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 mailrs (avoids clashing with the standard Unix mail command).

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 and Body fields, Ctrl+S to send, Esc to cancel.
• Real trash — pressing d moves the message locally and copies it to the configured trash folder on the IMAP server, then expunges it from the inbox so it never comes back on re-sync.
• Deduplication — messages are keyed by their RFC 2822 Message-ID; a message you've already seen is never re-delivered on sync.
• Auto-sync every 10 seconds while idle, plus on-demand sync with S. Fetches up to the last 50 messages tagged [mailrs_mail].
• Contacts auto-collected from mail you send and receive, referenced by a stable numeric ID (use the ID in the To field to address people quickly).

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"
trash_folder  = "[Gmail]/Trash"  # Gmail; other providers: "Trash" or "Deleted"

Gmail users: trash_folder must be [Gmail]/Trash.
Other providers: try Trash (the default) or Deleted.

Usage

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

TUI keys

In the compose modal, Tab cycles between the To and Body fields. Enter in the To field jumps straight to the body. Ctrl+S sends; Esc cancels.

Data

Mail and contacts are stored locally:

Configuration lives in:

License

MIT