email setup

To tidy emails:

$ mbsync -a --pull  # fetch new emails from providers
$ cleanupmbox       # apply automatic rules (on local copy)
$ mbsync -a --push  # propagate deletes/moves back to providers
$ notmuch new       # recognize new mail

Read email locally (with favored maildir++-compliant reader), and/or enjoy tidied email on provider's system (e.g. gmail in browser)

Alternatively can search from command line:

$ notmuch search sometext

After some investigation settled on:

isync

(aka mbsync) to synchronize provider email with a maildir tree

notmuch

for offline email indexing/search.

notmuch-emacs

emacs module for local email reading

Wrote a custom python script cleanupmbox to operate programatically on the local MAILDIR tree. Script has enough content to deserve its own page, next after this one.

Notes:

• mbsync configuration in ~/.mbsyncrc
• emails kept under ~/.mail
• cleanmbox symlinks to ~/proj/env/bin/cleanupmbox.py
• cleanmbox rules in ~/.config/cleanmbox/rules.csv

I had the following goals:

• automate email handling: want ability to move emails into folders based on pattern-matching rules
• fetch email from multiple providers (gmail, hushmail), browse from the same filesystem tree.
• synchronize email disposition with providers, so that using browser on their site (especially from phone) will provide an up-to-date view.

• https://anarc.at/blog/2021-11-21-mbsync-vs-offlineimap/ isync vs offlineimap, plus useful example configuration.
• https://wiredspace.de/blog/mbsync/
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Isync lovely isync configuration examples

$ mkdir -p ~/.mail/gmail
$ mkdir -p ~/.mail/hushmail

Install isync into shell environment; may want to later set this up to poll periodically.

$ nix-env -i isync

Anonymized configuration file:

hushmail part:

# ~/.mbsyncrc

IMAPAccount hushmail
# address to connect
Host imap.hushmail.com
User replacewithuser@hushmail.com
# if you're comfortable with plaintext:
#Pass replacewithpassword
#
# PassCmd value encrypted with something like
# $ echo replacewithpassword | gpg --recipient mygpgusername -a -o ~/.hushmail.gpg --encrypt
PassCmd "gpg --no-tty --for-your-eyes-only -dq ~/.hushmail.gpg"
# enable TLS
SSLType IMAPS
CertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

# remote
IMAPStore hushmail-remote
Account hushmail

# local
MaildirStore hushmail-local
Subfolders Verbatim
# must have trailing /
Path ~/.mail/hushmail/
Inbox ~/.mail/hushmail/Inbox

Channel hushmail
Far :hushmail-remote:
Near :hushmail-local:
# include everything for now
Patterns *
# auto-create missing mailboxes
Create Both
# delete messages (enable after seeing sync work)
Expunge Both
# save synchronization state
SyncState *
# propagate mailbox deletion (enable after seeing sync work)
Remove both

gmail part:

IMAPAccount gmail
Host imap.gmail.com
User replacewithuser@gmail.com
# encrypted with something like
# $ echo replacewithpassword | gpg --recipient mygpgusername -a -o ~/.gmail.gpg --encrypt
PassCmd "gpg --no-tty --for-your-eyes-only -dq ~/.gmail.gpg"
SSLType IMAPS
CertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

# remote
IMAPstore gmail-remote
Account gmail

# local
MaildirStore gmail-local
Subfolders Maildir++
Inbox ~/.mail/gmail

Channel gmail
Far :gmail-remote:
Near :gmail-local:
MaxMessages 15000
ExpireUnread yes
#
# in particular,  excluding:
#  [Gmail]/Drafts, [Gmail]/Spam, [Gmail]/Trash
#
Patterns * ![Gmail]* "[Gmail]/Sent Mail" "[Gmail]/Important" "[Gmail]/Starred" "[GMail]/All Mail"
#Patterns *
Sync all
Create Both
Expunge Both
SyncState *
Remove both

sync email folders from all providers:

$ mbsync -a

or to just sync with hushmail provider

$ mbsync hushmail

To just propagate changes from gmail to local:

$ mbsync gmail --pull

Similarly, to just propagate changes to hushmail:

$ mbsync hushmail --push

Installed notmuch via nix flake in my project xo-nix2. see https://github.com/rconybea/xo-nix2/blob/mail/flake.nix

Accomplished this by adding notmuch, emacsPackages.notmuch to devShells.packages:

devShells = {
  default = pkgs.mkShell.override
    { stdenv = env; }
    { packages = [ ...
                   pkgs.notmuch
                   pkgs.emacsPackages.notmuch
                   ...
                   ];
      };
  };

Installing this way ensures that emacs, notmuch and notmuch-emacs versions are coordinated.

notmuch gets setup interactively:

$ notmuch setup
Your full name:
Your primary email address: alice@gmail.com
Additional email address [Press 'Enter' if none]:
Top-level directory of your email archive:/home/alice/.mail
Tags to apply to all new messages (separated by spaces) [ unread inbox]:
Tags to exclude when searching messages (separated by spaces) [ junk]:

This creates empty tag database in MAILDIR=/.notmuch (/home/alice/.mail/.notmuch here)

Populate tag database with contents of MAILDIR:

$ notmuch new

Default notmuch-emacs setup is almost trivial. In ~/.emacs:

(require 'notmuch)

(but also see M-x customize-group RET notmuch RET)

Now can browse email from emacs with M-x notmuch.

in ~/.emacs:

(require 'smtpmail)

(setq user-mail-address "replacewithuser@gmail.com"
      user-full-name "Alice Exampleton")

(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)

(setq smtpmail-stream-type 'starttls
      ;;smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.hushmail.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-service 587
      )

(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)

For smtpmail, We also need ~/.authinfo to provide login credentials

machine smtp.gmail.com login replacewithuser@gmail.com port 587 password replacewithpassword

Here replacewithpassword needs to be a "google app password".

Obtain this from gmail.com -> account settings -> security -> 2-step verification -> app passwords

Now can send email with C-x m