Mutt is surly Men’s best friend when it comes to managing huge amount of emails with Powers in hand.
Some updates which I made to my .muttrc to make my Mutt faster (on Max OSX):
set header_cache = /Volumes/ramdisk/headers set sleep_time = 0 set timeout = 15 # idle time before scanning set mail_check = 60 # minimum time between scans
As seen above, I am keeping the header cache on a ramdisk, it makes reading the same at least 50% faster. Create a RAM Disk of 100MB by running:
diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "ramdisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://204800`
In the example above 204800 means 100*2048, will create a ramdisk of 100MB.
You can see my .muttrc here, customized to my taste (or download from my github):
# Paths ----------------------------------------------
set folder = ~/.mail # mailbox location
set alias_file = ~/.mutt/alias # where to store aliases
#set header_cache = ~/.mutt/cache/headers # where to store headers
set header_cache = /Volumes/ramdisk/headers # where to store headers
#set message_cachedir = ~/.mutt/cache/bodies # where to store bodies
set certificate_file = ~/.mutt/certificates # where to store certs
set mailcap_path = ~/.mutt/mailcap # entries for filetypes
set tmpdir = ~/.mutt/temp # where to keep temp files
set signature = ~/.mutt/sig # my signature file
unset maildir_header_cache_verify # don't verify cache
folder-hook . 'set read_inc=10000' # don't update progress too fast
set sleep_time = 0
bind index,pager f next-new-then-unread
bind index,pager F forward-message
bind index,pager b previous-new-then-unread
bind index,pager B bounce-message
bind index S sort-mailbox
auto_view text/html
set sendmail_wait=-1
set mime_forward=yes
set mime_forward_rest=yes
# Basic Options --------------------------------------
set wait_key = no # shut up, mutt
set mbox_type = Maildir # mailbox type
set timeout = 15 # idle time before scanning
set mail_check = 60 # minimum time between scans
unset move # gmail does that
set delete # don't ask, just do
unset confirmappend # don't ask, just do!
set quit # don't ask, just do!!
unset mark_old # read/new is good enough for me
unset beep_new # bell on new mails
set pipe_decode # strip headers and eval mimes when piping
set thorough_search # strip headers and eval mimes before searching
# Sidebar Patch --------------------------------------
set sidebar_delim = ' '
set sidebar_visible = yes
set sidebar_width = 26
color sidebar_new color221 color233
# Sidebar Navigation ---------------------------------
bind index,pager sidebar-next
bind index,pager sidebar-prev
bind index,pager sidebar-open
# Status Bar -----------------------------------------
set status_chars = " *%A"
set status_format = "───[ Folder: %f ]───[%r%m messages%?n? (%n new)?%?d? (%d to delete)?%?t? (%t tagged)? ]───%>─%?p?( %p postponed )?───"
# Header Options -------------------------------------
ignore * # ignore all headers
unignore from: to: cc: date: subject: user-agent: # show only these
unhdr_order * # some distros order things by default
hdr_order from: to: cc: date: subject: user-agent: # and in this order
# Index View Options ---------------------------------
set date_format = "%D %r"
#set index_format = "[%Z] %D (%4c) %-30.30F %s"
set index_format="%4C %Z %D %-22.22F (%4c) %s"
set sort = reverse-date
#set sort_aux = reverse-last-date-received # like gmail
#set uncollapse_jump # don't collapse on an unread message
#set sort_re # thread based on regex
set reply_regexp = "^(([Rr][Ee]?(\[[0-9]+\])?: *)?(\[[^]]+\] *)?)*"
# Index Key Bindings ---------------------------------
bind index gg first-entry
bind index G last-entry
bind index R group-reply
bind index sync-mailbox
bind index collapse-thread
# Pager View Options ---------------------------------
set pager_index_lines = 10 # number of index lines to show
set pager_context = 3 # number of context lines to show
set pager_stop # don't go to next message automatically
set menu_scroll # scroll in menus
set tilde # show tildes like in vim
unset markers # no ugly plus signs
set quote_regexp = "^( {0,4}[>|:#%]| {0,4}[a-z0-9]+[>|]+)+"
alternative_order text/plain text/enriched text/html
# Pager Key Bindings ---------------------------------
bind pager k previous-line
bind pager j next-line
bind pager gg top
bind pager G bottom
set editor="vim -c 'set spell spelllang=en'"
bind pager R group-reply
# View attachments properly.
bind attach view-mailcap
# Ctrl-R to mark all as read
macro index \Cr "T~UN." "mark all messages as read"
# URL View
macro pager \Cu "|urlview" "call urlview to open links"
# Saner copy/move dialogs
macro index C "?" "copy a message to a mailbox"
macro index M "?" "move a message to a mailbox"
# Compose View Options -------------------------------
set realname = "Abhinav Gupta" # who am i?
set envelope_from # which from?
set sig_dashes # dashes before sig
set edit_headers # show headers when composing
set fast_reply # skip to compose when replying
set askcc # ask for CC:
set fcc_attach # save attachments with the body
#set mime_forward # forward attachments as part of body
set forward_format = "Fwd: %s" # format of subject when forwarding
set forward_decode # decode when forwarding
set attribution = "On %d, %n wrote:" # format of quoting header
set reply_to # reply to Reply to: field
set reverse_name # reply as whomever it was to
set include # include message in replies
set forward_quote # include message in forwards
bind compose p postpone-message
# Contacts
set query_command = "contacts -Sf '%eTOKEN%n' '%s' | sed -e 's/TOKEN/\t/g'"
bind editor complete-query
bind editor ^T complete
Biggest Reference: Steve Losh’s guide to Homely Mutt.