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AERC-TEMPLATES(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual AERC-TEMPLATES(7) NAME aerc-templates - template file specification for aerc(1) SYNOPSIS aerc uses the go text/template package for the template parsing. Refer to the go text/template documentation for the general syntax. The tem- plate syntax described below can be used for message template files and for dynamic formatting of some UI app. Template files are composed of headers, followed by a newline, followed by the body text. Example: X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett Hello, Greetings, Chuck If you have a template that doesn't add any header, it must be preceded by a newline, to avoid parsing parts of the body as header text. All headers defined in the template will have precedence over any head- ers that are initialized by aerc (e.g. Subject, To, From, Cc) when com- posing a new message, forwarding or replying. MESSAGE DATA The following data can be used in templates. Though they are not all available always. Addresses An array of mail.Address. That can be used to add sender or recipi- ent names to the template. • {{.From}}: List of senders. • {{.Peer}}: List of senders or To recipients if the message is from you. • {{.To}}: List of To recipients. Not always Available. • {{.ReplyTo}}: List of ReplyTo recipients. Not always Available. • {{.Cc}}: List of Cc recipients. Not always Available. • {{.Bcc}}: List of Cc recipients. Not always Available. • {{.OriginalFrom}}: List of senders of the original message. Available for quoted reply and forward. Example: Get the name of the first sender. {{(index .From 0).Name}} {{index (.From | names) 0}} Get the email address of the first sender. {{(index .From 0).Address}} Date and Time The date and time information is always available and can be easily formatted. • {{.Date}}: Date and time information when the compose window is opened. • {{.OriginalDate}}: Date and time when the original message was received. Available for quoted reply and forward. To format the date fields, dateFormat and .Local are provided. Re- fer to the TEMPLATE FUNCTIONS section for details. Subject The subject of the email (ThreadPrefix will be empty unless thread- ing is enabled). {{.ThreadPrefix}}{{if .ThreadFolded}}{{printf "{%d}" .ThreadCount}}{{end}}{{.Subject}} The subject of the email stripped of any Re: and Fwd: prefixes. {{.SubjectBase}} Threading When threading is enabled, these attributes are available in the message list: ThreadPrefix If the message is part of a thread, this will contain arrows that represent the message tree based on In-Reply-To and Refer- ences headers. ThreadFolded Will be true if the message has thread children which are hid- den by :fold. ThreadCount The number of messages in the thread. ThreadUnread The number of unread messages in the thread. Flags List of message flags, not available when composing, replying nor forwarding. This is a list of strings that may be converted to a single string with join. {{.Flags | join ""}} IsReplied, IsForwarded, HasAttachment, IsFlagged, IsRecent, IsUnread, IsMarked, IsDraft Individual boolean flags. not available when composing, replying nor forwarding. {{if .IsFlagged}}{{end}} Labels Message labels (for example notmuch tags). Not available when com- posing, replying nor forwarding. This is a list of strings that may be converted to a single string with join. {{.Labels | join " "}} Size The size of the message in bytes. Not available when composing, re- plying nor forwarding. It can be formatted with humanReadable. {{.Size | humanReadable}} Filename The full path of the message file. Not available when composing, replying nor forwarding. For the notmuch backend, it returns a ran- dom filename if there are multiple files associated with the mes- sage. Filenames A list of the full paths of the files associated with the message. For maildir this is always a list with a single element. Not available when composing, replying nor forwarding. Any header value Any header value of the email. {{.Header "x-foo-bar"}} Any header values of the original forwarded or replied message: {{.OriginalHeader "x-foo-bar"}} Message-ID The message-ID of the message. :term b4 am {{.MessageId}} MIME Type MIME type is available for quoted reply and forward. • {{.OriginalMIMEType}}: MIME type info of quoted mail part. Usu- ally text/plain or text/html. Original Message When using quoted reply or forward, the original message is avail- able in a field called OriginalText. {{.OriginalText}} Signature The signature of the currently selected account obtained from sig- nature-file or signature-cmd. {{.Signature}} Account info The current account name: {{.Account}} The current account's backend: {{.AccountBackend}} The current account's from address: {{.AccountFrom}} {{.AccountFrom.Address}} Currently selected mailbox folder: {{.Folder}} Current message counts for all folders: {{.Recent}} {{.Unread}} {{.Exists}} {{.RUE}} The new message status for the account. New messages are such that have arrived since the account tab last had focus. The flag is cur- rently only set when aerc is running at the time of the arrival, i. e. message that have arrived while aerc was not running will not be indicated. {{.HasNew}} IANA role of the mailbox, converted to lowercase: {{.Role}} aerc implements two additional custom roles: A 'query' role is given to folders from a notmuch query-map and 'virtual' indicates a virtual node in the directory tree listing: {{if eq .Role "query"}}{{...}}{{else}}{{...}}{{end}} Current message counts for specific folders: {{.Recent "inbox"}} {{.Unread "inbox" "aerc/pending"}} {{.Exists "archive" "spam" "foo/baz" "foo/bar"}} {{.RUE "inbox"}} Status line The following data will only be available in the status line tem- plates: Connection state. {{.Connected}} {{.ConnectionInfo}} General status information (e.g. filter, search) separated with [statusline].separator. {{.ContentInfo}} Combination of {{.ConnectionInfo}} and {{.StatusInfo}} separated with [statusline].separator. {{.StatusInfo}} General on/off information (e.g. passthrough, threading, sorting, visual mode), separated with [statusline].separator. {{.TrayInfo}} Currently pressed key sequence that does not match any key binding and/or is incomplete. {{.PendingKeys}} Terminal The following can only be used in the terminal tab title template: Bell state indicating whether the bell was rung since the terminal tab last had focus. {{.Bell}} Title of the terminal. This is typically what the program running in the terminal requests it to be or the name of the command. {{.Title}} TEMPLATE FUNCTIONS Besides the standard functions described in go's text/template documen- tation, aerc provides the following additional functions: wrap Wrap the original text to the specified number of characters per line. {{wrap 72 .OriginalText}} quote Prepends each line with "> ". {{quote .OriginalText}} trimSignature Removes the signature froma passed in mail. Quoted signatures are kept as they are. {{trimSignature .OriginalText}} join Join the provided list of strings with a separator: {{.To | names | join ", "}} split Split a string into a string slice with a separator: {{.To | names | join ", " | split ", "}} names Extracts the names part from a mail.Address list. If there is no name available, the mbox (email address without @domain) is re- turned instead. {{.To | names | join ", "}} {{index (.To | names) 0}} firstnames Extracts the first names part from a mail.Address list. If there is no name available, the short mbox (start of email address without @domain) is returned instead. {{.To | firstnames | join ", "}} {{index (.To | firstnames) 0}} initials Extracts the initials from the names part from a mail.Address list. If there is no name available, the first letter of the email ad- dress is returned instead. {{.To | initials | join ", "}} {{index (.To | initials) 0}} emails Extracts the addresses part from a mail.Address list. {{.To | emails | join ", "}} {{index (.To | emails) 0}} mboxes Extracts the mbox part from a mail.Address list (i.e. smith from smith@example.com). {{.To | mboxes | join ", "}} {{index (.To | mboxes) 0}} shortmboxes Extracts the short mbox part from a mail.Address list (i.e. smith from smith.and.wesson@example.com). {{.To | shortmboxes | join ", "}} {{index (.To | shortmboxes) 0}} persons Formats a list of mail.Address into a list of strings containing the human readable form of RFC5322 (e.g. Firstname Lastname <email@address.tld>). {{.To | persons | join ", "}} {{index (.To | persons) 0}} .Attach Attaches a file to the message being composed. {{.Attach '/usr/libexec/aerc/filters/html'}} exec Execute external command, provide the second argument to its stdin. The command is executed with the same search $PATH than aerc fil- ters (see aerc-config(5) in the FILTERS section for more details). {{exec `html` .OriginalText}} .Local Convert the date to the local timezone as specified by the locale. {{.Date.Local}} dateFormat Format date and time according to the format passed as the second argument. The format must be specified according to go's time pack- age format. {{dateFormat .Date "Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 -0700 MST 2006"}} You can also use the .DateAutoFormat method to format the date ac- cording to *-time*format settings: {{.DateAutoFormat .OriginalDate.Local}} now Return the current date as a golang time.Time object that can be formatted with dateFormat. {{dateFormat now "Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 -0700 MST 2006"}} humanReadable Return the human readable form of an integer value. {{humanReadable 3217653721}} cwd Return the current working directory with the user home dir re- placed by ~. {{cwd}} compactDir Reduce a directory path into a compact form. The directory name will be split with / and each part will be reduced to the first letter in its name: INBOX/01_WORK/PROJECT will become I/W/PROJECT. {{compactDir .Folder}} contains Checks if a string contains a substring. {{contains "<!DOCTYPE html>" .OriginalText}} hasPrefix Checks if a string has a prefix. {{hasPrefix "Business" .Folder}} toLower Convert a string to lowercase. {{toLower "SPECIAL OFFER!"}} toUpper Convert a string to uppercase. {{toUpper "important"}} replace Perform a regular expression substitution on the passed string. {{replace `(.+) - .+ at .+..+` `$1` ((index .OriginalFrom 0).Name)}} head Return first n characters from string. {{"hello" | head 2}} tail Return last n characters from string. {{"hello" | tail 2}} .Style Apply a user-defined style (see aerc-stylesets(7)) to a string. {{.Style .Account "red"}} {{.Style .ThreadPrefix "thread"}}{{.Subject}} .StyleSwitch Apply a user-defined style (see aerc-stylesets(7)) to a string if it matches one of the associated regular expressions. If the string does not match any of the expressions, leave it unstyled. {{.StyleSwitch .Subject (`^([[w-]+]s*)?[(RFC )?PATCH` "cyan")}} {{.StyleSwitch (.From | names | join ", ") (case `Tim` "cyan") (case `Robin` "pink-blink") (default "blue")}} .StyleMap Apply user-defined styles (see aerc-stylesets(7)) to elements of a string list. The logic is the same than .StyleSwitch but works on a list of elements. An additional exclude option is available to re- move the matching elements from the list. {{.StyleMap .Labels (exclude .Folder) (exclude `^spam$`) (case `^inbox$` "red") (case `^Archive/.*` "green") (default "blue") | join " "}} version Returns the version of aerc, which can be useful for things like X- Mailer. X-Mailer: aerc {{version}} match Check if a string matches a regular expression. This is intended for use in conditional control flow: {{if match .Folder `.*/Archive-[0-9]+`}}{{humanReadable .Unread}}{{end}} switch Do switch/case/default control flows. The switch value is compared with regular expressions. If none of the case/default arms match, an empty string is returned. {{switch .Folder (case `^INBOX$` "") (case `^Archive/.*` "") (default "")}} map Transform a string list into another one. The logic is the same than switch but works on a list of elements. An additional exclude option is available to remove the matching elements from the list. {{map .Labels (exclude .Folder) (exclude `^spam$`) (case `^inbox$` "") (case `^Archive/.*` "") | join " "}} Function chaining All of the template functions can be chained together if needed. Example: Automatic HTML parsing for text/html mime type messages {{if eq .OriginalMIMEType "text/html"}} {{exec `/usr/libexec/aerc/filters/html` .OriginalText | wrap 72 | quote}} {{else}} {{wrap 72 .OriginalText | trimSignature | quote}} {{end}} SEE ALSO aerc(1) aerc-config(5) AUTHORS Originally created by Drew DeVault and maintained by Robin Jarry who is assisted by other open source contributors. For more information about aerc development, see https://sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/. 2025-11-07 AERC-TEMPLATES(7)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | MESSAGE DATA | TEMPLATE FUNCTIONS | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS
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