Himalaya Email CLI

Himalaya is a CLI email client that lets you manage emails from the terminal using IMAP, SMTP, Notmuch, or Sendmail backends.

References

references/configuration.md (config file setup + IMAP/SMTP authentication)

Prerequisites

Himalaya CLI installed (himalaya --version to verify)
A configuration file at ~/.config/himalaya/config.toml
IMAP/SMTP credentials configured (password stored securely)

Configuration Setup

Run the interactive wizard to set up an account (replace default with any name you want, e.g. gmail, work):

himalaya account configure default

Or create ~/.config/himalaya/config.toml manually:

[accounts.personal]
email = "you@example.com"
display-name = "Your Name"
default = true

backend.type = "imap"
backend.host = "imap.example.com"
backend.port = 993
backend.encryption.type = "tls"
backend.login = "you@example.com"
backend.auth.type = "password"
backend.auth.cmd = "pass show email/imap"  # or use keyring

message.send.backend.type = "smtp"
message.send.backend.host = "smtp.example.com"
message.send.backend.port = 587
message.send.backend.encryption.type = "start-tls"
message.send.backend.login = "you@example.com"
message.send.backend.auth.type = "password"
message.send.backend.auth.cmd = "pass show email/smtp"

If you are using 163 mail account, add backend.extensions.id.send-after-auth = true in the config file to ensure proper functionality.

Common Operations

List Folders

himalaya folder list

List Emails

List emails in INBOX (default):

himalaya envelope list

List emails in a specific folder:

himalaya envelope list --folder "Sent"

List with pagination:

himalaya envelope list --page 1 --page-size 20

If meet with error, try:

himalaya envelope list -f INBOX -s 1

Search Emails

himalaya envelope list from john@example.com subject meeting

Read an Email

Read email by ID (shows plain text):

himalaya message read 42

Export raw MIME:

himalaya message export 42 --full

Send / Compose Emails

Recommended approach: Use template write | template send pipeline for simple emails.

Send a simple email:

export EDITOR=cat
himalaya template write \
  -H "To: recipient@example.com" \
  -H "Subject: Email Subject" \
  "Email body content" | himalaya template send

Send with multiple headers:

export EDITOR=cat
himalaya template write \
  -H "To: recipient@example.com" \
  -H "Cc: cc@example.com" \
  -H "Subject: Email Subject" \
  "Email body content" | himalaya template send

Send with attachments (using Python):

For emails with attachments, use Python's smtplib and email.mime modules:

import smtplib
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email import encoders

msg = MIMEMultipart()
msg['From'] = 'sender@163.com'
msg['To'] = 'recipient@example.com'
msg['Subject'] = 'Email with attachment'

msg.attach(MIMEText('Email body', 'plain'))

# Add attachment
with open('/path/to/file.pdf', 'rb') as f:
    part = MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')
    part.set_payload(f.read())
    encoders.encode_base64(part)
    part.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="file.pdf"')
    msg.attach(part)

server = smtplib.SMTP_SSL('smtp.163.com', 465)
server.login('sender@163.com', 'password')
server.send_message(msg)
server.quit()

⚠️ MML attachment limitations: The template send command with MML format may fail with "cannot parse MML message: empty body" when using multipart/attachments. This is a known issue in himalaya v1.1.0. Use Python approach for attachments.

⚠️ Avoid message write for automation: The himalaya message write command requires interactive TUI selection (Edit/Discard/Quit) and will hang in non-interactive environments.

⚠️ message send limitations: Direct himalaya message send <raw_email> may fail with "cannot send message without a recipient" due to header parsing issues. Use template send instead.

Configuration requirement: Ensure message.send.save-to-folder is set in config.toml to avoid "Folder not exist" errors:

[accounts.163]
# ... other config ...
message.send.save-to-folder = "Sent"

For 163 mail accounts, create the Sent folder first if it doesn't exist:

himalaya folder create Sent

Move/Copy Emails

Move to folder:

himalaya message move 42 "Archive"

Copy to folder:

himalaya message copy 42 "Important"

Delete an Email

himalaya message delete 42

Manage Flags

Add flag:

himalaya flag add 42 --flag seen

Remove flag:

himalaya flag remove 42 --flag seen

Multiple Accounts

List accounts:

himalaya account list

Use a specific account:

himalaya --account work envelope list

Attachments

Save attachments from a message:

himalaya attachment download 42

Save to specific directory:

himalaya attachment download 42 --dir ~/Downloads

Output Formats

Most commands support --output for structured output:

himalaya envelope list --output json
himalaya envelope list --output plain

Debugging

Enable debug logging:

RUST_LOG=debug himalaya envelope list

Full trace with backtrace:

RUST_LOG=trace RUST_BACKTRACE=1 himalaya envelope list

Tips

Use himalaya --help or himalaya <command> --help for detailed usage.
Message IDs are relative to the current folder; re-list after folder changes.
For composing rich emails with attachments, use MML syntax (see references/message-composition.md).
Store passwords securely using pass, system keyring, or a command that outputs the password.
For automation: Always use template write | template send pipeline with export EDITOR=cat.
163 Mail users: Set backend.extensions.id.send-after-auth = true and message.send.save-to-folder = "Sent" in config.
Folder names: Use English folder names (e.g., "Sent" instead of "已发送") for better compatibility.