GNU-devel ELPA - minimail

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Description
Simple, non-blocking IMAP email client
Latest
minimail-0.4.2.0.20260503.131523.tar (.sig), 2026-May-04, 140 KiB
Maintainer
Augusto Stoffel <arstoffel@gmail.com>
Website
https://codeberg.org/astoff/minimail
Browse ELPA's repository
CGit or Gitweb
All Dependencies
transient (.tar)
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To install this package from Emacs, use package-install or list-packages.

Full description

GNU ELPA

Minimail is a simple, non-blocking IMAP email client for Emacs. It is a rather new package but covers the basics needed for reading and replying to messages:

  • Displaying messages, including MIME content (rendering via Gnus)
  • Composing, replying to and forwarding messages
  • Multi-account support
  • Search, via transient menu
  • Moving messages between mailboxes (also archive, move to trash, move to junk folder)
  • Sorting by thread, in two modes:
    • “Shallow” threading (just one nesting level, sorted by date) using server-side thread information if available or subject lines as a fallback.
    • Optionally, hierarchical threads based on reference message IDs.

Here is a list of planned features:

  • Watching for new messages and notifications
  • Virtual mailboxes a.k.a. bookmarked searches
  • Login via OAuth
  • Various optimizations, perhaps a persistent cache

Minimail is an online IMAP client. It is intended to coexist peacefully with other clients accessing the same account. Moreover, it is intended to remain no more complicated than your regular webmail app. In line with that, the following are some features which are not planned:

  • Filtering (use server-side filtering instead)
  • Offline access
  • POP, NNTP, RSS, Maildir, instant messaging, microblogging, social media, virtual reality, etc.

1. Try it out

Minimail comes pre-configured to access the Emacs mailing lists served by Yhetil via anonymous IMAP. Just type M-x minimail-show-mailboxes RET to try it out.

2. Configuration

Just set mail-user-agent to minimail and customize the variable minimail-accounts. The latter accepts many different options, so it might be convenient to explore it using the Customize interface (even if you later decide to simply copy the Lisp expression to your init file). That said, the only required option is :incoming-url. In order to send emails, you should also set the :mail-address option as well as the message-server-alist variable from the Message package.

Here is an illustrative example: 

(setq mail-user-agent 'minimail
      minimail-accounts
      '((gmail ;; This can be any symbol you like to identify the account
         :mail-address "somebody@gmail.com"
         :incoming-url "imaps://imap.gmail.com")
        (work ;; Assuming Evil Corp. uses "Google Workspace" as email provider
         :mail-address "webmaster@evilcorp.com"
         :incoming-url "imaps://imap.gmail.com"
         :signature (file "~/work/.signature"))
        (uni
         :mail-address "somebody@math.niceuni.edu"
         ;; Include a username in the IMAP server URL if it doesn't
         ;; match your email address.  Use `imap' as URL scheme if the
         ;; server only supports STARTTLS.
         :incoming-url "imap://username@imap.niceuni.edu"))
      message-server-alist
      '(("somebody@gmail.com" . "smtp smtp.gmail.com 465 somebody@gmail.com")
        ("webmaster@evilcorp.com" . "smtp smtp.gmail.com 465 webmaster@evilcorp.com")
        ("somebody@math.niceuni.edu" . "smtp smtp.niceuni.edu 587 username")))

In addition to the above, you need to configure auth-source to supply the passwords. Some email providers require you to first create an "app password" (for Gmail, see this). Then your ~/.authinfo file should look something like this: 

machine imap.gmail.com login somebody@gmail.com password xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
machine smtp.gmail.com login somebody@gmail.com password xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

machine imap.gmail.com login webmaster@evilcorp.com password yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
machine smtp.gmail.com login webmaster@evilcorp.com password yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

machine imap.niceuni.edu login username password zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
machine smtp.niceuni.edu login username password zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Once you get the basics up and running, try M-x customize-group minimail RET to explore all customization options.

3. Usage

This package has two main entry points. The command minimail-show-mailboxes displays the mailbox hierarchy of your accounts, while minimail-find-mailbox directly opens a mailbox you choose from the minibuffer. In a mailbox or message buffer, hit h to see a list of available commands.

Old versions

minimail-0.4.2.0.20260428.192238.tar.lz2026-Apr-2827.8 KiB
minimail-0.4.0.20260427.90919.tar.lz2026-Apr-2727.8 KiB
minimail-0.4.0.20260415.81600.tar.lz2026-Apr-1527.7 KiB
minimail-0.3.0.20260404.123801.tar.lz2026-Apr-1026.5 KiB
minimail-0.3.0.20260330.82338.tar.lz2026-Mar-3024.9 KiB
minimail-0.3.0.20251125.163059.tar.lz2025-Nov-2524.9 KiB
minimail-0.2.0.20251101.84006.tar.lz2025-Nov-0123.3 KiB
minimail-0.1.1.0.20251013.74521.tar.lz2025-Oct-1320.8 KiB