CategoryComputingTips > MailCompTips

Mail Tips

mutt and Envelope From

When using newer mutt you can set envelope_from so it uses the From: header as the envelope sender. If you use many email address to send mail from this can be very useful especially if you use role addresses and want any bounces to go back to the role address. Just set your MTA to allow you to use the -f switch (in exim change trusted_users) and away you go.

mutt and exim

When using mutt and exim as your combination of MUA and MTA you might discover that nothing is removing your BCC headers. This is beacuse of a disagreement between the development communities, each saying that it is the other's responsibility. This can be solved by adding set write_bcc=no to your .muttrc.

mutt and replying to the correct address

Some mailing list managers think that they know best when it comes to attempting to manage where a reply to a post on their mailing list should go. They express this wish by munging the reply-to header a subject which is very emotive and has caused many a flame to be written.

Normally people cite the following:

• http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

• http://www.metasystema.org/essays/reply-to-useful.html

• http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/listreplyto.txt

mutt thankfully lets the user decide exactly what they want to do. I find that once lists are correctly identified to mutt that the following settings give me the most power:

set ignore_list_reply_to                # When To: and Reply-To: are the
                                        # same.  Press L for list replies.
set reply_to=ask-yes                    # Ask me!
set honor_followup_to=ask-yes           # Ask me!

procmail and sound

You can make procmail run any program and therefore can get it to play a sound file when you get new mail. Someone on a LUG list asked me for this so here's what I tested:

:0 c
|/home/huggie/bin/son.sh

where son.sh contains for me just one play command but could contain anything.