himalaya

himalaya [options] command subcommand [arguments]

himalaya is a command-line interface for managing emails. Unlike TUI email clients like mutt or aerc, himalaya is a pure CLI with no event loop — you interact with your emails using shell commands in a stateless way. This makes it composable with pipes and scripts, and freely integrable with other CLI tools.It supports multiple backends including IMAP, SMTP, Maildir, and Notmuch, with features like multi-account support, PGP encryption, and OAuth 2.0 authentication. Himalaya is designed to extract email logic into a simple CLI API that can be used directly from the terminal, from scripts, and from UIs.

-a, --account name

Use a specific email account.

List email envelopes in the current folder.

Watch for new envelope changes in real time.

Read a specific email message.

Compose a new email message.

Reply to an email message.

Forward an email message.

Delete an email message.

List mail folders.

Create a new mail folder.

Download attachments from a message.

Configuration is stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/himalaya/config.toml (or ~/.config/himalaya/config.toml) and defines accounts with backend settings for IMAP, SMTP, Maildir, or Notmuch. Run himalaya account configure for an interactive setup wizard.

Initial configuration requires manual setup of mail accounts. OAuth 2.0 setup may require additional steps depending on the provider. PGP encryption requires GPG to be installed and configured.

himalaya was created by Clément DOUIN as part of the Pimalaya project and is written in Rust. It was designed as a Unix-philosophy approach to email, providing simple composable commands rather than a monolithic TUI application.

mutt(1), aerc(1), neomutt(1), mail(1)