Accounts

An account is one mailbox: its IMAP settings, optional SMTP settings, and a name you choose. You can add as many as you like.

Commands#

fob-email config accounts add work --imap-host … --imap-user … --imap-pass … --smtp-host …
fob-email config accounts list               # * marks the current account
fob-email config accounts use work           # make "work" the current account
fob-email config accounts refresh work       # sign in again and update saved details (--all for every account)
fob-email config accounts remove work        # alias: rm

config accounts and config profiles are the same command.

• add with an existing name replaces that account. Use it to change a password or add SMTP.
• list never shows passwords. After an account has signed in once, it also shows the mailbox address and the provider fob-email detected.
• remove deletes the account from your config file only. To cut off access, also revoke the app password at your provider.

Choosing an account per command#

Commands that reach a mailbox take --account <name>:

fob-email emails list --account work
fob-email emails list --account personal --unseen

Without --account, fob-email uses the current account.

Accounts from the environment#

For workers, CI and containers, set FOB_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS to a JSON map of account names to settings. Nothing is read from or written to the config file for these accounts.

export FOB_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS='{
  "billing": {
    "imap": { "host": "imap.gmail.com", "port": 993, "user": "[email protected]", "pass": "<app password>", "tls": true },
    "smtp": { "host": "smtp.gmail.com", "port": 465, "secure": true }
  }
}'
fob-email emails list --account billing

• imap.host, imap.user and imap.pass are required. Ports default to 993 and 465, and TLS to on.
• smtp is optional. Its user and pass default to the IMAP ones.
• Keep the value out of shell history and logs. Use your platform's secret store to set it.

Which account a command uses#

So when FOB_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS is set, it wins over your config file's current account. Unset it, or pass --account, to use a config-file account.

The config file#

# ~/.fob/fob-email/config.yml (mode 0600)
current: personal
accounts:
  personal:
    imap: { host: imap.gmail.com, port: 993, user: [email protected], pass: <app password>, tls: true }
    smtp: { host: smtp.gmail.com, port: 465, user: [email protected], pass: <app password>, secure: true }
    address: [email protected]       # filled in when the account signs in
    provider: gmail
    threadStrategy: thread-id

Edit it with the config accounts commands rather than by hand. fob-email re-applies mode 0600 every time it writes the file. To keep it somewhere else, set FOB_EMAIL_CONFIG_DIR to a folder; the local mirror (sync.db) moves with it.

provider and threadStrategy describe your server, worked out when the account signs in. threadStrategy decides how threads are grouped: thread-id when the server provides conversation IDs (Gmail does), otherwise reconstruct, which follows reply headers. Run config accounts refresh if your provider changes.