Sending Emails

neomd sends every email as multipart/alternative:

• text/plain — the raw Markdown you wrote (readable as-is in any client)
• text/html — rendered by goldmark with a clean CSS wrapper

This means recipients using Gmail, Apple Mail, Outlook, etc. see properly formatted links, bold, headers, inline code, and code blocks — while you write nothing but Markdown.

When attachments are present the MIME structure is upgraded automatically:

• Images → multipart/related with Content-ID — displayed inline in the email body
• Other files (PDF, zip, …) → multipart/mixed — shown as downloadable attachments

Multiple From Addresses

Add [[senders]] blocks to config to define extra identities that share an existing account’s SMTP credentials:

[[senders]]
name    = "Work alias"
from    = "info@example.com"
account = "Personal"   # must match the name = field of an [[accounts]] block

In compose and pre-send, press ctrl+f to cycle through all configured accounts followed by all senders. The displayed From: field updates live. Sent copies always go to the active account’s Sent folder regardless of which From is selected.

CC, BCC, Reply-all, and Forward

In the compose form, ctrl+b toggles the Cc and Bcc fields (hidden by default). Bcc recipients receive the email but are never written to message headers. From the reader, r replies to the sender and R replies to the sender plus all Cc recipients (your own address excluded, Reply-To respected).

All replies include proper In-Reply-To and References headers for email threading, ensuring they appear in conversation threads in Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.

Press f to forward an email — works from both the reader and the inbox list (the body is fetched automatically). The editor opens with the original message quoted and Fwd: prepended to the subject. Fill in the # [neomd: to: ] field and add your own text above the quoted block.

Emoji Reactions

Press ctrl+e from the inbox or reader view to react to an email with a single emoji — a fast, lightweight way to acknowledge receipt without writing a full reply.

Available reactions:

• 👍 Thumbs up
• ❤️ Love
• 😂 Laugh
• 🎉 Celebrate
• 🙏 Thanks
• 💯 Perfect
• 👀 Eyes
• ✅ Check

How it works:

1. Press ctrl+e while viewing or selecting an email
2. Choose an emoji by pressing 1-8 (instant send) or navigate with j/k and press enter
3. Press esc to cancel

The reaction is sent immediately (no editor, no pre-send review) as a properly formatted email with:

Plain text:

👍

Simon Späti reacted via [neomd](https://neomd.ssp.sh)

---

> **John Doe** wrote:
>
> original email body quoted here

---

HTML: The emoji is displayed at 48px with a styled footer containing your name and a link to neomd. The original message is quoted below in a styled blockquote.

Threading: Reactions include proper In-Reply-To and References headers so they appear in the conversation thread (tested with Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail). The original email is marked with the \Answered flag.

From address: The reaction is automatically sent from the address that received the original email (same logic as regular replies). A copy is saved to your Sent folder.

Emoji reactions are perfect for quick acknowledgments, celebrating good news, or thanking someone without the overhead of composing a full reply.

Attachments

Attachments are tightly integrated with both the pre-send screen and neovim.

From the pre-send screen — press a to open yazi (auto-detected; override with $NEOMD_FILE_PICKER). Press D to remove the last attachment.

From within neovim — press <leader>a in any neomd-*.md buffer to open yazi in a floating terminal. Selected files are inserted at the cursor as visible [attach] /path/to/file lines.

neomd strips [attach] lines before sending:

• Image files (.png, .jpg, .gif, .webp, .svg) → embedded inline in the HTML body; recipients see the image at that position
• Other files → appended as a regular MIME attachment

Here is a screenshot:
[attach] /home/you/screenshots/overview.png

And a PDF for reference:
[attach] /home/you/docs/report.pdf

Pre-send Review

After saving and closing the editor, neomd shows a review screen before sending — add or remove attachments, save to Drafts, or re-open the editor without sending accidentally.

Press p to see exactly what the recipient will see — the email is rendered through the same goldmark Markdown-to-HTML pipeline used for sending. Local image paths from [attach] lines are converted to file:// URLs so the browser displays them inline.

Drafts

Press d in the pre-send screen to save to Drafts instead of sending. Navigate to Drafts with gd. To resume a saved draft, open it and press E — it re-opens in the editor with all fields pre-filled, and saving goes through the normal pre-send review.

Note: Drafts are stored as plain text only (not multipart/alternative) to preserve markdown formatting when reopening. This prevents formatting corruption like line break addition, pipe escaping, and italic style changes.

HTML Signatures

neomd supports dual-format signatures for professional email layouts with logos, tables, and styled text.

Configure separate text and HTML signatures in [ui.signature_block]:

[ui.signature_block]
  text = """[html-signature]"""

  html = """<table style="font-size: 14px; color: #333;">
  <tr>
    <td><img src="https://example.com/logo.png" width="80"></td>
    <td>
      <strong>Your Name</strong><br>
      Your Title, Company Name
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>"""

How it works:

• The text signature appears in the editor and in the text/plain MIME part
• The HTML signature is appended to the text/html MIME part only
• Recipients using HTML email clients see the styled HTML signature
• Recipients using plain text clients see the text signature

The [html-signature] placeholder:

Include [html-signature] in your text signature (as shown above) to control HTML signature inclusion on a per-email basis:

• The placeholder is visible in the editor and pre-send preview
• When you send, neomd strips the placeholder and appends the HTML signature to the HTML part
• Delete the placeholder in the editor to send without the HTML signature for that specific email

This gives you full control: professional HTML signatures by default, plain signatures when needed.

Best practices:

• Use inline styles only (no <style> blocks) for maximum email client compatibility
• Host images externally (https://example.com/logo.png) so they display for recipients
• Test your HTML signature by sending to yourself first
• The -- separator is added automatically before the text signature

For full HTML signature configuration examples, see Configuration Reference.

For reading emails — images, links, attachments, and navigation — see Reading Emails.

Callouts (Admonition)

neomd supports GitHub/Obsidian-style callouts through the this extension (with my fork) for highlighted information boxes in your emails. Use the > [!TYPE] syntax to create styled alert boxes:

This is how it looks at the recievers end:

> [!note]
> This is a note callout with default styling

> [!tip] Pro Tip
> Use custom titles by adding text after the type

> [!warning] Important
> Callouts can have multiple paragraphs
>
> Just add blank blockquote lines between them

Available callout types:

• [!note] — Blue info box
• [!tip] — Green success/tip box
• [!warning] — Yellow warning box

Features:

• Custom titles — add text after the type: > [!warning] Security Alert
• Multiple paragraphs — use > (blockquote with space) for blank lines
• Works in both syntaxes: > [!note] (with space) or >[!note] (without space)

What recipients see:

HTML email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail) display callouts as colored boxes with:

• Colored left border (4px solid)
• Colored background
• Bold title with icon
• Proper spacing and padding

Example in composed email:

Hi team,

Here's the update on the project:

> [!tip] Good News
> We're ahead of schedule! The new feature shipped yesterday.

> [!warning] Action Required
> Please review the security audit by Friday.
>
> Contact @security if you have questions.

Thanks,
Simon

Mailto Handler

neomd can be your system’s default mailto: handler. When you click a mailto: link in a browser, neomd opens in a terminal with the compose form pre-filled.

Setup on Linux:

# Register neomd as the default mailto handler
xdg-mime default neomd-mailto.desktop x-scheme-handler/mailto

The .desktop file at ~/.local/share/applications/neomd-mailto.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=neomd (mailto)
Comment=Compose email in neomd terminal email client
Exec=foot -e /path/to/neomd-mailto.sh %u
Icon=mail-send
Terminal=false
NoDisplay=true
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/mailto;

Replace foot with your terminal emulator (alacritty, kitty, ghostty, etc.). See the wrapper script section below for why a wrapper is needed.

Usage:

# From the CLI (flag or positional argument)
neomd --mailto "mailto:user@example.com?subject=Hello&body=Check%20this%20out"
neomd "mailto:user@example.com?subject=Hello"

# Test the xdg handler
xdg-open "mailto:user@example.com?subject=Test&body=Hello%20world"

Supported mailto fields: to (path), cc, bcc, subject, body. neomd opens the compose form with all fields pre-filled — proceed through the normal compose flow (To → Subject → editor → pre-send → send).

Browser setup (Brave/Chrome)

Chromium-based browsers maintain their own protocol handler list that can override the system default. To use neomd for mailto links in Brave:

1. Go to brave://settings/handlers (or chrome://settings/handlers for Chrome)
2. Remove any existing mailto handler (e.g. office.hostpoint.ch, mail.google.com)
3. Next time you click a mailto link, Brave will show a dialog asking to open neomd

Check “Always allow” in the dialog to skip the prompt in the future.

Wrapper script

Since neomd is a TUI app, it needs a login shell to access environment variables (e.g. IMAP passwords). The .desktop file uses a wrapper script:

~/.local/bin/neomd-mailto.sh:

#!/bin/zsh
source ~/.zshrc 2>/dev/null
/home/sspaeti/.local/bin/neomd "$1" 2>/tmp/neomd-mailto.log
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "neomd failed. Log:"
    cat /tmp/neomd-mailto.log
    read -p "Press enter to close."
fi

Make it executable: chmod +x ~/.local/bin/neomd-mailto.sh

Then reference it in the .desktop file:

Exec=foot -e /home/sspaeti/.local/bin/neomd-mailto.sh %u

Replace zsh/.zshrc with bash/.bashrc if you use bash. Replace foot with your terminal emulator.

How it looks