Alp is a text-mode email client. It is written in Ruby and it uses the standard Ruby Curses API for text rendering. Alp works on mailboxes on the local filesystem for speed. Use offlineimap, for example, to synchronize your local mailbox with an IMAP server.

You need Ruby and RubyGems to run Alp. You can either use your operating system specific Ruby package or install rbenv on your machine:

https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv#installation

To install offlineimap:

$ yum install offlineimap

Example offlineimap configuration file looks like this:

$ cat $HOME/.offlineimaprc 
[general]
accounts = Personal

[Account Personal]
localrepository = localhost
remoterepository = remote

[Repository localhost]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/Mail/Personal

[Repository remote]
remotehost = mail.example.com
remoteuser = penberg
ssl = yes
type = IMAP
realdelete = no

To install msmtp:

$ yum install msmtp

Example msmtp configuration file looks like this:

$ cat $HOME/.msmtprc 
account default
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem
auth on
user [email protected]
from [email protected]

To install required gems:

$ bundle install

To fetch email from IMAP server:

$ offlineimap

To launch the email client:

$ ./bin/alp Personal

To send email:

$ cat mail | msmtp -t

Copyright © 2012-2014 Pekka Enberg

Alp is distributed under the MIT license.