Account Command 🔥

Since: NeoMutt 2022-05-16

Introduction

NeoMutt provides dedicated config options to specify credentials for network servers. These include $imap_user, $imap_pass, $smtp_user, $smtp_pass, etc. There are a few downsides to this approach. For one thing, their use encourages storing usernames and passwords in plain text inside a NeoMutt config file. People have come up with solutions to this, including using GPG-encrypted files and populating my_ variables via external scripts through source "/path/to/script|". However, once the variables are set, the secrets can be inspected with the :set command. Also, because these config options are not account-specific, they have been the cause of a proliferation of ways to mimic per-account setups using a combination of convoluted hooks and macros to modify them on folder change or on a keypress.

The goal of this feature is to get rid of most _user and _pass variables. To do so, it provides a way of specifying an external command that NeoMutt will call to populate account credentials for network servers such as IMAP, POP, or SMTP. The external command is called with a number of arguments indicating the known properties of the account such as the account type and hostname; the external command provides NeoMutt with a list of additional properties such as username and password.

Usage

1. Set $account_command to point to your external script:

   set account_command = "/path/to/my/script.sh"
   

2. NeoMutt will call the specified program with the following key-value command line arguments:

   • --hostname val – the network host name of the service

   • --username val – the username for the account. This might be specified in the URL itself, e.g., set folder="imaps://me@example.com@example.com" or with a dedicated existing variable, e.g. set imap_user=me@example.com.

   • --type val – the type of the account, one of imap, pop, smtp, nntp, with an optional trailing s if SSL/TLS is required.

3. The script must respond by printing to stdout a number of key: value lines. NeoMutt currently recognizes the following keys:

   • login

   • username

   • password

Because password can contain any characters, including spaces, lines are expected to match the regex ^([[:alpha:]]+): (.*)$ exactly.

Credits

Pietro Cerutti