simplemailclient

A small terminal mail client written in Rust. It sends mail over SMTP, fetches over IMAP, and gives you a split-pane TUI for reading, replying, and composing.

The installed binary is named mail.

Features

• TUI inbox — folders (Inbox / Sent / Starred / Trash), a message list, and a reading pane, navigable with Tab / arrow keys and j / k.
• Compose & reply in-app: To / Attach / Body fields, Ctrl+S to send, Esc to cancel.
• Text attachments under 10 MB (validated as UTF-8 text).
• Auto-sync every 10 seconds while idle, plus on-demand sync with S.
• Contacts auto-collected from mail you send and receive, referenced by a stable numeric ID.

Install

cargo install simplemailclient

Configuration

On first run a starter config is written to your config directory (~/.config/mail-rs/config.toml on Linux/macOS, %APPDATA%\mail-rs\config.toml on Windows). Fill in your SMTP/IMAP details:

identity     = "you@gmail.com"
display_name = "Your Name"
domain       = "gmail.com"

[smtp]
host     = "smtp.gmail.com"
port     = 587
username = "you@gmail.com"
password = "your-app-password"   # use an App Password, not your login password
tls      = true

[imap]
host         = "imap.gmail.com"
port         = 993
username     = "you@gmail.com"
password     = "your-app-password"
tls          = true
inbox_folder = "INBOX"

Usage

mail                      # launch the interactive TUI
mail send <username|id>   # compose and send from the command line
mail inbox                # list inbox messages
mail read <index>         # read a message by index
mail sync                 # fetch new mail via IMAP

TUI keys

In the compose modal, Tab cycles To → Attach → Body, Ctrl+S sends, and Esc cancels. In the Attach field, type a file path and press Enter to queue it.

Data

Mail and contacts are stored in a local JSON file (~/.local/share/mail-rs/mailbox.json, or %LOCALAPPDATA%\mail-rs\mailbox.json on Windows).

License

MIT