Setting up the Alpine MUA

Requirements

You might like to have unicode support e.g. on NetBSD with PDKSH

vi /etc/profile

export ENV=/etc/shrc

vi /etc/shrc

    export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
    export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
    export LC_ALL=""

Install

from scratch see alpine-source

debian

apt install alpine

slackware

slackpkg search alpine
ls -lF /var/log/packages/alpine-*

netbsd

echo $PKG_PATH
pkg_add alpine

freebsd

pkg install alpine

Setup

Make sure there’s a white space after the two dashes

vi ~/.signature

-- 
YOUR SIGNATURE

Make sure you’re on an UTF-8 capable display

Get ready for spell checks

dpkg -l | grep aspell
ls -lF /var/log/packages/ | grep aspell
pkg_info | grep aspell
pkg info | grep aspell

Get a wiped-out config to start with

alpine

ENTER
Q

mv -i .pinerc .pinerc.dist
sed '/^#/d; /^$/d' .pinerc.dist > .pinerc.clean

Grab my template and define a few things (4 first lines) e.g. don’t reply to yourself by enabling alt-addresses

wget https://pub.nethence.com/dotfiles/dot.pinerc
cp -i dot.pinerc.txt .pinerc
vi .pinerc

change/update those

personal-name=YOUR NAME
user-domain=DOMAIN.TLD
alt-addresses=contact@DOMAIN.TLD,
    support@DOMAIN.TLD,
    abuse@DOMAIN.TLD

and if the username doesn’t match, you can fix your From header appopriately

customized-hdrs=From: YOUR NAME <YOUR@EMAIL>

note customized headers is only required when the UNIX user-name differs from your email login

in case this is not a mail host

smtp-server=SMARTHOST/tls

check and backup

grep -vE '^#|^$|=$' .pinerc
mv -f .pinerc .pinerc.tmp
grep -vE '^#|^$|=$' .pinerc.tmp > .pinerc
rm -f .pinerc.tmp
#diff -bu dot.pinerc.txt .pinerc
diff -bu dot.pinerc .pinerc

Unused

    convert-dates-to-localtime,
    thread-sorts-by-arrival,
    slash-collapses-entire-thread

Handy mailboxen

Thunderbird wants

Sent
Drafts
Trash

iOS Mail wants

    Sent\ Messages
    Saved
    Deleted\ Messages

Alpine provides

sent-mail
postponed-msgs
saved-messages

hence on the email storage itself as follows

mbox for Alpine vs Thunderbird and iOS Mail

    cd ~USER/mail/
    ln -s sent-mail Sent
ln -s sent-mail Sent\ Messages
    ln -s postponed-msgs Drafts
    ln -s postponed-msgs Saved
    ln -s saved-messages Trash
    ln -s saved-messages Deleted\ Messages

and check

ls -lF sent-mail Sent* postpone* Drafts Saved Trash Deleted*

Maildir for Thunderbird vs iOS Mail

cd ~/Maildir/
ln -s .Sent .Sent\ Messages
ln -s .Trash .Deleted\ Messages
ln -s .Drafts Saved

Resources

Why I still love Alpine for email at the Linux terminal https://opensource.com/article/18/8/love-alpine

Configuration and Preferences http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/doc/alpine-doc/tech-notes/config.html

What is a Mail Drop? http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/doc/alpine-doc/tech-notes/config-notes.html#maildrop

Setting up a Maildrop http://alpine.x10host.com/alpine/alpine-info/maildrop/

unicode https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/unicode/

~/mail/

https://superuser.com/questions/194596/mail-disappears-in-other-clients-after-using-alpine

maildir

https://web.archive.org/web/20170422040622/http://patches.freeiz.com/alpine/alpine-info/tips/index.html ==> tip 84

https://serverfault.com/questions/1056995/making-alpine-work-all-the-way-with-maildir ==> #mc not #md

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/34954/how-do-i-set-up-alpine-to-read-local-unix-generated-mail