Managing mails the Unix way

2010-05-10T15:14:00+02:00

I am quite allergic to modern email programs such as Microsoft Outlook, KMail, Evolution or Thunderbird. After digging the web for a mail program that "sucks less", I've adopted mutt. In the same time, I've learned a lot of (not so useful) stuff about the email flow from servers to servers to servers to my brave old Unix mailbox. I am now using a split set of software to manage my emails. This could be confusing at first sight, but eventually I get the so-called do-one-thing-but-do-it-right quality of Unix systems. To summarize it, my messages go through the following path:

                         .--.               
                     _ -(    )- _           
                .--,(            ),--.      
            _.-(                       )-._ 
           (           INTERNET            )
            '-._(                     )_.-' 
                 '__,(            ),__'     
                      - ._(__)_. -          
                ^                      |
                |                      |
                |                      v
           .---------.           .-----------.
encryption | stunnel |           |  getmail  | deliver
           '---------'           '-----------'
                ^                      |
                |                      |
                |                      v
           .---------.           .----------.
      send | postfix |           | procmail |  filter
           '---------'           '----------'
                ^                      |
                |                      |
                |                      v
            .------.              .---------.
read/write  | mutt |<============>| dovecot |  store
            '------'              '---------'

Getmail, procmail, dovecot, mutt, postfix and stunnel. That's 6 programs to do what your Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird do. But I can assure you that the former 6 programs offer a better experience compared to the latter ones.

I. Some vocabulary Before going further, let's redefine here some acronyms commonly used to talk about email systems. The list is based on the mail concept overview from the mutt wiki. MRA: Mail Retrieval Agent, the program fetching mails from the internet (such as fetchmail or getmail) MDA: Mail Delivery Agent, the program actually... Read Managing mails the Unix way

JDobbelstein.dev() - Tag - getmail

Managing mails the Unix way