Zen Mail Client

Zen Mail Client is a minimal TUI mail client for people who still use email to talk to humans.

It focuses on reading and replying to plain text emails over standard IMAP / SMTP, with a text-first approach and a minimal HTML-to-text fallback, without HTML rendering, trackers, or unnecessary complexity.

Installation

Currently, zenmail is cargo.

cargo install zenmail

Why Zen Mail Client?

Modern email clients are optimized for newsletters, notifications, and marketing emails.
zenmail is not.

zenmail is designed for:

• personal contact emails
• project and open-source communication
• patches, reviews, and real conversations

If you want a fast, reliable mail client that lives in your terminal and does not get in your way, Zen Mail is for you.

Features

• IMAP inbox listing
• Read plain text (text/plain) emails
• Scrollable mail view
• Compose and send emails via SMTP
• One-key Reply
  • Auto-fill recipient
  • Re: subject handling
  • Quoted reply (>)
• Built-in TUI config editor
• External editor support for config.toml
• Robust terminal handling (resize-safe, editor-safe)

Non-Features (by design)

zenmail intentionally does not support:

• HTML email rendering
• Embedded images
• Tracking pixels
• OAuth-only providers
• Rich formatting

This keeps the client predictable, fast, and secure.

Supported Mail Servers

zenmail works with any standard IMAP / SMTP server.

It is tested with Proton Mail Bridge, using:

• IMAP / SMTP over localhost
• Username + password authentication
• STARTTLS

Key Bindings

Inbox

• j / k or ↑ / ↓ — move selection
• Enter — open mail
• o — refresh inbox
• c — compose new mail
• q — quit

Mail View

• j / k or ↑ / ↓ — scroll
• r — reply
• c — compose new mail
• Esc — back to inbox

Compose

• Tab — switch field
• Ctrl+S — send
• Esc — cancel

Config

• Tab / Shift+Tab — move field
• Space — toggle boolean
• Ctrl+S — save
• e — open in external editor
• Esc — back

Configuration

On first launch, zenmail creates a config.toml file.

You can edit it:

• directly in the built-in TUI config screen
• or using your $EDITOR (default: nano)

License

Licensed under the MPL-2.0 license.

Copyright © Wave Foundation.