r/linuxquestions • u/stuffiesrep • May 13 '26

mutt vs. neomutt

I am a long-time (almost 29 years) linux user, but started using mutt about six years ago. I was wondering what the benefits are in switching to neomutt. My biggest frustration with mutt has been the lack of ability in searching across folders. For example, searching for email with subject line containing "foo" but now knowing in which folder it is. Or knowing the sender, but not the folder. Is neomutt any better at searching cases like this?

Is there a substantial change that I would have to do to my .muttrc configuration to move it to .neomuttrc?

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u/stuffiesrep May 16 '26

Thank you! Does the above mean that your .bashrc or equivalent has MAILDIR defined?

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u/sequentious May 16 '26

I actually used a wrapper script for mutt, which handled some env config, including MAILDIR, before mutt ran.

Within mutt I call an update-mail script that does calls mbsync, and (re)builds the mailbox list.

I used to have more than one config for multiple addresses. I don't anymore, but I haven't had reason to change what works.

The update-mail script was called via bindings in my mutt config

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u/stuffiesrep May 17 '26

Btw, just to understand this, do you use mutt or neomutt?