port, username and password, i.e.:

[pop[s]://][username[:password]@]popserver[:port]

where “[...]” denotes an optional part.

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 <fetch-mail> function.

The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for authorizing your connection to your POP server. This command will be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER authentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.

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.

Controls whether or not Mutt will try to reconnect to the POP server if the connection is lost.

Your login name on the POP server.

This variable defaults to your user name on the local machine.

Similar to the $attribution variable, Mutt will append this string after the inclusion of a message which is being replied to. For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format.

Controls whether or not messages are saved in the $postponed mailbox when you elect not to send immediately.

Also see the $recall variable.

Mutt allows you to indefinitely “postpone sending a message” which you are editing. When you choose to postpone a message, Mutt saves it in the mailbox specified by this variable.

Also see the $postpone variable.

When set, postponed messages that are marked for encryption will be self-encrypted. Mutt will first try to encrypt using the value specified in $pgp_default_key or $smime_default_key. If those are not set, it will try the deprecated $postpone_encrypt_as. (Crypto only)

This is a deprecated fall-back variable for $postpone_encrypt. Please use $pgp_default_key or $smime_default_key. (Crypto only)

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.

Controls whether or not Mutt really prints messages. This is set to “ask-no” by default, because some people accidentally hit “p” often.

This specifies the command pipe that should be used to print messages.

Used in connection with the <print-message> command. If this option is set, the message is decoded before it is passed to the external command specified by $print_command. 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 format e-mail messages for printing.

Used in connection with the <print-message> command. If this option is set, the command specified by $print_command is executed once for each message which is to be printed. If this option is unset, the command specified by $print_command 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.

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.

This specifies the command Mutt will use to make external address queries. The string may contain a “%s”, which will be substituted with the query string the user types. Mutt will add quotes around the string substituted for “%s” automatically according to shell quoting rules, so you should avoid adding your own. If no “%s” is found in the string, Mutt will append the user's query to the end of the string. See “query” for more information.

This variable describes the format of the “query” menu. The following printf(3)-style sequences are understood:

For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format documentation.

* = can be optionally printed if nonzero, see the $status_format documentation.

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.

Controls whether or not empty lines will be quoted using “indent_string”.

Controls how quoted lines will be quoted. If set, one quote character will be added to the end of existing prefix. Otherwise, quoted lines will be prepended by “indent_string”.

A regular expression used in the internal pager to determine quoted sections of text in the body of a message. Quoted text may be filtered out using the <toggle-quoted> 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 regular expression.

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 $write_inc, $net_inc and $time_inc variables and the “tuning” section of the manual for performance considerations.

If set, all folders are opened in read-only mode.

This variable specifies what “real” or “personal” name should be used when sending messages.

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.

Controls whether or not Mutt recalls postponed messages when composing a new message.

Setting this variable to yes is not generally useful, and thus not recommended. Note that the <recall-message> function can be used to manually recall postponed messages.

Also see $postponed variable.

This specifies the file into which your outgoing messages should be appended. (This is meant as the primary method for saving a copy of your messages, but another way to do this is using the “my_hdr” command to create a “Bcc:” field with your email address in it.)

The value of $record is overridden by the $force_name and $save_name variables, and the “fcc-hook” command. Also see $copy and $write_bcc.

Multiple mailboxes may be specified if $fcc_delimiter is set to a string delimiter.

This option controls how quotes from format=flowed messages are displayed in the pager and when replying (with $text_flowed unset). When set, this option adds spaces after each level of quote marks, turning ">>>foo" into "> > > foo".

Note: If $reflow_text is unset, this option has no effect. Also, this option does not affect replies when $text_flowed is set.

When set, Mutt will reformat paragraphs in text/plain parts marked format=flowed. If unset, Mutt will display paragraphs unaltered from how they appear in the message body. See RFC3676 for details on the format=flowed format.

Also see $reflow_wrap, and $wrap.

This variable controls the maximum paragraph width when reformatting text/plain parts when $reflow_text is set. When the value is 0, paragraphs will be wrapped at the terminal's right margin. A positive value sets the paragraph width relative to the left margin. A negative value set the paragraph width relative to the right margin.

Also see $wrap.

A regular expression used to recognize reply messages when threading and replying. The default value corresponds to the English "Re:" and the German "Aw:".

If unset and you are replying to a message sent by you, Mutt will assume that you want to reply to the recipients of that message rather than to yourself.

Also see the “alternates” command.

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.

When set, the cursor will be automatically advanced to the next (possibly undeleted) message whenever a command that modifies the current message is executed.

If set, draft files (specified by -H on the command line) are processed similarly to when resuming a postponed message. Recipients are not prompted for; send-hooks are not evaluated; no alias expansion takes place; user-defined headers and signatures are not added to the message.

If set, draft files previously edited (via -E -H on the command line) will have $resume_draft_files automatically set when they are used as a draft file again.

The first time a draft file is saved, mutt will add a header, X-Mutt-Resume-Draft to the saved file. The next time the draft file is read in, if mutt sees the header, it will set $resume_draft_files.

This option is designed to prevent multiple signatures, user-defined headers, and other processing effects from being made multiple times to the draft file.

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

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.

It may sometimes arrive that you receive mail to a certain machine, move the messages to another machine, and reply to some the messages from there. If this variable is set, the default From: line of the reply messages 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 “alternates”, the From: line will use your address on the current machine.

Also see the “alternates” command and $reverse_realname.

This variable fine-tunes the behavior of the $reverse_name feature.

When it is unset, Mutt will remove the real name part of a matching address. This allows the use of the email address without having to also use what the sender put in the real name field.

When it is set, Mutt will use the matching address as-is.

In either case, a missing real name will be filled in afterwards using the value of $realname.

When set, this variable uses the name from your aliases in the To and Cc headers of reply mails you send, like reverse_alias does in the index. When unset, the headers taken from the original mail are left unchanged.

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?=

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 encountered 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.

If set, mutt will take the sender's full address when choosing a default folder for saving a mail. If $save_name or $force_name is set too, the selection of the Fcc folder will be changed as well.

When unset, mailboxes which contain no saved messages will be removed when closed (the exception is $spoolfile which is never removed). If set, mailboxes are never removed.

Note: This only applies to mbox and MMDF folders, Mutt does not delete MH and Maildir directories.

This variable controls the size of the history (per category) saved in the $history_file file.

This variable controls how copies of outgoing messages are saved. When set, a check is made to see if a mailbox specified by the recipient address exists (this is done by searching for a mailbox in the $folder directory 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 $force_name variable.

When this variable is unset, scoring is turned off. This can be useful to selectively disable scoring for certain folders when the $score_threshold_delete variable and related are used.

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 setting of this variable will never mark a message for deletion.

Messages which have been assigned a score greater than or equal to this variable's value are automatically marked "flagged".

Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or 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.

For the pager, this variable specifies the number of lines shown before search results. By default, search results will be top-aligned.

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.

If set, Mutt will generate a multipart/alternative container and an alternative part using the filter script specified in $send_multipart_alternative_filter. See the section “MIME Multipart/Alternative” (alternative-order).

Note that enabling multipart/alternative is not compatible with inline PGP encryption. Mutt will prompt to use PGP/MIME in that case.

This specifies a filter script, which will convert the main (composed) message of the email to an alternative format. The message will be piped to the filter's stdin. The expected output of the filter is the generated mime type, e.g. text/html, followed by a blank line, and then the converted content. See the section “MIME Multipart/Alternative” (alternative-order).

Specifies the program and arguments used to deliver mail sent by Mutt. Mutt expects that the specified program interprets additional arguments as recipient addresses. Mutt appends all recipients after adding a -- delimiter (if not already present). Additional flags, such as for $use_8bitmime, $use_envelope_from, $dsn_notify, or $dsn_return will be added before the delimiter.

See also: $write_bcc.

Specifies the number of seconds to wait for the $sendmail process to finish before giving up and putting delivery in the background.

Mutt interprets the value of this variable as follows:

Note that if you specify a value other than 0, the 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.

Command to use when spawning a subshell. By default, the user's login shell from /etc/passwd is used.

This contains the list of characters which you would like to treat as folder separators for displaying paths in the sidebar.

Local mail is often arranged in directories: `dir1/dir2/mailbox'.

set sidebar_delim_chars='/'

IMAP mailboxes are often named: `folder1.folder2.mailbox'.

set sidebar_delim_chars='.'

See also: $sidebar_short_path, $sidebar_folder_indent, $sidebar_indent_string.

This specifies the characters to be drawn between the sidebar (when visible) and the other Mutt panels. ASCII and Unicode line-drawing characters are supported.

Set this to indent mailboxes in the sidebar.

See also: $sidebar_short_path, $sidebar_indent_string, $sidebar_delim_chars.

This variable allows you to customize the sidebar display. This string is similar to $index_format, but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:

* = Can be optionally printed if nonzero @ = Only applicable to the current folder

In order to use %S, %N, %F, and %!, $mail_check_stats must be set. When thus set, a suggested value for this option is "%B%?F? [%F]?%* %?N?%N/?%S".

This specifies the string that is used to indent mailboxes in the sidebar. It defaults to two spaces.

See also: $sidebar_short_path, $sidebar_folder_indent, $sidebar_delim_chars.

When set, the sidebar will only display mailboxes containing new, or flagged, mail.

See also: sidebar_whitelist.

When set, the <sidebar-next-new> command will not stop and the end of the list of mailboxes, but wrap around to the beginning. The <sidebar-prev-new> command is similarly affected, wrapping around to the end of the list.

When set, this option changes how $sidebar_short_path and $sidebar_folder_indent perform shortening and indentation: both will look at the previous sidebar entries and shorten/indent relative to the most recent parent.

An example of this option set/unset for mailboxes listed in this order, with $sidebar_short_path=yes, $sidebar_folder_indent=yes, and $sidebar_indent_string="→":

The second line illustrates most clearly. With this option set, =a.b.c.d is shortened relative to =a.b, becoming c.d; it is also indented one place relative to =a.b. With this option unset =a.b.c.d is always shortened to the last part of the mailbox, d and is indented three places, with respect to $folder (represented by '=').

When set, the third line will also be indented and shortened relative to the first line.

By default the sidebar will show the mailbox's path, relative to the $folder variable. Setting sidebar_shortpath=yes will shorten the names relative to the previous name. Here's an example:

See also: $sidebar_delim_chars, $sidebar_folder_indent, $sidebar_indent_string.

Specifies how to sort entries in the file browser. By default, the entries are sorted alphabetically. Valid values:

You may optionally use the “reverse-” prefix to specify reverse sorting order (example: “set sort_browser=reverse-date”).

When set, sidebar mailboxes will be displayed with mailbox shortcut prefixes "=" or "~".

When unset, the sidebar will trim off a matching $folder prefix but otherwise not use mailbox shortcuts.

This specifies whether or not to show sidebar. The sidebar shows a list of all your mailboxes.

See also: $sidebar_format, $sidebar_width

This controls the width of the sidebar. It is measured in screen columns. For example: sidebar_width=20 could display 20 ASCII characters, or 10 Chinese characters.

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 built-in pager.

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.

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 standard output.

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 “patterns” 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”.

If set, message sizes will display bytes for values less than 1 kilobyte. See formatstrings-size.

If set, message sizes will be displayed with a single decimal value for sizes from 0 to 10 kilobytes and 1 to 10 megabytes. See formatstrings-size.

If set, message sizes will display megabytes for values greater than or equal to 1 megabyte. See formatstrings-size.

If set, message sizes units will be displayed to the left of the number. See formatstrings-size.

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.

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 variable.

The pager uses this variable to catch some common false positives of $quote_regexp, most notably smileys and not consider a line quoted text if it also matches $smileys. This mostly happens at the beginning of a line.

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)

This variable contains the name of either a directory, or a file which contains trusted certificates for use with OpenSSL. (S/MIME only)

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 OpenSSL. 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)

This format string specifies a command which is used to decrypt application/x-pkcs7-mime attachments.

The OpenSSL command formats have their own set of printf(3)-like sequences similar to PGP's: