Mailbox Shortcuts

There are a number of built in shortcuts which refer to specific mailboxes. These shortcuts can be used anywhere you are prompted for a file or mailbox path or in path-related configuration variables. Note that these only work at the beginning of a string.

Shortcut Reference

Shortcut	Refers to…
!	Your $spool_file (incoming) mailbox
>	Your $mbox file
<	Your $record file
^	The current mailbox
- or !!	The file you’ve last visited
~	Your home directory
= or +	Your $folder directory
@alias	To the default save folder as determined by the address of the alias

Usage Example

To store a copy of outgoing messages in the folder they were composed in, a :folder-hook can be used to set $record:

folder-hook . 'set record=^'

Note

The current mailbox shortcut, ^, has no value in some cases. No mailbox is opened when NeoMutt is invoked to send an email from the command-line. In interactive mode, NeoMutt reads the muttrc before opening the mailbox, so immediate expansion won’t work as expected either. This can be an issue when trying to directly assign to $record, but also affects the :fcc-hook mailbox, which is expanded immediately too. The folder-hook example above works because the command is executed later, when the :folder-hook fires.