How do I create a new folder in Mutt

Question

I want to create a new folder from within Mutt. I use Maildir format to store the folders on the machine I am running Mutt on.

(I also view the mail remotely using courier IMAP but this doesnt involve Mutt)

Edited to clarify role of IMAP

Answer 1

c (change-folder), ? (list), Shift+C (create-mailbox).

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This works with Gmail but only in the single directory view, and not in the "all folders" view.

Also, if you want a space in the directory name, you need to escape it via Ctrl+V, Space.

Answer 2

If Mutt cannot create maildirs directly, it is easy to do it yourself. A "Maildir" format mail directory has nothing special except for three subdirectories cur/, new/ and tmp/ inside.

Assuming that your mail is kept under ~/mail/, a folder named "Something" would be created like:

• For the Maildir++ layout used by Courier and Dovecot:

  mkdir -p ~/mail/.Something/{cur,new,tmp}
  

  (Note the leading dot – yes, this basically means subfolders are stored as hidden directories...)

  Equivalent to:

  mkdir ~/mail                    (implied by `-p`)
  mkdir ~/mail/.Something         (implied by `-p`)
  mkdir ~/mail/.Something/cur     (from brace expansion)
  mkdir ~/mail/.Something/new     (from brace expansion)
  mkdir ~/mail/.Something/tmp     (from brace expansion)
  

• For the "filesystem" layout used by some other IMAP daemons:

  mkdir -p ~/mail/Something/{cur,new,tmp}
  

If you want a folder hierarchy "Archive" / "2010" / "06":

• In Courier's layout, the folder would be named Archive.2010.06:

  mkdir -p ~/mail/.Archive.2010.06/{cur,new,tmp}
  

• In the "filesystem" layout, it would be Archive/2010/06:

  mkdir -p ~/mail/Archive/2010/06/{cur,new,tmp}
  

(Terminology: mail clients keep messages in 'folders', and the filesystem stores everything in 'directories'.)

Answer 3

I usually just save some email to new not-yet-existing folder, and mutt creates the folder for me.

For me it's pretty intuitive, as there is no point in having folder without mails in it, so I just create it by saving there first mails that should go there.

Answer 4

If you save a mail into a non-existing location, mutt creates a new mailbox for you. The type of the mailbox is determined by the state of the variable mbox_type. Hence, to create a Maildir within mutt, you proceed as follows.

Open your .muttrc file and add the line

set mbox_type=Maildir

This line ensures that mutt creates new mailboxes in the Maildir instead of in the Mbox format.

Then, start mutt and select a message that you want to save into a new folder. Press s to save and enter the path of the new mailbox (without a slash at the end) and press enter. Mutt will create a new Maildir and saves the message into the newly created mailbox.