wiki/configuration: copy-to emulation with notmuch

This documents how to overcome the limitation of copy-to not being
supported by the notmuch backend. It suggests a script and how to set up
aerc accordingly to use it.

Signed-off-by: Samuel Fadel <samuel@nihil.ws>
Acked-by: Robin Jarry <robin@jarry.cc>

1 files changed, 59 insertions, 0 deletions

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@@ -17,3 +17,62 @@ text/plain=awk -f ~/.config/aerc/filters/custom-colorize
 ```
 
 - [solarized by Shaleen Jain](https://lists.sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc-devel/patches/30119#%3C20220310045758.228592-1-shaleen@jain.sh%3E+filters/colorize)
+
+# Emulating copy-to for the notmuch backend
+
+Currently, the notmuch backend does not support the `copy-to` setting in
+`accounts.conf`.
+
+One way to work around this is to leverage `notmuch insert`. It works by
+inserting the email being sent in the notmuch database and the maildir backing
+it, which can then be synchronized to the remote IMAP server using your
+favorite IMAP synchronization software.
+
+The following script illustrates how this can be done. Note that it assumes your
+setup uses a directory structure within your main notmuch maildir which consists
+of:
+
+- `$account/sent` for the Sent Emails folder
+- `$account` is also the account name in [msmtp](https://marlam.de/msmtp/)
+
+```shell
+#!/bin/sh
+# XXX: This does not handle encryption
+
+# ensure the script ends whenever a command exits with non-zero status
+set -e
+
+EMAIL=`mktemp --suffix=.eml /tmp/XXXXXX`
+clean_up() {
+    rm -f $EMAIL
+}
+
+# The account to be used is given as the first argument of this script
+account=$1
+shift
+
+# ensure clean_up() is called when we exit abnormally
+trap 'clean_up' 0 1 2 3 15
+
+# <stdin> of script gets the email, we save temporarily for using it twice
+cat >$EMAIL
+
+# First try to send the email, as it can cause more problems (i.e., connection)
+# `set -e` prevents the mail from entering the database in case this fails.
+# msmtp could be called with args from aerc, but --read-recipients already does the job
+msmtp --account=$account --read-recipients --read-envelope-from <$EMAIL
+
+# assumes all maildir accounts are configured with a 'sent' directory
+# also make sure to tag it correctly
+notmuch insert --folder=$account/sent -inbox -unread +sent <$EMAIL
+```
+
+If you call this script `aerc-notmuch-send`, the following can be set in
+`accounts.conf` to ensure your emails are copied to your sent folder:
+
+```ini
+[myaccount]
+from = My Name <my@email>
+source = notmuch://YOUR_MAILDIR_PATH/
+outgoing = /path/to/aerc-notmuch-send myaccount
+```