I spent a bit of time the other day looking into using the terminal email client alpine with Fastmail. It wasn’t too hard, and things are working really well. There are basically four steps. (I’m using the default alpine
provided by brew
, on Mac OS.)
- Get an app password from Fastmail
- Set up
IMAP
,SMTP
, and some default folders inalpine
- Set up a collection so you have access to your other Fastmail folders
- Create a basic mailcap so you can use Mac OS’
open
command for attachments, and configure URL viewers
Get an app password from Fastmail
- In the Fastmail interface, open the dropdown that by default says “mail”, and choose “Settings”
- In “Settings”, select “Password & Security”
- Select “Manage” next to “App Passwords”. Enter your password, and generate a new app password
- I selected “Custom” for name, and entered “alpine”. For access, I selected “Mail”, giving me
IMAP
andSMTP
- Keep that password somewhere safe, but where you can find it. You’re going to be entering/pasting it often
Set up IMAP, SMTP, and default folders
- In alpine, open the config by pressing S, then C from the main menu
- For
SMTP
, entersmtp.fastmail.com:465/user=YOURUSERNAME/ssl
- For
Inbox Path
, enter{imap.fastmail.com:993/user=
YOURUSERNAME
/ssl}Inbox - For
Default Fcc
, enter{imap.fastmail.com:993/user=
YOURUSERNAME
/ssl}Sent - For
Default Saved Message Folder
, enter{imap.fastmail.com:993/user=
YOURUSERNAME
/ssl}Archive - For
Postponed Folder
, enter{imap.fastmail.com:993/user=
YOURUSERNAME
/ssl}Drafts - For
Trash Folder
, enter{imap.fastmail.com:993/user=
YOURUSERNAME
/ssl}Trash - Exit and save your settings. You may need to restart
alpine
Set up a collection list
- From the main menu, edit collection lists by pressing S, then L
- Enter Fastmail as your nickname
- For the server, enter
imap.fastmail.com:993/user=YOURUSERNAME/ssl
- You will now be able to view all your folders from the main menu folder list
Create a basic mailcap and configure URL viewers
- From the main menu, edit your config by pressing S, then C
- Find (W for Whereis) “
Enable Message View URL Links
“, and enable it - Find “
URL-Viewers
“, and enter/usr/bin/open _URL_
to allowalpine
to use theopen
command for inline URLs - Find “
Mailcap Search Path
“, and enter~/.mailcap
- Exit
alpine
, and create the file~/.mailcap
Into that file, paste the following:
application/*; /usr/bin/open %s
audio/*; /usr/bin/open %s
image/*; /usr/bin/open %s
text/*; /usr/bin/open %s
video/*; /usr/bin/open %s
This will allow you to use Mac OS’ default file handling applications for the majority of attachments you’ll come across.
One more point: you may find that your email address is funny. You can fix that by adding From: "Your Name" <your@email.com>
to the custom-headers
field.
Mac specifics for this post came from https://www.madboa.com/geek/pine-macosx/.