aerc

aerc [-h] [-v] [-a name] [-C file] [-A file] [-B file] [-I] [mailto:...|mbox:file|:command]

aerc is a terminal-based email client written in Go, designed for power users and developers. It features a tabbed interface allowing multiple accounts and emails to be open simultaneously, an embedded terminal emulator for running shell commands alongside email tasks, and vim-style keybindings with an ex-command system.
aerc supports IMAP, JMAP, Maildir, Notmuch, and Mbox backends with SMTP and sendmail for sending. It handles email threading, PGP signing and encryption via GnuPG, HTML email rendering through external filters, syntax-highlighted patches and diffs, CardDAV contact lookups, and template-based composition. The UI never locks up due to network issues thanks to asynchronous IMAP and JMAP support.

-h, --help

Show usage help and exit

Print the installed version and exit

Load only the named account(s); comma-separated or repeated

Use a custom aerc.conf configuration file

Use a custom accounts.conf file

Use a custom key bindings configuration file

Run commands directly instead of over IPC to an existing instance

Configuration files are stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/aerc/ (typically ~/.config/aerc/):
aerc.conf -- Main application configuration (UI, logging, filters)
accounts.conf -- Email account definitions (server, credentials, backend type)
binds.conf -- Key binding customizations

HTML email rendering requires w3m to be installed. Homebrew builds on macOS do not include notmuch support; compile from source if needed. The project uses a mailing-list-based patch submission workflow via git-send-email rather than pull requests.

aerc was originally created by Drew DeVault (sircmpwn) with the first commit in January 2018 and the 0.1.0 pre-release announced in June 2019. After the original project became unmaintained, Robin Jarry forked and took over active maintenance. The project is hosted on SourceHut and licensed under the MIT license.

mutt(1), alpine(1), neomutt(1), notmuch(1)