Brief guide to Alpine (linux CLI email client)

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This guide assumes you're using a gmail account.

First, install Alpine.  Ideally, this is done with your distro's package manager
(or with the slackware package included on the backup hdd), but you can also
compile from source, whatever you want.

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RECEIVING:

1)  Go to Setup > Config ('s', 'c').  Page down until you see 'Enable Incoming
    Folders Collection' (third or fourth page on my install) and enable it.  Hit
    'e' to exit, then 'q' to quit alpine.

2)  Restart alpine, then go to 'FOLDER LIST' ('l' key) and then choose 'Incoming
    Folders'.

3)  Press 'a' to add a new folder.  Here, Alpine will ask you for a few things:
    3a) Server (imap.gmail.com/ssl/user=ACCOUNT_NAME@gmail.com)
    3b) Folder name (Inbox, spelled with a capital 'I').
    3c) Nickname (whatever you want, I use ACCOUNT_NAME@gmail.com for clarity)

4)  At this point, you'll be asked for a password to finish folder creation, as
    well as every time henceforth when you access your inbox.

That's all!

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SENDING:

In order to send messages, you'll have to make use of 'roles'.  It sounds more
complicated than it is.  A role, in the context of this guide anyway, allows you
to send messages using a specific email address and server.  They do other
things too, but for now, we only care about sending email.

To set up a new role, go to Settings > Rules > Roles.  From the main menu, this
is just hitting 's', 'r', 'r'.  When you're at the 'roles' screen, either select
the role you wish to edit or add a new one by pressing 'a'.

When editing the role, the first thing you need to change is the role's
nickname.  You should probably use something obvious; the role I use for sending
email from foo.bar@gmail.com is named 'sending_foo.bar', for
example.

Next, under the 'CURRENT FOLDER CONDITIONS BEGIN HERE' section, select
'specific' and enter the nickname of the incoming folder into the 'Folder List'
field (in my case, 'foo.bar@gmail.com').

The next and possibly most critical part of the role is the 'recip pattern'
condition.  Change that to whatever email address you wish to compose with /
reply from.

Next is the SMTP field, near the bottom of the role setup.  Just keep scrolling
down until you find it.  When you do, enter:

smtp.gmail.com:587/tls/user=USER@PROVIDER.COM

...or whatever is appropriate for your setup.  For me, it's:

smtp.gmail.com:587/tls/user=foo.bar@gmail.com

Lastly, you'll probably want to allow yourself to compose using this role.  Just
find the 'compose use' section (it should be the last one on the page) and
change it to either 'with confirmation' or 'without confirmation' to use it.

Everything else can be edited according to preference.

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TIPS:

To mark all unread as read:
    First, use the select key (;) to open the 'selection menu'.  Then select by
    status (s), then 'new' (n).  This should bring you to a new screen with only
    new messages displayed.

    Now, hit the 'apply' key (a), which will allow you to apply an action to all
    of your selected messages.  Now hit the toggle flag key (*) to toggle flags
    for your messages, then hit the 'not' key (!), then the new key (n).

    In short, ;sna*!n

    If you just want to mark an individual message as unread, have the message
    selected and do the *!n thing (toggle flag > not > new).