Using Emacs as an email client

Davmail

In my work routines, Microsoft is somewhat unavoidable, and trying to have an email client that can sync Exchange in linux has always been a pain to me. This is my documentation on how to use notmuch, davmail, and msmtp to sync my work emails.

Configuration

davmail.server=true
davmail.mode=Auto
davmail.url=https://mail.domain/EWS/Exchange.asmx
davmail.defaultDomain=DOMAIN
davmail.ssl.nosecurecaldav=false
davmail.ssl.nosecureimap=false
davmail.ssl.nosecureldap=false
davmail.ssl.nosecurepop=false
davmail.ssl.nosecuresmtp=false
davmail.caldavPort=1081
davmail.imapPort=1144
davmail.ldapPort=1390
davmail.popPort=1111
davmail.smtpPort=1026
davmail.imapAutoExpunge=true
davmail.allowRemote=false
davmail.logFilePath=/tmp/davmail-domain.log
davmail.logFileSize=1MB
davmail.disableGuiNotifications=true
davmail.disableTrayActivitySwitch=true
davmail.showStartupBanner=false
davmail.enableKerberos=false

Notes

• davmail.mode set to auto.
• uses port > 1024 to avoid using root privileges.
• Also set the davmail.logFilePath to a path that is accessible.
• davmail.server set to true since I don’t need the GUI.
• All the ssl options is not necessary since it will only be accessed locally.

msmtp

It’s a simple smtp client with fairly complete sendmail compatibility. This is not a full tutorial on how to setup msmtp, there’s already much information for that online¹.

# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
auth           on
tls            on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
logfile        /tmp/msmtp.log

account exchange
host localhost
port 1025
tls off
tls_starttls off
auth plain
user DOMAIN\username
from username@domain
passwordeval pass domain/username

Notes

• logfile should be accessible (read/write) by the user.
• account must be unique if there’s more than one accounts.
• tls options should refer to the exchange server.
• port is defined in davmail.

offlineimap

[general]
accounts = domain
maxsyncaccounts = 4
socktimeout = 10
pythonfile = ~/.local/bin/offlineimap-helper.py

[Account domain]
localrepository = domain-local
remoterepository = domain-remote

[Repository domain-local]
Type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/.mail/domain
sync_deletes = yes
autorefresh = 0.5
quick = 10
keepalive = 240
holdconnectionopen = yes

[Repository domain-remote]
Type = IMAP
remotehosteval = get_credentials("domain", "host")
remoteporteval = get_credentials("domain", "port")
remoteusereval = get_credentials("domain", "user")
remotepasseval = get_credentials("domain", "passeval")
maxconnections = 1
ssl = no
retrycount = 4
tls_level = tls_no_ssl

Notes

• We’ll be using a helper script to determine the host, port, user, and password.

offlineimap-helper.py

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#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Offlineimap helper script"""

from subprocess import check_output
from os import getenv, path
import json

JSON_FILE = "credentials.json"
if getenv("XDG_DATA_HOME") and path.exists(getenv("XDG_DATA_HOME") + "/" + "offlineimap"):
    JSON_PATH = getenv("XDG_DATA_HOME") + "/" + "offlineimap"
else:
    JSON_PATH = getenv("HOME") + "/" + ".local/share/offlineimap"


f = open(JSON_PATH + "/" + JSON_FILE)
creds_data = json.load(f)

def get_credentials(name, query):
    for item in creds_data["accounts"]:
        if item["name"] == name:
            if query == "host":
                return item["host"]
            elif query == "port":
                return item["port"]
            elif query == "user":
                return item["user"]
            elif query == "passeval":
                return item["passeval"]

• Notes

  • This script will read a json file located at ~/.local/share/offlineimap/credentials.json

~/.local/share/offlineimap/credentials.json

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{
    "accounts": [
        {
            "name": "domain",
            "host": "localhost",
            "port": 1144,
            "user": "username",
            "passeval": "somepassword"
        }

    ]
}

Notes:

• use a strict permission (such as 0700) for this file since password is written in clear text.

notmuch

[database]
path=/home/kristian.alexander/.mail

[user]
name=Kristian Alexander P
primary_email=username@domain
[new]
tags=new

[search]

exclude_tags=deleted;spam
[maildir]
synchronize_flags=true

Notes:

• This file should be generated by the command notmuch setup.

notmuch hooks

We’ll be using two hooks, one is pre-new, which will be sourced whenever notmuch is running. And the other one is post-new, which we’ll be sourced after all new emails is synced.

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#!/usr/bin/env/bash
[[ -x $(which offlineimap) ]] && offlineimap -s

This will ensure each time we call notmuch new, it will run offlineimap.

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#!/usr/bin/env bash

newcount=$(notmuch count tag:new)
summary="Notmuch: ${newcount} new message"

if [ $newcount -gt 1 ]; then summary="${summary}s"; fi
if [ $newcount -gt 0 ]; then detail="$(notmuch search --output=summary --format=json tag:new | sed -e 's/.*authors": "//;s/|[^"]*"/"/;s/", "subject": "/ : /;s/".*//')"; fi

notmuch tag -new        -- tag:new

# See the notmuch pre-hook for DISPLAY thoughts
# Desktop notifications
if [ $newcount -gt 0 ]; then logger -t notmuch "calling notify-send '$summary' '$detail'" && notify-send -i /usr/share/icons/Papirus/symbolic/actions/mail-message-new-symbolic.svg "$summary" "$detail"; fi
exit 0

cron

There’s lot of ways to automate the syncing process. systemd-timer is one of them, but since I’m an old-school person, I prefer cron.

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crontab -l

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MAILTO=alexforsale@yahoo.com
MAILFROM=alexforsale@yahoo.com
*/45 * * * *    notmuch new

Other

With all the processes above, we could use other mail clients like thunderbird or geary.