aerc-wizard

https://git.awy.one/aerc-wizard

Fork of mutt-wizard with
some additions:

• aerc support (no mutt-related configuration is created)
• better wayland notification handling in mailsync
• gmail with sane IMAP folders (for example Sent
  instead of [Gmail]/Sent Mail) so binds just werk
• gopass backend instead of pass
• experimental keepassxc support

Get this great stuff without effort:

• A full-featured and autoconfigured email client on the terminal with aerc
• Mail stored offline enabling the ability to:
  • view and write emails while you're away from the internet
  • make backups
• Provides a mailsync script that can be scheduled to run as often as you like, which downloads/syncs mail and optionally notifies you when new mail has arrived.

Specifically, this wizard:

• Determines your email server's IMAP and SMTP servers and ports
• Creates dotfiles for aerc, isync, and msmtp appropriate for your email address
• Encrypts and locally stores your password for easy remote access, accessible only by your GPG key
• Auto-creates bindings to switch between accounts or between mailboxes
• Provides sensible defaults and an attractive appearance for the aerc email client
• If aerc-wizard doesn't know your server's IMAP/SMTP info by default, it will prompt you for them and will put them in all the right places.

Install

Dependencies

• aerc - the email client. (If you're using Gentoo GNU/Linux, you'll need to enable the notmuch USE flag to use local email.)
• curl - tests connections (required at install).
• isync - downloads and syncs the mail (required if storing IMAP mail locally).
• msmtp - sends the email.
• gopass - safely encrypts passwords (required at install).
• ca-certificates - required for SSL. Probably installed already.
• gettext - writes config files. Probably installed already.

git clone https://git.awy.one/aerc-wizard
cd aerc-wizard
doas make install

A user of Arch-based distros can also install the current aerc-wizard release from the my arch repo as aerc-wizard, or build from git master branch using this PKGBUILD.

Optional Dependencies

• goimapnotify - required for push notifications. Check here for reference.
• pam-gnupg - Automatically logs you into your GPG key on login so you will never need to input your password once logged on to your system. Check the repo and directions out here.
• w3m - view HTML email in aerc.
• notmuch - index and search mail. Install it and run notmuch setup, tell it that your mail is in ~/.local/share/mail/ (although aew will do this automatically if you haven't set notmuch up before). You can run it in mutt with ctrl-f. Run notmuch new to process new mail.
• abook - a terminal-based address book. Pressing tab while typing an address to send mail to will suggest contacts that are in your abook.
• urlview - outputs urls in mail to browser.
• cronie - (or any other major cronjob manager) to set up automatic mail syncing.
• mpop - If you want to use POP protocol instead of IMAP.

Usage

The aerc-wizard runs via the command aew. Once setup is complete, you'll use aerc to access your mail.

• aew -a you@email.com -- add a new email account
• aew -a you@email.com -P <keepassxc entry> -b keepassxc -K <path to db>
  -- add a new email account using KeepassXC
• aew -l -- list existing accounts
• aew -d -- choose an account to delete
• aew -D your@email.com -- delete account settings without confirmation
• aew -t 30 -- toggle automatic mailsync to every 30 minutes
• aew -T -- toggle mailsync without specifying minutes (default is 10)
• aew -r -- reorder account shortcut numbers
• gopass edit aew-your@email.com -- revise an account's password
• mailsync -- sync all configured email accounts. Also gives notifications of new mail and indexes new mail with notmuch silently.
• mailsync your@email.com -- sync a particular (or several) email account(s).

Options usable when adding an account

Providing arguments

• -u -- Give an account username if different from the email address.
• -n -- A real name to be used by the account. Put in quotations if multiple words.
• -i -- IMAP server address
• -I -- IMAP server port (otherwise assumed to be 993)
• -s -- SMTP server address
• -S -- SMTP server port (otherwise assumed to be 465)
• -m -- Maximum number of emails to be kept offline. No maximum is default functionality.
• -x -- Account password. You will be prompted for it otherwise.

General Settings

• -f -- Assume mailbox names and force account configuration without connecting online at all.
• -o -- Configure mutt for an account, but do not keep mail offline.
• -p -- Use POP protocol instead of IMAP (requires mpop installed).
• mailsync gives visual messages of new mail by default. Or, set MAILSYNC_MUTE=1 as an environmental variable if you prefer not having them.

Aerc user interface

To give you an example of the interface, here's an idea:

• m - send mail (uses your default $EDITOR to write)
• j/k and d/u - vim-like bindings to go down and up (or d/u to go down/up a page).
• l - open mail, or attachment page or attachment
• h - the opposite of l
• r/R - reply/reply all to highlighted mail
• s - save selected mail or selected attachment
• gs,gi,ga,gd,gS - Press g followed by another letter to change mailbox: sent, inbox, archive, drafts, Spam, etc.
• M and C - For Move and Copy: follow them with one of the mailbox letters above, i.e. MS means "move to Spam".
• i# - Press i followed by a number 1-9 to go to a different account. If you add 9 accounts via aerc-wizard, they will each be assigned a number.
• a to add address/person to abook and Tab while typing address to complete one from abook.
• ? - see all keyboard shortcuts
• ctrl-j/ctrl-k - move up and down in sidebar.
• ctrl-b - open a menu to select a URL you want to open in your browser.
• p - encrypt/sign your message (in compose view, before sending the email).

Enable push notifications per mail

Note: Replace the fulladdrs with your actual email address. You have to do this for each new mail you want to setup instant notifications.

systemctl enable --user goimapnotify@fulladdrs.service

Additional functionality

• pam-gnupg - Automatically logs you into your GPG key on login, so you will never need to input your password once logged on to your system. Check the repo and directions out here.
• lynx - View HTML email in aerc.
• notmuch - Index and search mail. Install it and run notmuch setup, tell it that your mail is in ~/.local/share/mail/ (although aew will do this automatically if you haven't set notmuch up before). You can run it in mutt with ctrl-f. Run notmuch new to process new mail.
• abook - A terminal-based address book. Pressing tab while typing an address to send mail to will suggest contacts that are in your abook.
• urlview - Outputs URLs in an email to your browser.

Help the Project!

• Try aerc-wizard out on weird machines and weird email addresses and report any errors.
• Open a PR to add new server information into domains.csv so their users can more easily use aerc-wizard.

Watch out for these things

• Gmail accounts need to create an App Password to use with "less secure" applications. This password is single-use (i.e. for setup) and will be stored and encrypted locally. Enabling third-party applications requires turning off two-factor authentication and this will circumvent that. You might also need to manually "Enable IMAP" in the settings. To create an App Password for your Google account, you can directly visit the App Passwords page in your Google Account settings.
• If you have a university email or enterprise-hosted email for work, there might be other hurdles or two-factor authentication you have to jump through. Some, for example, will want you to create a separate IMAP password, etc.
• isync is not fully UTF-8 compatible, so non-Latin characters may be garbled (although sync should succeed). aew will also not auto-create mailbox shortcuts since it is looking for English mailbox names. I strongly recommend you to set your email language to English on your mail server to avoid these problems.

License

aerc-wizard is free/libre software. This program is released under the GPLv3 license, which you can find in the file LICENSE.