# vmail vmail is a Vim interface to Gmail. Why vmail? Because some people love using Vim 1000 times more than using a web browser or a GUI mail program. ## Prerequisites * a Gmail account * a relatively recent version of Vim (vmail is developed against Vim 7.3) * Ruby with SSL support compiled in (vmail is developed using Ruby 1.9.2) * RubyGems (if Ruby version is older than 1.9) * the `lynx` text-only-mode web browser is required to view HTML mail parts in vmail The current version of vmail assumes a Unix environment. I'll try to make later versions accommodate Windows. Your Gmail account should be [IMAP-enabled][gmailimap]. [gmailimap]:http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77695 ## Installation gem install vmail Test your installation by typing `vmail -h`. You should see vmail's help. On some systems you may run into a PATH issue, where the system can't find the `vmail` command after installation. Please report this if you encounter this problem, and mention what system you're using. You might want to try sudo gem install vmail to see if that puts `vmail` on your PATH. vmail is evolving rapidly. To update to the latest version, simply run the installation command again. gem install vmail ## Configuration file To run vmail, create a yaml file called `.vmailrc` and save it either in the current directory (the directory from which you launch vmail) or in your home directory. The `.vmailrc` file should look something like this. Substitute your own values. username: dhchoi@gmail.com password: password name: Daniel Choi signature: | -- Sent from vmail. http://danielchoi.com/software/vmail.html This file should be formatted in [YAML syntax][1]. [1]:http://www.yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html You can omit the password key-value pair if you'd rather not have the password saved in the file. In that case, you'll prompted for the password each time you start vmail. If you are behind a firewall that blocks IMAP, there are additional configuration options that you can use. See below. ## Contacts autocompletion vmail uses Vim autocompletion to help you auto-complete email addresses. To use this feature, generate a `vmail-contacts.txt` file in the current or home directory. This is a simple list of your email contacts. Invoking vmail with the `-g` option generates this file for you by collecting all the recipients and cc's from your last 500 sent emails. You can adjust this number by using `-g` with a number argument. After vmail generates this file for you, you can edit it however and whenever you want, as long as there is one address per line. ## Starting vmail Once you've created the configuration file and (optionally) the contacts file, you can start vmail with vmail This opens the vmail/Vim interface and shows you the last 100 messages in your Gmail inbox. You can have vmail show messages from any other mailbox (a.k.a. label) on startup by passing in the mailbox name as an argument: vmail starred You can also pass in search parameters: vmail important from barackobama@whitehouse.gov On startup, vmail loads 100 messages by default. You can increase or decrease this number by passing in a number after the mailbox name: vmail inbox 700 subject unix ## Viewing messages The first screen vmail shows you is a list of messages. You can view a message by moving the cursor line to it and pressing ENTER. This will split the screen and show the message content in the bottom pane. To full-screen the message, press SPACE when the cursor is in the message window. You can also use the standard Vim key sequence `C-w C-o`. To go back to the split view, press ENTER. You can full-screen the list window by pressing SPACE while the cursor is in it. You can also use the standard Vim key sequence `C-w C-o`. In the split view, you can jump between the two panes by just pressing ENTER from either window. You can also use the standard Vim key sequence `C-w C-w`. You can use `` or `,j` from either split window to show the next message. You can use `` or `,k` to show the previous message. vmail loads a certain number messages at a time, starting with the most recent. If there are more messages that vmail hasn't loaded, you'll see a line at the top of the list that looks something like this: > Load 100 more messages. 156 remaining. Put the cursor on this line and press ENTER to load more of these messages. Unread messages are marked with a `+` symbol. To view the raw RFC822 version of a message, type `,R` while viewing the message. ## Starring, deleting, archiving, marking spam To star a message, put the cursor on it and type `,*`. (Note that the comma before the * is part of the key sequence.) Starring a message copies it to the `starred` mailbox. Starred messages are marked with a `*` symbol and color-highlighted. To delete a message, put the cursor on it and type `,#`. Deleting a message puts it in the `trash` mailbox. Deleting a message from the `trash` mailbox deletes it permanently. To archive a message, put the cursor on it and type `,e`. Archiving a message moves it to the `all` mailbox. To mark a message spam, put the cursor on it and type `,!`. This moves the message to to the `spam` mailbox. You can use range selections in the message list when you star, delete, mark as spam, or archive. Use `` to start marking a range of lines (the vertical position of the cursor doesn't matter). Then type any of the above commands to perform an action on all the messages you selected. ## Checking for new messages To check for new messages in the current mailbox, press `u` in normal mode and watch the status line. ## Switching mailboxes, moving messages, copying messages to another mailbox To switch mailboxes, type `,m`. You'll see an autocomplete window appear at the top. The standard Vim autocomplete keystrokes apply: * `C-p` and `C-n` move you up and down the match list * `C-e` closes the match list and lets you continue typing * `C-u`: when the match list is active, cycles forward through the match list and what you've typed so far; when the match list is inactive, erases what you've typed. * `C-x C-u` finds matches for what you've typed so far (when the match list window is closed) * `C-y` selects the highlighted match without triggering ENTER * ENTER selects the highlighted match from the match list Tip: start typing the first 1-3 characters of the mailbox name, then press `C-n`, `C-u` or `C-p` until you highlight the right match, and finally press ENTER to select. To move a message to another mailbox, put the cursor on the message in the message list, and type `,b`. You'll be prompted to select the target mailbox. To copy a message to another mailbox, put the cursor on the message in the message list, and type `,B`. You'll be prompted to select the target mailbox. If you type in the name of a target mailbox that doesn't exist yet, vmail will create it for you before performing a move or copy. ## Composing messages To start writing a new a email message, type `,c`. That's a comma followed by the character 'c'. To reply to a message, type `,r`. To reply-all to a message, type `,a`. To forward a message, type `,f`. All these commands open a message composition window. At the top, you will see mail headers like this: from: Daniel Choi to: subject: The `from:` field will be pre-filled from your `.vmailrc` configuration. You're responsible for filling in the `to:` and the `subject:` fields. You can add a `cc:` and `bcc:` field if you want. When you fill in the recipient addresses, you can use Vim autocompletion if you generated a `vmail-contacts.txt` file. Start typing a name or email address, then press `C-x C-u` to invoke autocompletion. Tip: Use `C-y` instead of ENTER to select a match. This will prevent you from creating a blank line in the middle of the email headers. Make sure your email addresses are separated by commas and that they all ultimately appear on the **same, unbroken line** for each field. Vim will probably break long lines automatically as you type them, so for now (pending a future enhancement), you'll have to rejoin the lines if breaks get inserted. After you fill in the headers, write your message. Make sure there is a blank line between the headers and the body of your message. When you're done writing, send the message by typing `,vs` in normal mode. While you're composing a message in the composition window, you can save a draft to a local file with the standard Vim `:w` command: :w my_draft_filename.txt Make sure you append *.txt to the filename, or else vmail won't recognize it as a potential email when you reload it. Make sure you don't use `:wq` unless you mean to quit vmail immediately. After you save the draft to a file, you can go back to the message list by typing `q` in normal mode. To resume writing the draft later, just type `:e my_draft_filename.txt` to load the draft email into a buffer. (Use `:e!` if you're already in the message composition window. You can also use `:sp` if you want to open the draft email file in a split window, etc.) Resume editing. Send by typing `,vs`. At any point, you can quit the composition window by typing `q` in normal mode. You can also use `vmailsend` from the command line to send a message that you've compmosed with correct headers and saved to a file, like so: vmailsend < my_message.txt vmailsend uses your `.vmailrc` configuration. ## Attachments The current version of vmail can handle attachments to a certain extent. When you're viewing a message with attachments, you'll see something like this at the top of the message window: INBOX 2113 4 kb - image/png; name=canada.png - image/gif; name=arrow_right.gif --------------------------------------- from: Daniel Choi date: Sun, Dec 12 08:39 AM -05:00 2010 to: Daniel Choi subject: attachment test see attached To download these attachments to a local directory, type `,A`. You'll be prompted for a directory path. Then vmail will save all the attachments in the message to this directory, creating the directory if necessary. To send attachments, add something like this to your new message in the message composition window: from: Daniel Choi to: barackobama@whitehouse.gov subject: look at this! attach: - images/middle-east-map.png - images/policypaper.pdf - docs/ I think you'll find this stuff interesting. The `attach:` block is a YAML list. The items are paths (either relative or absolute) to the files you want to attach to your message. Note that you can also specify a directory, in which case vmail attaches every file it finds in that directory. One thing vmail doesn't do yet is let you forward a message with all its attachments intact. This feature will be implemented in the near future. ## Printing messages to a file `,vp` from the message list prints (appends) the text content of all the selected messages to a file. ## Invoking your web browser When you're reading a message, `,o` opens the first hyperlink in the document on or after the cursor in your normal web browser. When you're reading a message with an html mail part, `,h` saves that part to a local file (`vmail-htmlpart.html`) and opens it in your normal web browser. By default, the vmail uses the command `open` to launch your web browser. In OS X, this opens URLs and HTML files in the default web browser. You can change the browser vmail invokes by setting the VMAIL_BROWSER environmental variable before you start vmail, e.g.: export VMAIL_BROWSER='elinks' ## Search queries vmail can generate a message list by performing an IMAP search on the current mailbox. From the message list window, type `,s`. This will prompt you for a search query. The search query is an optional number specifying the number of messages to return, followed by a valid IMAP search query. Here are some example search queries. # the default 100 all # all messages from thematrix.com domain from thematrix.com # all messages from this person from barackobama@whitehouse.gov # you can also omit the host part of the email address from barackobama # you can also search by the full name, first name, or last name associated # with an email; use double quotes to enclose multiple words cc "David Fisher" # subject field search; use double quotes to enclose multiple words subject "unix philosophy" # message body search; use double quotes to enclose multiple words body "unix philosophy" # example of date range and multiple conditions before 30-Nov-2010 since 1-Nov-2010 from prx.org Tip: When you're entering your search query, `` clears the query line. Power-Tip: When you're at the search query prompt, `` opens a mini-editor that contains the current query plus a history of previous vmail search queries. You can edit any line in this mini-editor and press ENTER to perform the query on that line. ## Getting help Typing `,?` will open this webpage in a browser. ## Using vmail with MacVim vmail uses standard Vim by default, but vmail also works with MacVim, but not perfectly. In particular, there seems to be a bug in MacVim that prevents vmail's status line activity messages from appearing properly. Nonetheless, most of vmail is functional in MacVim. To use MacVim as your vmail Vim engine, `export VMAIL_VIM=mvim` before starting vmail. Note that when vmail uses MacVim, the terminal window in which you invoke vmail will show vmail's logging output while MacVim is running. To quit vmail in MacVim mode, you will have to press CTRL-c in this window to stop the vmail process in after quitting the MacVim app. ## vmail file byproducts vmail generates a few file byproducts when it is running. It generates a temporary `vmailbuffer` file in the current directory to hold the message list. This should get deleted automatically when vmail quits. vmail also creates a `compose_message.txt` file if you save the buffer for a new message. vmail creates a `vmail-htmlpart.html` file in the current directory if you open an HTML mail part from vmail. Finally, vmail logs output to a `vmail.log` file which it creates in the current directory. You can tail this file in a separate terminal window to see what's going on behind the scenes as you use vmail. ## Is my Gmail password secure? In short, yes. vmail uses TLS ([Transport Layer Security][tls]) to perform IMAP and SMTP authentication. So vmail transmits your password securely over the network. [tls]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security You can also be sure that the vmail code doesn't do anything nefarious with your Gmail password because vmail is open source. Anyone can inspect the source code of the copy of vmail that runs on your computer and inspect the latest vmail code at the [github repository][github] and at [rubygems.org][rubygems] (where the vmail gem is downloaded from). [github]:https://github.com/danchoi/vmail [rubygems]:https://rubygems.org/gems/vmail ## Additional configuration options The default IMAP server vmail uses is `imap.gmail.com` and the default port is `993`. If you want to change these values, e.g, because you are behind a firewall which blocks IMAP, you can change these values by adding two lines in your .vmailrc, like so: server: localhost port: 2999 Then you can create an SSH tunnel, e.g. ssh -f user@example.com -L 2999:imap.gmail.com:993 -N (Thanks to [Dave Bolton][davebolton] for this patch.) [davebolton]:https://github.com/lightningdb ## Customizing colors By default, vmail highlights starred messages in bold green against a black background. You can customize this setting by adding a line to your ~/.vimrc file like so: let g:vmail_flagged_color = "ctermfg=yellow ctermbg=black cterm=bold" Type `:help highlight-args` in Vim for more details. ## Bug reports, feature requests, user community Please file bug reports and feature requests in the [vmail github issue tracker][tracker]. vmail is very young and in beta, so there are bound to be bugs and issues. But in a few weeks, with your help, vmail will become stable. [tracker]:https://github.com/danchoi/vmail/issues And if you have any tips or troubleshooting advice you want to share with other vmail users, please add them to the [vmail wiki][wiki]. [wiki]:https://github.com/danchoi/vmail/wiki ## How to contact the developer My name is Daniel Choi. I am based in Cambridge, MA, and you can email me at dhchoi@gmail.com.