# About Terminal Email

Terminal Email is a list of email clients and mail tools that run in a terminal, sorted by the operating systems they run on. Each page gives the install command for every system, the protocols and features the program supports, its pros and cons, and a working setup for a Forward Email mailbox.

## What gets listed

A program is listed when:

- you read, write, send, sync or search email with it in a terminal, or inside Emacs or Vim running in one;
- its source code is public;
- people use it: it is packaged by at least one major system, or has an active community.

Programs with no commits or releases in about a year stay listed when they still work, with a **Not maintained** label. Programs that no longer build or run are removed.

## How facts are checked

Every fact comes from the project itself: its website, repository, license file, manual or release notes. Install commands are checked against the package repositories of Debian, Fedora, Arch, Homebrew, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, MSYS2, Scoop, winget and Termux. Each page lists the sources it was checked against.

The data lives in one YAML file per program in the [GitHub repository](https://github.com/forwardemail/terminalemail.com), and the site is built from it. A change to a file changes the page, the JSON API and the Markdown copy together.

## Forward Email

Terminal Email is made by [Forward Email](https://forwardemail.net), an email provider. Forward Email's own terminal app, `forwardemail`, is featured on the home page and shown first in lists. It is listed with the same facts as every other client, including its limits: it only works with Forward Email accounts, and its license is source-available rather than open source.

Every other client works with any email provider. The setup examples use Forward Email's server names because the site is made by Forward Email; change the server names and they work with any provider that offers IMAP and SMTP.

There are no ads, affiliate links, trackers or cookies.

## Corrections

If a fact is wrong or out of date, [report a mistake](https://github.com/forwardemail/terminalemail.com/issues/new?template=correction.yml) with a link to a source, or edit the file and open a pull request. See [how to contribute](CONTRIBUTING.md).