Mail Setup

having mail in locally is great. the most common way to download mail locally from a server is to use a program such as mbsync(from isync program) or fetchmail.

Mbsync

Mbsync stores its config in .mbsyncrc. Some basic terms it uses in it's config are:

Store: A Store is wherever your emails are located. it could be local directory, a remote server, etc
Channel: A channel is a connection between two different stores. This is highly useful because you can sync two different local mail directories, different servers, etc.

A small config for two account is:

# Setting default for `channel` option below
# Globabl options must be at the top.
# * means to have state saved in the same directory as messages itself.
SyncState *


IMAPAccount foo
Host mail.example.tld
User foo@example.tld
# you can also use Pass "passwordhere"
PassCmd +"pass show foo@example.tld"
# this is needed because this program uses
# STARTTLS which initializes insecurely.
SSLType IMAPS

MailDirStore foo-local
# how to handle subdirectories. if unset, it errors out.
Subfolders Verbatim
Path ~/.mail/

IMAPStore foo-remote
Account foo

Channel sync-foo
Far :foo-remote:
Near :foo-local:
Patterns *
# the default is to sync all; this only pulls messages in but
# dosen't send the server anything.
Sync Pull
# what to do if mailboxes are not created yet.
# the default is to not do anyting. change it to Both to create in both places.
Create Near

# Group sync-foo-bar
# # if sync-bar channel is defined, `mbsync sync-foo-bar` will
# # sync both foo and bar.
# Channel sync-foo sync-bar

notmuch & afew

After getting mail, you can, of-course, just tell your MUA to read it from there and be done with it. but thats too simple :) so well introduce two more steps just 'cause.

notmuch

the main point of notmuch is that it acts like a search engine for your mails. it also has tagging system and everything is kept in its own subdirectory so the actual mails are untouched. While one of its main point is tagging, well still let afew handle it as afew rules are simpler to write.

to get started, just run `notmuch setup`. this will interactively ask you questions and make a config based on that. you can always type that again to change the config. Be sure that new mails are tagged with 'new' tag.

Searching with notmuch is simple too. just type notmuch search <query> . see man notmuch-search and especially man notmuch-search-terms

afew

Here is where the magic happens. this program will take yoir mails and tag them properly. it will(read: can) also move mails between folders based on what tag they have. the man page is well written but a few things first:

it always works on "filters". filters do everything, from setting tags like spam, unread, etc to movibg mails between folders.

there are a-few (heh) pre defined filters. Moat of the time, you only want to extend them. Creating filters from scrarch is possible, you can even download them but not needed in general.

An example of using filter which also moves mail(if using –move-mail) is:

[Filter.1]
message = tag messages from common spammer
query = from:spamer@clickbaitdomail.tld
tags = +deleted;+spam;-new

[Filter.2]
message = add bank tag to bank emails.
query = 'from:.*@mybank.com OR from:.*@secretbank.com'
tags = +bank;-new

# needed if you have more than one email address and
# if you use maildir format(i.e. mbsync's default)
[FolderNameFilter]
# tags with spam are mapped to folder `Junk'
folder_transforms = Junk:spam Sent:sent
folder_lowercases = true
maildir_separator = '/'

[MailMover]
folders = account1@domain.tld/INBOX account2@domain2.tld/INBOX
max_age = 1000
# since we're using mbsync which requires renaming.
rename = True
account1@domain.tld/INBOX = 'tag:sent':account1@domain.tld/Sent 'tag:spam':account1@domain.tld/Spam
account2@domain2.tld/INBOX = 'tag:bank':account2@domain2.tld/bank