meli
A configurable terminal email client written in Rust with IMAP, Maildir, notmuch and JMAP support.
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1 more ways to get meli
Package managers
- Homebrew
brew install meli
About meli
meli is a mail client for the terminal aimed at both newcomers and power users. It supports IMAP, Maildir, notmuch, JMAP and mbox, shows email threads, runs multithreaded and uses tabs for multitasking. Configuration is plain text and account setup is minimal.
You can plug in your own editor, SMTP client, sync and tagging tools to replace the defaults. It offers optional sqlite3 search indexing and a contact list with read-only vCard support. It installs via cargo, Debian packages, a static Linux binary, MacPorts, pkgsrc, OpenBSD ports or Nix.
Strengths
- Supports IMAP, Maildir, notmuch, JMAP and mbox
- Plain text configuration with sane defaults
- Works with your own editor and sync tools
- Online WebAssembly demo to try it
Limitations
- Described by its developers as experimental
- Non-UTF-8 encodings are read-only
- Terminal only, no graphical interface
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source under the GPLv3.
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Developer
- The meli contributors
- Platforms
- macOS, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Terminal users wanting a modern alternative to mutt
- Categories
- Email clients, CLI tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to meli
Compare allSoftware that can replace meli for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
NeoMutt
A fork of Mutt that gathered decades of scattered patches into one maintained terminal mail client.
NeoMutt is a mature, widely packaged Mutt fork with notmuch tags and IMAP keywords, but needs a configuration file written first and has Mutt keybindings to learn.
Mutt
A text-based email client that runs in the terminal on Unix-like systems.
Mutt is the long-established terminal mail client that works well over SSH, with a steep learning curve and fewer built-in backends than meli's IMAP, notmuch and JMAP support.
aerc
A terminal email client with vim-style keys, an embedded terminal for composing, and first-class support for git email workflows.
aerc offers vim-style keys, an embedded terminal for composing and git patch workflow support, with IMAP, Maildir, Notmuch, Mbox and JMAP backends under the MIT license.
Alpine
A terminal email program descended from Pine, with its full documentation built into the program.
Alpine is a simple, menu-driven terminal client descended from Pine, with built-in documentation and Windows builds, but text-only and with infrequent releases.
Himalaya
Manage mail accounts through a command-line client.
Himalaya is a command-line mail client under MIT or Apache-2.0 that also runs on Windows, and supports several mail protocols and local mailbox formats.
alot
A terminal mail reader built on the notmuch indexer, with a command-prompt-driven interface.
alot is a notmuch-based terminal reader driven by a command prompt, so mail fetching and sending must be handled by separate tools.
mu
A Maildir indexer and search tool with mu4e, an email client for GNU Emacs.
mu indexes local Maildir folders and provides the mu4e client inside Emacs, so moving to mu means working from Emacs and fetching mail separately.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
notmuch
A fast, tag-based email indexing and search system used from a terminal or text editor.
isync
Fast IMAP to Maildir mirroring, usually invoked as mbsync.
OfflineIMAP
Synchronises IMAP accounts into local Maildir folders.
msmtp
A small SMTP client that sends mail for terminal mail readers and scripts through a mail server.
getmail6
A command-line tool that fetches mail from POP3 and IMAP servers into local mailboxes.
