weisslj / muttjump

Jump to the original message from a virtual maildir in Mutt

muttjump

Jump to the original message from a virtual maildir in the Mutt email client.

Written by Johannes Weißl, released into the public domain.

This script makes mail indexers (like mairix, mu, nmzmail, or notmuch) together with Mutt more useful.

These search engines usually create a virtual maildir containing symbolic links to the original mails, which can be browsed using Mutt. It would be optimal if Mutt somehow knew that the two maildir entries identify the same mail, but this is not that easy (mail folder abstraction from different formats, no tight integration of mail indexers, etc.).

So if one wants to rename (for setting/clearing flags), delete or edit the mails, it is only possible using the original mail. This simple script helps to jump to this message, using e.g. this macro in ~/.muttrc:

macro generic ,j "<enter-command>push <pipe-message>muttjump<enter><enter>" "jump to original message"

Don't forget to quit the new Mutt instance (started by muttjump) after the modifications. To make jumping faster (no keypress required), unset $wait_key in your ~/.muttrc.

The way described above will open a new instance of Mutt. Another option is to invoke this script as muttjump-same. In that case, a file ~/.muttjump will be created. This file will contain instructions for Mutt, which will, after sourcing, lead to the jump to the desired message (and deletion of ~/.muttjump). For that purpose, following macro might be used:

macro generic ,j "<enter-command>push <pipe-message>muttjump-same<enter><enter><enter-command>source ~/.muttjump<enter>" "jump to original message"

Note: The latter usage of the script can be activated by creating a symlink called muttjump-same with this script as a target.