meli.conf(5)

Account configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

root_mailbox String

The backend-specific path of the root_mailbox, usuallyINBOX .

default_mailbox String

(optional) The mailbox that is the default to open or view for this account. Must be a valid mailbox path. If not specified, the default will be the root mailbox.

format String [maildir mbox imap notmuch jmap]

The format of the mail backend.

subscribed_mailboxes [String,]

An array of mailbox paths to display in the UI. Paths are relative to the root mailbox (e.g.INBOX/Sent , notSent ). The glob wildcard * can be used to match every mailbox name and path.

identity String

Your e-mail address that is inserted in theFrom : headers of outgoing mail.

extra_identities [String,]

Extra e-mail address identities. When replying to an e-mail addressed to one of these identities, theFrom : header will be adjusted to its value instead of the default identity.

display_name String

(optional) A name which can be combined with your address:"Name <[email protected]>" .

read_only boolean

Attempt to not make any changes to this account. (false)

manual_refresh boolean

(optional) If true, do not monitor account for changes( you can use shortcut listing.refresh) . (false)

refresh_command String

(optional) command to execute when manually refreshing( shortcut listing.refresh) (None)

search_backend String

(optional) Choose which search backend to use. Available options are "none" and"sqlite3" . ("sqlite3")

vcard_folder String

(optional) Folder that contains .vcf files. They are parsed and imported read-only.

mutt_alias_file String

(optional) Path of mutt(1) compatible alias file in the option They are parsed and imported read-only.

notmuch_address_book_query String

(optional) Query passed to "notmuch address" to import contacts into meli. Contacts are parsed and imported read-only.

mailboxes mailbox

(optional) Configuration for each mailbox. Its format is described below inmailboxes .

notmuch only

notmuch is supported by loading the dynamic librarylibnotmuch . If its location is missing from your library paths, you must add it yourself. Alternatively, you can specify its path by using a setting.

notmuch mailboxes are virtual, since they are defined by user-given notmuch queries. You must explicitly state the mailboxes you want in the mailboxes field and set the query property to each of them. To create a tree hierarchy with virtual mailboxes, define the parent property to a mailbox as the name of the parent mailbox you have used in your configuration.

Account properties:

root_mailbox

points to the directory which contains the .notmuch/ subdirectory.

library_file_path Path

Use an arbitrary location of libnotmuch by specifying its full filesystem path. (optional)

Mailbox properties:

query String

The notmuch query that defines what content this virtual mailbox has. Refer to notmuch-search-terms(7) fornotmuch 's search syntax.

parent String

If you wish to build a mailbox hierarchy, define the name of a parent mailbox you have used in your configuration. (optional)

Example:

[accounts.notmuch]
format = "notmuch"
#library_file_path = "/opt/homebrew/lib/libnotmuch.5.dylib"
...
  [accounts.notmuch.mailboxes]
  "INBOX" = {  query="tag:inbox", subscribe = true }
  "Drafts" = {  query="tag:draft", subscribe = true }
  "Sent" = {  query="from:[email protected] from:[email protected]", subscribe = true }
  "Archives" = {  query="tag:archived", subscribe = true }
  "Archives/2019" = {  query="tag:archived date:01-2019..12-2019", parent="Archives", subscribe = true }

IMAP only

IMAP specific options are:

server_hostname String

example: "mail.example.com"

server_username String

Server username

server_password String

Server password

server_password_command String

(optional) Use instead of server_password

server_port number

(optional) The port to connect to (143)

use_starttls boolean

(optional) If port is 993 and "use_starttls" is unspecified, it becomes false by default. (true)

use_tls boolean

(optional) Connect with TLS( or upgrade from plain connection to TLS if STARTTLS is set.) (true)

danger_accept_invalid_certs boolean

(optional) Do not validate TLS certificates. (false)

offline_cache boolean

(optional) Keep mail headers in an sqlite3 database. (true)

use_idle boolean

(optional) Use IDLE extension. (true)

use_condstore boolean

(optional) Use CONDSTORE extension. (true)

use_deflate boolean

(optional) Use COMPRESS=DEFLATE extension (if built with DEFLATE support) (true)

use_oauth2 boolean

(optional) Use OAUTH2 authentication. Can only be used with server_password_command which should return a base64-encoded OAUTH2 token ready to be passed toIMAP . For help on setup withGmail , see Gmail section below. (false)

use_auth_anonymous boolean

(optional) Use AUTH=ANONYMOUS extension for authentication. (false)

use_id boolean

(optional) Use ID extension to retrieve server metadata, viewable at the account status page. Enabling this does not send any information to the server. (false)

use_connection_pool boolean

(optional) Use a connection pool of more than one server connections, to prevent time-outs when performing multiple operations. IMAP connections are stateful and can only operate on one mailbox at a time, thus using a connection requires locking. Having a pool of alternative connections created on demand in case they can be made available faster than the main connection can be unlocked might alleviate lock contention. (true)

timeout integer

(optional) Timeout to use for server connections in seconds. A timeout of 0 seconds means there is no timeout. (16)

Gmail

Gmail has non-standard IMAP behaviors that need to be worked around.

Gmail - sending mail

Option store_sent_mail should be disabled since Gmail auto-saves sent mail by its own.

Gmail OAUTH2

To useOAUTH2 , you must go through a process to register your own private "application" with Google that can use OAUTH2 tokens, and set the option use_oauth2 as ‘true’ in the account configuration section. For convenience in the meli repository under the contrib/ directory you can find a python3 file named oauth2.py to generate and request the appropriate data to perform OAUTH2 authentication.

Steps:

• InGoogle API s, create a custom OAuth client ID and note down the Client ID and Client Secret. You may need to create a consent screen; follow the steps described in the website.

• Run the oauth2.py script as follows(after adjusting binary paths and credentials) :

  python3 oauth2.py [email protected] --client_id=1038[...].apps.googleusercontent.com --client_secret=VWFn8LIKAMC-MsjBMhJeOplZ --generate_oauth2_token and follow the instructions. Note down the refresh token.

• In server_password_command enter a command like this(after adjusting binary paths and credentials) :

  TOKEN=$(python3 oauth2.py [email protected] --quiet --client_id=1038[...].apps.googleusercontent.com --client_secret=VWFn8LIKAMC-MsjBMhJeOplZ --refresh_token=1/Yzm6MRy4q1xi7Dx2DuWXNgT6s37OrP_DW_IoyTum4YA) && python3 oauth2.py [email protected] --generate_oauth2_string --quiet --access_token=$TOKEN

• On startup, meli should evaluate this command which if successful must only return abase64 -encoded token ready to be passed to IMAP.

  Your account section should look like this:

  [accounts."gmail"]
  root_mailbox = '[Gmail]'
  format = "imap"
  server_hostname='imap.gmail.com'
  server_username="[email protected]"
  use_oauth2 = true
  server_password_command = "TOKEN=$(py...th2_string --quiet --access_token=$TOKEN"
  server_port="993"
  listing.index_style = "Conversations"
  identity = "[email protected]"
  display_name = "Name Name"
  subscribed_mailboxes = ["*" ]
  composing.store_sent_mail = false
  composing.send_mail = { hostname = "smtp.gmail.com", port = 587, auth = { type = "xoauth2", token_command = "...", require_auth = true }, security = { type = "STARTTLS" } }
  
  

JMAP only

JMAP specific options

server_url String

example: "http://mail.example.com" "http://mail.example.com:8080" "https://mail.example.com"

server_username String

Server username

server_password String

Server password

server_password_command String

(optional) Use instead of server_password

use_token boolean

Authenticate using the API Bearer token method. If enabled, the token value must be provided as the configured password. (false)

danger_accept_invalid_certs boolean

(optional) Do not validate TLS certificates. (false)

timeout integer

(optional) Timeout to use for server connections in seconds. A timeout of 0 seconds means there is no timeout. (16)

mbox only

mbox specific options:

prefer_mbox_type String

(optional) Prefer specific mbox format reader for each message. Default is "mboxcl2" format. If the preferred format fails, the message is retried with mboxrd and then if it fails again there is a recover attempt, which discards the invalid message.

Valid values

• auto

• mboxo

• mboxrd

• mboxcl

• mboxcl2

  (auto)

To set multiple mailboxes, you have to explicitly state the mailboxes you want in the mailboxes field and set the path property to each of them. Example:

[accounts.mbox]
format = "mbox"
mailboxes."Python mailing list" = { path = "~/.mail/python.mbox", subscribe = true, autoload = true }

NNTP

NNTP specific options

server_hostname String

example: "nntp.example.com"

server_username String

Server username

server_password String

Server password

require_auth boolean

(optional) require authentication in every case (true)

use_tls boolean

(optional) Connect withTLS . (false)

server_port number

(optional) The port to connect to (119)

danger_accept_invalid_certs boolean

(optional) Do not validate TLS certificates. (false)

store_flags_locally boolean

(optional) Store seen status locally in an sqlite3 database. (true)

timeout integer

(optional) Timeout to use for server connections in seconds. A timeout of 0 seconds means there is no timeout. (16)

You have to explicitly state the groups you want to see in the mailboxes field. Example:

[accounts.sicpm.mailboxes]
  "sic.all" = {}

To submit articles directly to the NNTP server, you must set the special value server_submission in the send_mail field. Example:

composing.send_mail = "server_submission"

MAILBOXES

alias String

(optional) Show a different name for this mailbox in theUI .

autoload boolean

(optional) Load this mailbox on startup (true)

collapsed boolean

(optional) Collapse this mailbox subtree in menu. (false)

subscribe boolean

(optional) Watch this mailbox for updates. (true)

ignore boolean

(optional) Silently insert updates for this mailbox, if any. (false)

usage boolean

(optional) special usage of this mailbox. Valid values are:

• Normal (default)

• Inbox

• Archive

• Drafts

• Flagged

• Junk

• Sent

• Trash

  otherwise usage is inferred from the mailbox title. If for example your Sent folder is not named"Sent" , you must explicitly set it.

conf_override boolean

(optional) Override global settings for this mailbox. Available sections to override are pager, notifications, shortcuts, composing and the account optionsidentity . Example:

[accounts."imap.example.com".mailboxes]
  "INBOX" = { index_style = "plain" }
  "INBOX/Lists/devlist" = { autoload = false, pager = { filter = "pygmentize -l diff -f 256"} }

sort_order unsigned integer

(optional) Override sort order on the sidebar for this mailbox. Example:

[accounts."imap.example.com".mailboxes]
  "INBOX" = { index_style = "plain" }
  "INBOX/Sent" = { sort_order = 0 }
  "INBOX/Drafts" = { sort_order = 1 }
  "INBOX/Lists" = { sort_order = 2 }

encoding String

(optional) Override the default UTF-8 charset for the mailbox name. Useful only for UTF-7 mailboxes. (utf7, utf-7, utf8, utf-8)

Composing specific configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

send_mail String|SmtpServerConf

Command to pipe new mail to( exit code must be 0 for success) or settings for an SMTP server connection. See section SMTP Connections for its fields.

editor_command String

Command to launch editor. Can have arguments. Draft filename is given as the last argument. If it's missing, the environment variable EDITOR is looked up.

embedded_pty boolean

(optional) Embedded editor withinmeli . Editor must be xterm compliant. (false)

format_flowed boolean

(optional) Set format=flowed [RFC3676] in text/plain attachments. (true)

insert_user_agent boolean

(optional) Add meli User-Agent header in new drafts. (true)

default_header_values hash table String[String]

(optional) Default header values used when creating a new draft. ({})

wrap_header_preamble Option<(String, String)>

(optional) Wrap header pre-ample when editing a draft in an editor. This allows you to write non-plain text email without the preamble creating syntax errors. They are stripped when you return from the editor. The values should be a two element array of strings, a prefix and suffix. This can be useful when for example you're writing Markdown; you can set the value to ["<!--", "-->"] which wraps the headers in an HTML comment. (None)

store_sent_mail boolean

(optional) Store sent mail after successful submission. This setting is meant to be disabled for non-standard behaviour inGmail , which auto-saves sent mail on its own. (true)

attribution_format_string String

(optional) The attribution line appears above the quoted reply text. The format specifiers for the replied address are:

• %+f — the sender's name and email address.

• %+n — the sender's name (or email address, if no name is included).

• %+a — the sender's email address.

  The format string is passed to strftime(3) with the replied envelope's date. (On %a, %0e %b %Y %H:%M, %+f wrote:%n)

attribution_use_posix_locale boolean

(optional) Whether the strftime(3) call for the attribution string uses the POSIX locale instead of the user's active locale. (true)

forward_as_attachment boolean or ask

(optional) Forward emails as attachment? (Alternative is inline). (ask)

reply_prefix_list_to_strip [String]

(optional) Alternative lists of reply prefixes (etc. ["Re:", "RE:", ...]) to strip.

[Re:, RE:, Fwd:, Fw:, 回复:, 回覆:, SV:, Sv:, VS:, Antw:, Doorst:, VS:, VL:, REF:, TR:, TR:, AW:, WG:, ΑΠ:, Απ:, απ:, ΠΡΘ:, Πρθ:, πρθ:, ΣΧΕΤ:, Σχετ:, σχετ:, ΠΡΘ:, Πρθ:, πρθ:, Vá:, Továbbítás:, R:, I:, RIF:, FS:, BLS:, TRS:, VS:, VB:, RV:, RES:, Res, ENC:, Odp:, PD:, YNT:, İLT:, ATB:, YML:]

reply_prefix String

(optional) The prefix to use in reply subjects. The default prefix is‘Re:’ . (‘Re:’)

RFC 2822, "Internet Message Format" has this to say on the matter:

When used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the string "Re: " (from
the Latin "res", in the matter of) followed by the contents of the "Subject:"
field body of the original message.

custom_compose_hooks [{ name = String, command = String }]

(optional) Custom compose-hooks that run shell scripts. compose-hooks run before submitting an e-mail. They perform draft validation and/or transformations. If a custom hook exits with an error status or prints output to stdout and stderr, it will show up in the UI as a notification.

Example:

[composing]
editor_cmd = '~/.local/bin/vim +/^$'
embedded_pty = true
custom_compose_hooks = [ { name ="spellcheck", command="aspell --mode email --dont-suggest --ignore-case list" }]

disabled_compose_hooks [String]

(optional) Disabled compose-hooks. compose-hooks run before submitting an e-mail. They perform draft validation and/or transformations. If a hook encounters an error or warning, it will show up as a notification. The currently available hooks are:

• past-date-warn — Warn if Date header value is far in the past or future.

• important-header-warn — Warn if important headers(From ,Date ,To ,Cc , Bcc) are missing or invalid.

• missing-attachment-warn — Warn ifSubject or draft body mention attachments but they are missing.

• empty-draft-warn — Warn if draft has no subject and no body.

signature_file Path

(optional) Plain text file with signature that will pre-populate an email draft. Signatures must be explicitly enabled to be used, otherwise this setting will be ignored. (None)

use_signature bool

Pre-populate email drafts with signature, if any. meli will lookup the signature value in this order:

1. The signature_file setting.

2. ${XDG_CONFIG_DIR}/meli/<account>/signature

3. ${XDG_CONFIG_DIR}/meli/signature

4. ${XDG_CONFIG_DIR}/signature

5. ${HOME}/.signature

6. No signature otherwise.

   (false)

signature_delimiter String

(optional) Signature delimiter, that is, text that will be prefixed to your signature to separate it from the email body. (‘\n\n-- \n’)

allow_reply_to_self boolean

(optional) When replying to an e-mail authored by our main identity or one of our extra identities, reply to those addresses instead of reusing the receivers of the original e-mail we are replying to. The default is false, because the intuitive behavior when replying to ourselves is to follow-up on an e-mail we sent. (false)

Values corresponding to keyboard keys, keycodes

Shortcuts can take the following values:

• Backspace

• Left

• Right

• Up

• Down

• Home

• End

• PageUp

• PageDown

• Delete

• Insert

• Enter

• Tab

• Esc

• F1..F12

• M-char

• C-char

• char

Where char is a single character string, maximum 4 bytes long, like the corresponding type in Rust.

In the next subsection, you will find lists for each shortcut category. The headings before each list indicate the map key of the shortcut list. For example for the first list titled general the configuration is typed as follows:

[shortcuts.general]
next_tab = 'T'

and forlisting :

[shortcuts.listing]
open_entry = "Enter"
exit_entry = 'i'

commands

In addition, each shortcuts section supports a TOML array of commands to associate a key to an array of COMMAND mode commands.

[shortcuts.listing]
commands = [ { command = [ "tag remove trash", "flag unset trash" ], shortcut = "D" },
             { command = [ "tag add trash", "flag set trash" ], shortcut = "d" } ]

Shortcut configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

general

toggle_help

Toggle help and shortcuts view. (?)

enter_command_mode

Enter COMMAND mode. (:)

quit

Quit meli. (q)

go_to_tab

Go to then th tab (M-n)

next_tab

Go to the next tab. (T)

scroll_right

Generic scroll right (catch-all setting) (l)

scroll_left

Generic scroll left (catch-all setting) (h)

scroll_up

Generic scroll up (catch-all setting) (k)

scroll_down

Generic scroll down (catch-all setting) (j)

next_page

Go to next page. (catch-all setting) (PageDown)

prev_page

Go to previous page. (catch-all setting) (PageUp)

home_page

Go to first page. (catch-all setting) (Home)

end_page

Go to last page. (catch-all setting) (End)

open_entry

Open list entry. (catch-all setting) (Enter)

info_message_next

Show next info message, if any. (>)

info_message_previous

Show previous info message, if any. (<)

focus_in_text_field

Focus on a text field. (Enter)

next_search_result

Scroll to next search result. (n)

previous_search_result

Scroll to previous search result. (N)

listing

scroll_up

Scroll up list. (k)

scroll_down

Scroll down list. (j)

next_page

Go to next page. (PageDown)

prev_page

Go to previous page. (PageUp)

new_mail

Start new mail draft in new tab. (m)

next_account

Go to next account. (H)

prev_account

Go to previous account. (L)

next_mailbox

Go to next mailbox. (J)

prev_mailbox

Go to previous mailbox. (K)

open_mailbox

Open selected mailbox (Enter)

toggle_mailbox_collapse

Toggle mailbox visibility in menu. (Space)

search

Search within list of e-mails. (/)

refresh

Manually request a mailbox refresh. (F5)

set_seen

Set thread as seen. (n)

send_to_trash

Send entry to trash folder. (D)

union_modifier

Union modifier. (C-u)

diff_modifier

Difference modifier. (C-d)

intersection_modifier

Intersection modifier. (i)

select_entry

Select (or toggle) thread entry. (V)

select_motion

Perform select motion with a movement. (v)

increase_sidebar

Increase sidebar width. (C-f)

decrease_sidebar

Decrease sidebar width. (C-d)

next_entry

When reading a mail item, change focus on next entry according to the current sorting. (C-n)

previous_entry

When reading a mail item, change focus on previous entry according to the current sorting. (C-p)

toggle_menu_visibility

Toggle visibility of side menu in mail list. (`)

focus_left

Switch focus on the left. (Left)

focus_right

Switch focus on the right. (Right)

exit_entry

Exit e-mail entry. (i)

open_entry

Open e-mail entry. (Enter)

pager

page_down

Go to next page. (PageDown)

page_up

Go to previous page. (PageUp)

scroll_down

Scroll down pager. (j)

scroll_up

Scroll up pager. (k)

select_filter

Select content filter. (f)

See also named_filters setting.

contact-list

scroll_up

Scroll up list. (k)

scroll_down

Scroll down list. (j)

create_contact

Create new contact. (c)

edit_contact

Edit contact under cursor. (e)

export_contact

Export contact under cursor to .vcf. (E)

delete_contact

Delete contact under cursor. (d)

mail_contact

Mail contact under cursor. (m)

next_account

Go to next account. (H)

prev_account

Go to previous account. (L)

toggle_menu_visibility

Toggle visibility of side menu in mail list. (`)

composing

edit

Edit mail. (e)

send_mail

Deliver draft to mailer (s)

scroll_up

Change field focus. (k)

scroll_down

Change field focus. (j)

envelope-view

To select an attachment, type its index (you will see the typed result in the command buffer on the bottom right of the status line), then issue the corresponding command.

add_addresses_to_contacts

Select addresses from envelope to add to contacts. (c)

edit

Open envelope in composer. (e)

go_to_url

Go to url of given index (with the command url_launcher setting in PAGER section) (g)

open_attachment

Opens selected attachment with xdg-open (a)

open_mailcap

Opens selected attachment according to its mailcap entry. See meli(1) FILES for the mailcap file locations. (m)

open_html

Opens html attachment in the default browser. (v)

reply

Reply to envelope. (R)

reply_to_author

Reply to author. (C-r)

reply_to_all

Reply to all/Reply to list/Follow up. (C-g)

forward

Forward email. (C-f)

return_to_normal_view

Return to envelope if viewing raw source or attachment. (r)

toggle_expand_headers

Expand extra headers (References and others) (h)

toggle_url_mode

Toggles url open mode. When active, it prepends an index next to each url that you can select by typing the index and open by issuing go_to_url (u)

view_raw_source

View raw envelope source in a pager. (M-r)

change_charset

Force attachment charset for decoding. (d)

thread-view

scroll_up

Scroll up list. (k)

scroll_down

Scroll down list. (j)

collapse_subtree

collapse thread branches. (h)

next_page

Go to next page. (PageDown)

prev_page

Go to previous page. (PageUp)

reverse_thread_order

reverse thread order. (C-r)

toggle_mailview

toggle mail view visibility. (p)

toggle_threadview

toggle thread view visibility. (t)

toggle_layout

Toggle between horizontal and vertical layout. (Space)

System notifications

meli(1) can display notifications for asynchronous, out-of-band events that happen. These events can be any event of interest that is not a direct result of the user's interaction with the user interface, like for example receiving a new e-mail, or an SMTP server accepting an e-mail for delivery, or a backend watch mechanism error. The used notification mechanism is dbus if it is available on your system and if meli(1) has been compiled with support for it( check output of compiled-with CLI subcommand) . Otherwise the fallback mechanism is calling a script to display a notification. If script is defined in your configuration, this mechanism will be preferred even if dbus is available.

Onmacos , without a script configured, meli(1) calls the osascript binary to display notifications:

osascript -e 'display_notification "<MESSAGE>" with title "<TITLE>" subtitle "<SUBTITLE>"'

You can override the script setting with variations of this command for customization.

UI notifications

Information that is in response to user interface actions should be instead shown within the user interface as floating message boxes. If you don't want UI notifications to be displayed, you can set the ui_notifications option to hide to hide them, or system to display them as system notifications.

Even when UI notifications are not displayed, you can still browse through them manually using shortcuts.general.info_message_next and shortcuts.general.info_message_previous shortcuts.

Notification configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

enable boolean

(optional) Enable notifications. (true)

script String

(optional) Script to pass notifications to, with title as 1st arg and body as 2nd (none)

new_mail_script String

(optional) A command to pipe new mail notifications through (preferred overscript ), with title as 1st arg and body as 2nd. (none)

xbiff_file_path String

(optional) File that gets its size updated when new mail arrives. (none)

play_sound boolean

(optional) Play theme sound in notifications if possible. (false)

sound_file String

(optional) Play sound file in notifications if possible. (none)

ui_notifications UINotifications

(optional) How to handle UI notifications. (show) Valid values:

show

Always show.

hide

Hide from UI.

system

Show them as system notifications.

Pager (viewing text) configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

sticky_headers boolean

(optional) Always show headers when scrolling. (false)

html_filter String

(optional) Pipe html attachments through this filter before display (none)

html_open String

(optional) A command to open html files. (none)

filter String

(optional) A command to pipe mail output through for viewing in pager.

named_filters String[String]

(optional) Named filter commands to use at will. (empty)

Show menu with an empty filter command. Example:

[pager]
named_filters = { diff = "pygmentize -l diff -f 256", par = "par 72" }

format_flowed boolean

(optional) Respect format=flowed (true)

split_long_lines boolean

(optional) Split long lines that would overflow on the x axis. (true)

minimum_width num

(optional) Minimum text width in columns. (80)

auto_choose_multipart_alternative boolean

(optional) Choose text/html alternative if text/plain is empty in multipart/alternative attachments. (true)

show_date_in_my_timezone boolean

(optional) ShowDate : in local timezone (true)

url_launcher String

(optional) A command to launch URLs with. The URL will be given as the first argument of the command. (xdg-open)

show_extra_headers [String]

(optional) Extra headers to display, if present, in the default header preamble of the pager. (empty)

This setting is useful especially when used per-folder or per-account. For example, if you use rss2email (See r2e(1)) the e-mail you will receive will have the X-RSS-Feed header by default. You can show them only in the folder where you keep your feed items:

[accounts."personal".mailboxes]
INBOX = {}
"INBOX/Sent" = { sort_order=0 }
"INBOX/Feeds" = { pager.show_extra_headers = ["X-RSS-Feed"] }

Listing (lists of e-mail entries in a mailbox) configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

show_menu_scrollbar boolean

(optional)
Show auto-hiding scrollbar in accounts sidebar menu. (true)

datetime_fmt String

(optional) Datetime formatting passed verbatim tostrftime(3) . (%Y-%m-%d %T)

recent_dates Boolean

(optional) Show recent dates as‘X {minutes,hours,days} ago’, up to 7 days. (true)

filter Query

(optional) Show only envelopes matching this query.( For query syntax see meli(1) QUERY ABNF SYNTAX) (None)

Example:

filter = "not flags:seen" # show only unseen messages

index_style String

Sets the way mailboxes are displayed.

conversations	shows one entry per thread
compact	shows one row per thread
threaded	shows threads as a tree structure
plain	shows one row per mail, regardless of threading

sidebar_mailbox_tree_has_sibling String

(optional) Sets the string to print in the mailbox tree for a level where its root has a sibling. See example below for a clear explanation and examples.

sidebar_mailbox_tree_no_sibling String

(optional) Sets the string to print in the mailbox tree for a level where its root has no sibling.

sidebar_mailbox_tree_has_sibling_leaf String

(optional) Sets the string to print in the mailbox tree for a leaf level where its root has a sibling.

sidebar_mailbox_tree_no_sibling_leaf String

(optional) Sets the string to print in the mailbox tree for a leaf level where its root has no sibling.

sidebar_divider char

(optional) Sets the character to print as the divider between the accounts list and the message list.

sidebar_ratio Integer

(optional) This is the width of the right container to the entire screen width. (90)

unseen_flag Option<String>

Flag to show if thread entry contains unseen mail. (●)

thread_snoozed_flag Option<String>

Flag to show if thread has been snoozed.(" 💤\u{FE0E}")[ Rendered as: r##" 💤\u{FE0E}" ##]

selected_flag Option<String>

Flag to show if thread entry has been selected.(" ☑️ \u{2007}")[ Rendered as: r##" ☑️ \u{2007}" ##]

attachment_flag Option<String>

Flag to show if thread entry contains attachments.(" 📎\u{FE0E}")[ Rendered as: r##" 📎\u{FE0E}" ##]

highlight_self_flag Option<String>

Flag to show if any thread entry contains your address as a receiver. Useful to make mailing list threads that CC you stand out. (✸)

highlight_self boolean

Show highlight_self_flag or not. (false)

thread_subject_pack boolean

Should threads with differentiating Subjects show a list of those subjects on the entry title? (true)

threaded_repeat_identical_from_values boolean

In threaded listing style, repeat identical From column values within a thread. Not repeating adds empty space in the From column which might result in less visual clutter. (false)

relative_menu_indices boolean

Show relative indices in menu mailboxes to quickly help with jumping to them. (true)

relative_list_indices boolean

Show relative indices in listings to quickly help with jumping to them. (true)

hide_sidebar_on_launch boolean

Start app with sidebar hidden. (false)

mail_view_divider char

Character to show in the divider space between mail view and listing. (' ')

thread_layout auto | vertical | horizontal

Force specific layout in thread view. The layout can also be toggled at runtime with the listing.toggle_layout shortcut. (auto)

Examples of sidebar mailbox tree customization

The default values

 has_sibling = " "
 no_sibling = " ";
 has_sibling_leaf = " "
 no_sibling_leaf = " "

render a mailbox tree like the following:

0  Inbox 3
1   Archive
2   Drafts
3   Lists
4    example-list-a
5    example-list-b
6   Sent
7   Spam
8   Trash

Other possible trees:

has_sibling = " ┃"
no_sibling = "  "
has_sibling_leaf = " ┣━"
no_sibling_leaf = " ┗━"

0  Inbox 3
1   ┣━Archive
2   ┣━Drafts
3   ┣━Lists
4   ┃ ┣━example-list-a
5   ┃ ┗━example-list-b
6   ┣━Sent
7   ┣━Spam
8   ┗━Trash

A completely ASCII one:

has_sibling = " |"
no_sibling = "  "
has_sibling_leaf = " |\_"
no_sibling_leaf = " \_"

0  Inbox 3
1   |\_Archive
2   |\_Drafts
3   |\_Lists
4   | |\_example-list-a
5   |  \_example-list-b
6   |\_Sent
7   |\_Spam
8    \_Trash

Tags (e-mail metadata in backends that support them) configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

colours hash table String[Color]

(optional) Set UI colors for tags

ignore_tags Array String

(optional) Hide tags (not the tagged messages themselves)

Example:

[tags]
# valid inputs: #HHHHHH, #ABC -> #AABBCC, XTERM_NAME, 0-255 byte
colors = { signed="#Ff6600", replied="DeepSkyBlue4", draft="#f00", replied="8" }
[accounts.dummy]
...
  [accounts.dummy.mailboxes]
  # per mailbox override:
  "INBOX" = { tags.ignore_tags=["inbox", ] }

Note about emojis and other multi-width characters in string values

Some useful unicode combining marks( invisible characters that modify the presentation of visible characters before them) are:

\u{FE0E} Emoji variation sequence select 15: renders an emoji as text style (monochrome)

\u{FE0F} Emoji variation sequence select 16: renders an emoji in color

\u{2007} Figure space, a space character with the width of a digit in a monospace typeface

Terminal configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

theme String

(optional) Theme name to use. (dark)

ascii_drawing boolean

(optional) If true, box drawing will be done with ASCII characters. (false)

use_color boolean

(optional) If false, no ANSI colors are used. (true)

force_text_presentation boolean

(optional) If true, text presentations of color symbols and emoji will be enforced as much as possible. Might not work on all non-text symbols and is experimental. (false)

window_title String

(optional) Set window title in xterm compatible terminals An empty string means no window title is set. (meli)

file_picker_command String

(optional) Set command that prints file paths in stdout, separated by NUL bytes. Used with add-attachment-file-picker when composing new mail. (None)

themes hash table String[String[Attribute]]

Define UI themes. See meli-themes(5) for details.

[terminal]
theme = "themeB"
[terminal.themes.themeA]
"mail.view.body" = {fg = "HotPink3", bg = "LightSalmon1"}
...
[terminal.themes.themeB]
"mail.view.body" = {fg = "CadetBlue", bg = "White"}
...
[terminal.themes.themeC]
...

use_mouse boolean

Use mouse events. This will disable text selection, but you will be able to resize some widgets. This setting can be toggled withtoggle mouse . (false)

mouse_flag String

String to show in status bar if mouse is active. (🖱️)

progress_spinner_sequence Either < Integer, ProgressSpinner >

Choose between 37 built in sequences (integers between 0-36) or define your own list of strings for the progress spinner animation. Set to an empty array to disable the progress spinner. (20)

Built-in sequences are:

0   ["-", "\", "|", "/"]
1   ["▁", "▂", "▃", "▄", "▅", "▆", "▇", "█"]
2   ["⣀", "⣄", "⣤", "⣦", "⣶", "⣷", "⣿"]
3   ["⣀", "⣄", "⣆", "⣇", "⣧", "⣷", "⣿"]
4   ["○", "◔", "◐", "◕", "⬤"]
5   ["□", "◱", "◧", "▣", "■"]
6   ["□", "◱", "▨", "▩", "■"]
7   ["□", "◱", "▥", "▦", "■"]
8   ["░", "▒", "▓", "█"]
9   ["░", "█"]
10  ["⬜", "⬛"]
11  ["▱", "▰"]
12  ["▭", "◼"]
13  ["▯", "▮"]
14  ["◯", "⬤"]
15  ["⚪", "⚫"]
16  ["▖", "▗", "▘", "▝", "▞", "▚", "▙", "▟", "▜", "▛"]
17  ["|", "/", "-", "\"]
18  [".", "o", "O", "@", "*"]
19  ["◡◡", "⊙⊙", "◠◠", "⊙⊙"]
20  ["◜ ", " ◝", " ◞", "◟ "]
21  ["←", "↖", "↑", "↗", "→", "↘", "↓", "↙"]
22  ["▁", "▃", "▄", "▅", "▆", "▇", "█", "▇", "▆", "▅", "▄", "▃"]
23  [ "▉", "▊", "▋", "▌", "▍", "▎", "▏", "▎", "▍", "▌", "▋", "▊", "▉" ]
24  ["▖", "▘", "▝", "▗"]
25  ["▌", "▀", "▐", "▄"]
26  ["┤", "┘", "┴", "└", "├", "┌", "┬", "┐"]
27  ["◢", "◣", "◤", "◥"]
28  ["⠁", "⠂", "⠄", "⡀", "⢀", "⠠", "⠐", "⠈"]
29  ["⢎⡰", "⢎⡡", "⢎⡑", "⢎⠱", "⠎⡱", "⢊⡱", "⢌⡱", "⢆⡱"]
30  [".", "o", "O", "°", "O", "o", "."]
31  ["㊂", "㊀", "㊁"]
32  ["💛 ", "💙 ", "💜 ", "💚 ", "❤️ "]
33  [ "🕛 ", "🕐 ", "🕑 ", "🕒 ", "🕓 ", "🕔 ", "🕕 ", "🕖 ", "🕗 ", "🕘 ", "🕙 ", "🕚 " ]
34  ["🌍 ", "🌎 ", "🌏 "]
35  [ "[    ]", "[=   ]", "[==  ]", "[=== ]", "[ ===]", "[  ==]", "[   =]", "[    ]", "[   =]", "[  ==]", "[ ===]", "[====]", "[=== ]", "[==  ]", "[=   ]" ]
36  ["🌑 ", "🌒 ", "🌓 ", "🌔 ", "🌕 ", "🌖 ", "🌗 ", "🌘 "]

Or, define an array of strings each consisting of a frame in the progress sequence indicator for a custom spinner:

interval_ms u64

(optional) Frame interval. (50)

frames [String]

The animation frames.

Example:

progress_spinner_sequence = { interval_ms = 150, frames = [ "-", "=", "≡" ] }

Logging configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

log_file String

(optional) path of the log file ($XDG_DATA_HOME/meli/meli.log)

maximum_level String

(optional) maximum level of messages to log. All levels less or equal to the maximum_level will be appended to the log file. Available levels are, in partial order:

• OFF

• ERROR

• WARN

• INFO

• DEBUG

• TRACE

  This means that to turn logging off, set maximum_level toOFF . (INFO)

SMTP configuration settings

Default values are shown in parentheses.

hostname String

server hostname

port Integer

server port

envelope_from String

(optional) address to set as sender in SMTP transactions (none)

auth SmtpAuth

SMTP server authentication. See SmtpAuth subsection.

security SmtpSecurity

(optional) gpg binary name or file location to use. (see SmtpSecurity subsection)

extensions SmtpExtensions

(optional) set support for SMTP extensions if they are advertised by the server. (see SmtpExtensions subsection)

SmtpAuth

type none | auto | xoauth2

For type"auto" :

username String

password SmtpPassword

require_auth boolean

(optional) require authentication in every case. (true)

For type"xoauth2" :

token_command String

Command to evaluate that returns an XOAUTH2 token.

require_auth boolean

(optional) require authentication in every case. (true)

Examples:

auth = { type = "auto", username = "user", password = { type = "raw", value = "hunter2" } }

auth = { type = "auto", username = "user", password = "hunter2" }

auth = { type = "none" }

For Gmail (see Gmail OAUTH2 for details on the authentication token command):

auth = { type = "xoauth2", token_command = "TOKEN=$(python3 oauth2.py [email protected] --quiet --client_id=1038[...].apps.googleusercontent.com --client_secret=[..] --refresh_token=[..] && python3 oauth2.py [email protected] --generate_oauth2_string --quiet --access_token=$TOKEN" }

SmtpPassword

type raw | command_evaluation

value String

Either a raw password string, or command to execute.

Examples:

password = { type = "raw", value = "hunter2" }

password = { type = "command_eval", value = "gpg2 --no-tty -q -d ~/.passwords/user.gpg" }

SmtpSecurity

Default security type isauto .

type none | auto | starttls | tls

danger_accept_invalid_certs boolean

Accept invalid SSL / TLS certificates (false)

SmtpExtensions

pipelining boolean

RFC2920 (true)

chunking boolean

RFC3030 (true)

prdr boolean

draft-hall-prdr-00 (true)

dsn_notify String

RFC3461 (FAILURE)

Links

Website: https://meli-email.org

Main git repository and issue tracker: https://git.meli-email.org/meli/meli

Official read-only git mirror on codeberg.org: https://codeberg.org/meli/meli

Official read-only git mirror on github.com: https://github.com/meli/meli

meli crate on crates.io: https://crates.io/crates/meli