
Ask HN: Going back to command-line e-mail on OS X? - jason_slack
I used to love command-line e-mail. Currently my frustration with GUI clients are to many to complain about! I&#x27;m moving to a MacBook while I do extensive travel and I want to limit the GUI stuff I have running all of the time.<p>I know `mutt` is good. I know I can install it via `brew`. What I&#x27;m looking for is a current guide to setting up an MTA, having it bring down all mail via POP and then having `mutt` use this. 
 It seems most resources I find are many years old and needing to apply patch after patch. We are all familiar with the `sidebar` patch.<p>Is it enough to do:<p>brew install fetchmail procmail mutt<p>Then setup each one piece by piece?<p>Edit: why `brew`? I tend to use it for a lot of packages. It is easy to upgrade and if I get a new machine or need to wipe and reload I can script a lot to get my machine back to the state I want it in.<p>Edit 2: Also, I am going to try and figure out how to use a YubiKey so I don&#x27;t have to hardcode any passwords in config files. I&#x27;ll write this up for everyone&#x27;s benefit.
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bradknowles
An MTA is a program like Sendmail or postfix, and is used to transmit e-mail
messages via SMTP. It's an important component in setting up your own mail
server, but it doesn't speak the POP3 or IMAP protocol.

For serving IMAP, one program I've had recommended to me is dovecot. I don't
have personal experience with it, but I've heard good things.

One solution I've considered is using dovecot on my local laptop, plus some
custom scripting with imapsync (to sync the mailboxes), then something like
mutt as a local IMAP client, and then imapsync would be responsible for
syncing the changes made with mutt back to the upstream mail server.

But I haven't done this yet, and I haven't done that much research into what
all components would be required to make this work well.

