Terminal Email

terminalemail.com lists email clients and mail tools that run in a terminal, sorted by the operating systems they run on: Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD and Android. Each page has the install command for every system, the protocols and features the program supports, its pros and cons, and a working configuration for a Forward Email mailbox.

It is made by Forward Email, whose terminal app (forwardemail) is featured. Every other client is listed with the same facts and works with any email provider.

What the site has

• A page for every client and tool, with install commands per system and the sources each fact was checked against
• A page for each operating system, listing what runs there and how to install it
• A side-by-side comparison for every pair of clients, and an alternatives page for each client
• Lists by feature: OpenPGP, IMAP, JMAP, Maildir, notmuch, OAuth2, mouse support, Vim keys and more
• Forward Email's IMAP, POP3 and SMTP settings with a config for every client
• Search (Ctrl+K or ⌘K), filtering by system, and light and dark themes
• A Markdown copy of every page (add index.md to the URL), llms.txt, a JSON API, an Atom feed and a sitemap
• Structured data (schema.org) and a social image for every page
• No trackers, cookies, ads or affiliate links; every page works without JavaScript

Data

Each program is one YAML file in clients/. npm run validate checks every field. See CONTRIBUTING.md to add a client or correct a fact.

Build

Requires Node.js 18 or later.

npm ci
npm test          # validate data, build, check links, run tests
npm run serve     # build and preview at http://localhost:8080

The site builds into _site/ and is published with GitHub Pages by .github/workflows/deploy.yml. lighthouse.yml requires a score of 100 in every Lighthouse category. Scores vary a little between runs, so a page below 100 is run twice more and passes only if most of its runs score 100.

Path	What it is
clients/*.yml	One file per client or tool
pages/*.md	Pages written in Markdown
scripts/lib.js	Data loading and validation
scripts/context.js	Everything derived from the data: systems, comparisons, alternatives, feature lists
scripts/templates.js, scripts/pages.js	HTML
scripts/machine.js	Markdown, llms.txt, JSON, sitemap, robots.txt, feed, manifest, service worker
scripts/og.js	Social images
site/	Stylesheet, script, fonts, icons and screenshots, copied as they are

License

Code: MIT. Content: CC BY-SA 4.0.