New to Mutt, unable to send messages in *any* attempted way
Sam Kuper
sampablokuper at posteo.net
Sat May 7 17:31:03 UTC 2022
Hi X Tec,
Not sure if you have read this web page?
https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/wikis/MailConcept
You may find life simpler if, following the advice there, you apply the
concept of "separation of concerns".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns
In other words:
- use an MRA such as Getmail, Fetchmail, or Retchmail to retrieve your
mail from the server; and
- either:
- (If you don't need complex filtering) use the MRA's built-in MDA
to write the retrieved mail to a local inbox. Ideally, a
Maildir directory in some sensible location like ~/inbox ; or
- (If you do need complex filtering) use a separate MDA like
Procmail or Maildrop to perform that processing and to deliver
the mails into relevant Maildirs, e.g. ~/mail/personal and
~/mail/work ; and
- use Mutt solely as an MUA; and
- use either Postfix as your MTA (if you're already good at Postfix),
or perhaps better still, use a lightweight MTA like msmtp, which is
much easier to configure and manage, and is more than powerful
enough for a typical single user.
This way, you are playing to each tool's strengths.
You also will be able to troubleshoot more easily under this approach,
because MTA-related config should live *solely* within the MTA's config
file(s); MUA-related config *solely* within the MUA's config file(s);
etc.
On Sat, May 07, 2022 at 11:11:35AM -0500, X Tec wrote:
> Also, Mutt does not say additional stuff or command line output (just
> exit code '0') when sending email...
0 means "success", so that's reasonable.
> I'm trying to use Mutt with external MTA/SMTP (Postfix in this case),
> as the correct way intended, instead of Mutt's builtin SMTP.
>
> Am I failing? If so, why?
Unsure. Consider a simpler MTA such as msmtp.
> By the way, in Mutt default pager for reading emails, your words
> between underscores '_' (_not_, _may_, etc...) are not being
> displayed... Why?
Have you searched the bug tracker?
https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/issues/
>>> Then how do I know the email is really being sent from
>>> user at domain.tld 's account/SMTP?
>>
>> Hahahaha! You don't!
>> [...]
>>
> Maybe I'm completely confused and lost...
>
> If sending email from the webmail, I'm sure it gets send from the
> email address account/SMTP.
Many webmail interfaces map directly to an underlying email account. I
guess that's the situation you've encountered.
Not all of them do, though! Some webmail instances let users send email
from multiple different accounts, or even from one account via another
account's SMTP server!
(I'm not making a value judgement here: not saying that one approach is
right and the other is wrong. Just stating facts.)
> Same if sending from the popular "official" email clients (Outlook,
> Thunderbird...)
Yes, those clients typically map one email address to one SMTP server.
> But *not* sure when sending from Mutt...
Correct.
Mutt is a MUA.
It is a very powerful MUA.
It does have some MTA functionality, but it's up to you to configure
that functionality (or, perhaps better, configure a standalone MTA) to
suit you.
> And finally, what key to manually force to check for new mail, instead
> of waiting or quitting and starting Mutt again?
>
> Evidently just doing "any" activity in Mutt does not refresh/fetch new
> email...
In recent(ish) versions of Mutt, activity (e.g. using a cursor key to
move up or down the index) *does* cause Mutt to check for new mail in
the currently-displayed mailbox (i.e. mbox or Maildir).
That's not the same as fetching mail, though. If you want to *fetch*
mail, then you need to invoke your MRA (which could be Mutt, but could
also be Getmail, Fetchmail, or Retchmail, etc).
Sam
More information about the Mutt-users
mailing list