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

1. Himalaya CLI installed (himalaya --version to verify)
2. A configuration file at ~/.config/himalaya/config.toml
3. 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