Use Mutt As Email Client

I only use the Raspberry Pi for a headless server, so I need a email client for sending email.

• Raspbian OS and
• Gmail

Install and configure Mutt

Install

It is in Raspbian repositories, so the installation is simple.

sudo apt-get install mutt

Configure Mutt to manage a Gmail

Edit its configuration file at /home/pi/.muttrc

nano /home/pi/.muttrc

Change the content of the file as following:

# $HOME/.muttrc
set realname = "Last_name First_name"
set from = "your_gmail_account@gmail.com"
set use_from = yes
set envelope_from = yes

set smtp_url = "smtps://your_gmail_account@gmail.com@smtp.gmail.com:465/"
set smtp_pass = "your_gmail_password"
set imap_user = "your_gmail_account@gmail.com"
set imap_pass = "your_gmail_password"
set folder = "imaps://imap.gmail.com:993"
set spoolfile = "+INBOX"
set ssl_force_tls = yes
# G to get mail
bind index G imap-fetch-mail
set editor = "nano"
set charset = "utf-8"
set record = ''

Note: Change these line accordingly to your Gmail preferences:

• set realname = “Last_name First_name”
• set from = “your_gmail_account@gmail.com”
• set smtp_url = “smtps://your_gmail_account@gmail.com@smtp.gmail.com:465/”
• set smtp_pass = “your_gmail_password”
• set imap_user = “your_gmail_account@gmail.com”
• set imap_pass = “your_gmail_password”

To test your new setting:

mutt -s "Test from mutt" your_name@your_email.com < /home/pi/text

Note: Change the email to the one you want to receive the test email. You also need a text file name ‘text’ with the body (message) of the email in it.

Send email content IP at startup - A simple script to employ Mutt in Raspbian.

I often drag my Raspberry Pi around so it has to get a different assigned IP. The script will tell me which IP it currently has.

#! /bin/bash
sleep 10

_IP=$(hostname -I) || true
if [ "$_IP" ]; then
 sudo -u pi /usr/bin/mutt -s "IP: $_IP" -- your_name@your_email.com << EOT
EOT
fi

Save it at home/pi/emailIP.sh

Note: Change the email to the one you want to receive the IP and change the username of the command sudo -u pi /usr/bin/mutt… if you use another (it is “pi” here as current sending user).

To run the script at boot, on your Pi edit the file /etc/rc.local (need root power):

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Add commands /home/pi/emailIP.sh below the comments, then save the file and exit.

Note: you must leave the line exit 0 at the end.