Mutt:Sorting Mail Like a Boss
=============================
:author: Aaron Ball
:email: nullspoon@iohq.net


Mutt is a relatively difficult mail client to learn. However, as most if not
all mutt users will tell you, once you've got the hang of it, no other mail
client can come close to matching the efficiency and speed of command line mail
(or any thing else in command line for the most part).  I recently started
using mutt myself and just can't get over how efficient it is once you've got
your configuration sorted out. Yesterday I easily cleaned out 800 emails in
about five minutes using some very simple search terms (and no I didn't just
delete randomly 800 emails).  Unlike the title of this post implies though, I
am not amazing with mutt, but what I do know, however, can get me around very
quickly.  Here's what I use nearly every day.


[[tags]]
Tags
----

Mutt supports this neat thing called tagging. It's basically the command line
equivelant of multiselect (ctrl+click or shift+click).

**To tag a message**, move the cursor to it and hit the _t_ key.

**To tag a group of emails based on a pattern**, for example "Change Requests",
hit capital __T__. You will see at the bottom of your mutt window __Tag
messages matching:__. Type your tag term, hit enter, and you should see several
highlighted messages now.

Finally, **to peform an action on all tagged messages**, preceed the command
letter (s for save/move, d for delete, N for new, etc) with a semicolon ( ; ).
For instance, do delete all tagged messages, type __;d__.


[[limit-filter]]
Limit (Filter)
--------------

In mutt, you can do this really cool (though not novel in the slightest) thing
wherein you filter the displayed messages by a regular expression.  You don't
have to use a regular expression of course, but never the less it can be done.

**To limit/filter the currently displayed emails**, head over to a directory
you want to get a better filtered look at and press the _l_ key. You will see
at the bottom of your mutt window ''Limit to messages matching: ''. Type
whatever you want to limit to.

Note here though that limit by default only searches mail meta data unless
otherwise specified. This makes searches go much faster since most of the time
you're just cleaning up your inbox by subject, receivers, and date. If you do
want to search the body of your emails, preceed your search term with __~B__,
and mutt will go the extra mile and search email bodies for you.



// vim: set syntax=asciidoc:
