Lillesvin Networks

Don’t be confused – it’s not a bad thing, it just means that Michael Elkins got it right back then and, let’s face it, email hasn’t changed a whole lot since then, so why not go with something that doesn’t try to make email out to be more than it actually is? (I’m looking at you Apple.)

So I managed to finally set up Mutt for multiple IMAP accounts along with some sharing of the configuration via Dropbox so I only have to maintain one configuration between MacOS X and Linux (and whatever else I may use), and I’ll show you how.

First of all, you need to install Mutt. If you’re on any sort of Linux, then there’s probably a native package for Mutt and you should just install that. If you’re on OS X you’ll need to build it from the source, which requires that you’ve have the Apple Developer Tools (gcc and stuff) and probably Fink or MacPorts for dependencies – e.g. BerkeleyDB – and also you’ll have to apply the Trash Folder patch to the Mutt source (at least if you want to use your IMAP Trash folders instead of directly deleting mail). On my OS X all I had to do to build Mutt was the following:

$ wget ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/devel/mutt-1.5.21.tar.gz
$ wget http://cedricduval.free.fr/mutt/patches/download/patch-1.5.5.1.cd.trash_folder.3.4
$ tar -zxvf mutt-1.5.21.tar.gz
$ cd mutt-1.5.21/
$ patch -p1 < ../patch-1.5.5.1.cd.trash_folder.3.4
$ configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-curses --with-regex \
    --enable-locales-fix --enable-pop --enable-imap --enable-smtp \
    --with-sasl --enable-hcache --with-ssl
$ make
$ sudo make install

However, I do have Fink installed, which may be the reason that it was so very easy. If ./configure fails (e.g. because of some missing dependency) you’re on your own. Same goes if you’re using Windows.

Anyways, with Mutt installed, we can now get started on the configuration files. (Mutt won’t do anything for you before it’s configured.) First of all, we need to setup some directories to hold the configuration files, certificates and caches. Now, I don’t want to share certificates and caches between my various machines/OSes (because of potential DB incompabilites), so let’s create a directory in our home directory to hold that. However, the Mutt configuration along with the account settings is what we want to share between machines/OSes, so we’ll create a directory in Dropbox for that and then create a symbolic link between the home directory and the configuration in Dropbox.

$ mkdir -p ~/.mutt.local/cache
$ mkdir -p ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts
$ ln -s ~/Dropbox/mutt.config ~/.mutt

Now let’s go ahead and setup two accounts. I won’t go into too much detail about this, because you can find this stuff all over the internet. So first off we create the file ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/lillesvin for the first account with the following content:

#~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/lillesvin
account-hook "imaps://lillesvin.net/" '\
set imap_user = "username@lillesvin.net" imap_pass = "PasswordGoesHere" '

set from = "username@lillesvin.net" # From-address for this account
set folder = "imaps://lillesvin.net/INBOX"
set spoolfile = "imaps://lillesvin.net/INBOX" # Inbox
set postponed = "+Drafts" #Drafts folder
set trash = "+Trash" # Trash folder (if you applied the Trash Folder patch)
set record = "+Sent" # Sent messages
mailboxes "+" "+Sent" "+Drafts"
set header_cache =~/.mutt.local/cache/headers
set message_cachedir =~/.mutt.local/cache/bodies
set certificate_file =~/.mutt.local/certificates
set smtp_url = "smtp://smtpserver.example.com"
set imap_keepalive = 900
set imap_check_subscribed

And for the second account we create the file ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/gmail with the content:

# ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/gmail
account-hook "imaps://imap.gmail.com/" '\
set imap_user = "username@gmail.com" imap_pass = "PasswordGoesHere" '

set from = "username@gmail.com" # From-address for this account
set folder="imaps://imap.gmail.com/"
set spoolfile = "+INBOX" # Inbox
set postponed = "+[Gmail]/Drafts" # Drafts folder
set trash = "+[Gmail]/Trash" # Trash folder (if you applied the Trash Folder patch)
mailboxes "+INBOX" "+[Gmail]/Drafts" "+[Gmail]/Sent Mail" "+[Gmail]/Spam" "+[Gmail]"
set header_cache =~/.mutt.local/cache/headers
set message_cachedir =~/.mutt.local/cache/bodies
set certificate_file =~/.mutt.local/certificates
set smtp_url = "smtp://username@smtp.gmail.com:587/"
set smtp_pass = "PasswordGoesHere"
set imap_keepalive = 900
set imap_check_subscribed

Now Mutt at least knows about the two acounts, but we’re still not able to use them untill we’ve created the following muttrc in ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/:

# ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/muttrc

# Global settings:
set realname = "My Real Name" # Name to put in From on emails
set editor='vim + -c "set textwidth=72" -c "set wrap" -c "set nocp"'
unset imap_passive
set charset = "utf-8" # We want this and the one below to force UTF-8 (only with UTF-8 terminals)
set send_charset = "utf-8" # Force sending as UTF-8 (only works with UTF-8 terminals)
set mail_check = 60
set timeout = 30
set edit_headers = yes
set move = no

# Make account switching possible
account-hook . 'unset imap_pass'
folder-hook 'lillesvin.net' 'source ~/.mutt/accounts/lillesvin'
folder-hook 'imap.gmail.com' 'source ~/.mutt/accounts/gmail'
macro index <F2> '<sync-mailbox><enter-command>source ~/.mutt/accounts/lillesvin<enter><change-folder>!<enter>'
macro index <F3> '<sync-mailbox><enter-command>source ~/.mutt/accounts/gmail<enter><change-folder>!<enter>'
# Default account
source ~/.mutt/accounts/lillesvin

I’ve stripped almost all unnecessary stuff from muttrc (again, you can find all the gravy by simply googling), but this should be a minimal working setup. To switch between the accounts you simply hit F2 and F3 for the lillesvin account and gmail account respectively. And to get a nice overview of all folders you simply hit ‘y’. Now all there’s left to do is to actually open Mutt and see if it all works as expected. (You better get used to hitting ‘?’ for help – at least in the beginning.)

$ mutt

Enjoy your Mutt!