Quick start · tern

1. Look around first

tern --demo

The demo has a mailbox, calendars and contacts that change only in memory. Try:

j k to move, ⏎ or l to read, space to page through a message.
e to archive, d to trash, u to toggle unread, s to flag.
C for the calendar, P for people, , for settings, ? for every key.
q to quit.

2. Write a config

tern --init

This writes an example to ~/.config/tern/config.toml. If a file is already there, it leaves it alone. Open it and fill in one account:

[[accounts]]
name = "Personal"
email = "you@example.com"
display_name = "Your Name"

[accounts.imap]
host = "imap.fastmail.com"
port = 993
tls = "implicit"
username = "you@example.com"
password_cmd = "pass show mail/personal"

[accounts.smtp]
host = "smtp.fastmail.com"
port = 465
tls = "implicit"
username = "you@example.com"
password_cmd = "pass show mail/personal"

password_cmd is any shell command that prints the password on its first line: pass, secret-tool lookup …, op read …. A literal password = "…" also works. tern doctor warns about it, because the password then sits in plain text.

The config needs at least one [[accounts]] entry. Once tern is running, you can add the rest from Settings → Accounts (, then 2). Pick Fastmail, Google, iCloud, Microsoft 365 or Other, and the form is prefilled with that provider’s mail, calendar and contacts servers. See Accounts.

Gmail and Microsoft accounts sign in with OAuth instead of a password. See OAuth.

3. Check it

tern doctor

tern doctor signs in to every IMAP and SMTP server without sending anything. It also runs your password commands, checks OAuth tokens, finds your calendars and address books, and looks over your local setup. Each problem comes with what to do about it. See tern doctor.

4. Run it

tern

You land in the first account’s inbox. A few things to know on day one:

A message counts as read only after it’s been open for 800 ms (mark_read_ms), so skimming past with j doesn’t mark everything read.
Archive, trash and move update the list at once. The server catches up in the background.
New mail is pushed to the folder you’re in. $ checks now.
Sending goes through an outbox with a 10-second undo window (^z). See Sending.

5. Add calendars and contacts

If you added the account from Settings with a preset, its calendar and contacts servers are already set up. Otherwise add a [[dav]] block:

[[dav]]
name = "Fastmail"
url = "https://caldav.fastmail.com/dav/"
username = "you@example.com"
account = "Personal"   # reuse that account's password or OAuth sign-in

Then press C for the calendar and P for people. See Calendar and People.