Ashish Panigrahi - emacs

Reviewing finished tasks from last week in org-agenda and emacs

2026-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

Being a PhD student within a research group entails some structure to tracking your progress as your proceed with research. Within the current team that I'm in, we have weekly group meetings where each member presents the tasks that they've completed during the previous week and discuss any issues they might've faced (if any), to our supervisor.

Usually before the meeting, I jot down things that I've finished with pen and paper. But since I'm in the spirit of integrating my workflow with emacs and orgmode, I thought why don't I try implementing this part of my routine also into orgmode.

Enter org-agenda</h2>
All my todo items are tracked with org-agenda</a> where I capture every task I need to finish with org-capture</a>1</a>.
I have a custom org-agenda view just for viewing my daily and weekly `TODO</code> items, events/meetings scheduled at a certain time and tasks that have a deadline associated with them. Suffice to say, this workflow has replaced all my needs for having a calendar over the cloud, be it Google, Outlook, what have you2</a>. The only downside that I haven't figured out (yet) is to incorporate calendar invites that I receive via email, into my org-agenda automatically instead of manually capturing an event into the agenda view.`
`With this custom agenda view, as I finish tasks and mark them DONE</code>, they disappear from the current view. This is by design. I figured I could just review my completed tasks by visiting the relevant files (tasks.org</code>, meetings.org</code>, etc. in my case). But who wants to sift through all the completed tasks and filter them manually to only note down the tasks completed during the previous week? Why not automate this with the power of emacs?`

Elisp snippet that implements this weekly review</h2>

The idea is fairly simple. I'd like to look at the tasks that I've
completed since the last group meeting. This assumes I review these
tasks on the day of the group meeting (which I do currently3</a></sup>).</p>
We simply then instruct orgmode to filter out the DONE</code> items from
the last 7 days. The org-agenda-custom-commands</code> variable is what
we'll use to define this custom org-agenda view.</p>
(</span>setq</span> org-agenda-custom-commands</span></span>
      '</span>(</span>(</span>"</span>w</span>"</span> "</span>Finished tasks from last week</span>"</span> tags </span>"</span>CLOSED>=</span>\</span>"</span><-7d></span>\</span>"</span>"</span></span>
         (</span>(</span>org-agenda-overriding-header </span>"</span>Finished tasks from last week</span>"</span>)</span></span>
         (</span>org-agenda-archives-mode </span>t</span>)</span></span>
         (</span>org-agenda-tag-filter-preset </span>'</span>(</span>"</span>-emacs</span>"</span> "</span>-personal</span>"</span> "</span>-email</span>"</span>)</span>)</span></span>
         (</span>org-agenda-prefix-format </span>'</span>(</span>(</span>tags </span>.</span> "</span> "</span>)</span>)</span>)</span></span>
         (</span>org-agenda-remove-tags </span>nil</span>)</span>)</span>)</span>)</span>)</span></span></code></pre>
Let's go over the various config options one by one:</p>

The first line defines the keybinding in the primary org-agenda
dashboard and the associated title for the keybinding.</li>
tags "CLOSED>=\"<-7d>\""</code> is pretty self-explanatory. We filter for
items that were completed in the last 7 days.</li>
org-agenda-overriding-header</code>: Simply defines the title of the
agenda view.</li>
org-agenda-archives-mode</code>: This is set to t</code> (True) meaning to
also look at the archived entries from last week. I typically archive
my entries frequently so this is helpful.</li>
org-agenda-tag-filter-preset</code>: I don't want personal tasks
appearing in this view, so I remove any items that have the relevant tags.</li>
org-agenda-prefix-format</code>: By default, the agenda view contains
information about which file the entries belong to (in my case, it's
tasks.org</code>). This appears as tasks:</code> per entry in the agenda
which unnecessarily clutters the view.</li>
org-agenda-remove-tags</code>: I don't want to remove the tags of the
various entries (they are useful to me) that appear in the right
margin. Hence this variable is set to nil</code> (False).</li>
</ul>
To invoke the view, we can simply run M-x org-agenda</code> and hit w</code> to
get into the view. My org-agenda dashboard looks like this:</p>
</p>
All the above keys are present in the default view, except my custom
views (depicted by j</code> and w</code> keys).</p>
Invoking custom org-agenda views (slightly) faster</h3>
For my workflow, I mostly deal with just the two org-agenda views
(represented by j</code> and w</code>). It's a good idea to have a global
keybinding to quickly invoke these views. Let's define the function
and keybinding for it.</p>
(</span>defun</span> pani/done-items-prev-week-org-agenda</span> (</span>)</span></span>
  "</span>Custom function to immediately jump to my custom org-agenda view.</span>"</span></span>
  (</span>interactive</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>org-agenda</span> nil</span> "</span>w</span>"</span>)</span>)</span></span></code></pre>
To invoke the function, we define the keybinding like via a
use-package</a>
macro so:</p>
(</span>use-package</span> org-agenda</span></span>
  :</span>ensure</span> nil</span></span>
  ;</span>; Don't need to go through org-agenda template for custom agenda</span></span>
  :</span>bind</span> (</span>:</span>map</span> global-map</span></span>
	      (</span>"</span>C-c w</span>"</span> .</span> pani/done-items-prev-week-org-agenda</span>)</span>)</span>)</span></span></code></pre>
I can then just hit CTRL c w</code> to bring up this new agenda view.</p>
That's it! This should make things easier for me during our group's
weekly meetings.</p>

Special thanks to Marci</a> for
pointing out grammatical errors and typos.
</div>



More on this in a future blog-post. ↩</a></p>
</li>

This is fully offline. Between my personal laptop and office PC,
I simply use syncthing</a> to sync all my orgmode
files via peer-to-peer. ↩</a></p>
</li>

This is perhaps not the best approach but is a good enough starting
point for me. ↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>



Setting up offline email for Microsoft O365 with notmuch and emacs
2026-06-07T00:00:00+00:00
Having to deal with Microsoft's outlook has been a growing pain with
my computing needs. Of course, this is pertinent only for work email.
For personal email, I use Migadu</a> which has good
standards for email unlike Microsoft's.</p>
At work, I can only use either the official Outlook webmail or
Thunderbird since those are the only clients that are whitelisted by
the IT department at my university. Thunderbird is slightly better (it
has a few problems of its own but I digress) but I would like to have
an offline copy of all my emails, fully searchable with an indexed
database provided by notmuch</a>, which uses
the excellent Xapian</a> library for indexing.
Notmuch is shipped as an emacs package in the form of notmuch.el</code>,
which is exactly what I like given that I'm moving most of my
computing needs into emacs1</a></sup>.</p>
I've taken inspiration from Fergus' excellent
blogpost</a>
which implements the same in neomutt</a>. The
initial setup process is identical to Fergus' blogpost.</p>
It should be noted that notmuch is only a mail indexer. It does not
fetch mail, nor does it send mail. Those are handled by
isync</a> and
msmtp</a>, which are commandline programs.</p>
Access authentication with O365</h2>
Since Thunderbird is still allowed to access O365's authentication, we
will use the client ID provided from it (this is publicly
available from Thunderbird's source code)2</a></sup>. For authentication for
IMAP and SMTP, we will use
XOAUTH</a>,
which is a simple authentication and security layer</em> (SASL) more
suited for email clients.</p>
Tools like isync rely on SASL for authentication, for which we'll
require an XOAUTH SASL plugin:
https://github.com/moriyoshi/cyrus-sasl-xoauth2</code></a>.</p>
If you're on Arch, then this plugin is installable from the AUR:</p>
paru</span> -</span>S</span> cyrus-sasl-xoauth2-git</span></span></code></pre>
If not, then we can build it from source:</p>
git</span> clone</span> https://github.com/moriyoshi/cyrus-sasl-xoauth2</span></span>
cd</span> cyrus-sasl-xoauth2/</span></span>
./autogen.sh</span>   #</span> checks for requirements</span></span>
./configure</span>    #</span> configure (here we use the defaults)</span></span>
make</span>           #</span> compile</span></span>
sudo</span> make</span> install</span>     #</span> install for root user</span></span></code></pre>Token generation for OAuth</h3>
Microsoft has conditionally allowed API access to clients and the only
way to get access for any client is to register the application in
the Microsot Application portal, which is something only my org's IT
department can do3</a></sup>. Fortunately, we can use Thunderbird's
credentials to generate an access token for our purposes.</p>
Another issue that comes up is the finite lifetime of these access
tokens (typically an hour or two), which is cumbersome to generate
each time one needs to download email. Fortunately,
mutt</a> comes with
mutt_oauth2.py</code></a>,
a script to help in the automatic renewal of this token. This script
helps in decrypting the token file and renewing it everytime it is
invoked.</p>
Fetching the initial token is fairly simple but before we do it, there
are certain changes that we need to do to mutt_oauth2.py</code>.</p>
Look into the ENCRYPTION_PIPE</code> variable (line 48) and make sure to specify your
gpg key. If you don't have one, then generate one:</p>
gpg</span> -</span>-full-generate-key</span></span></code></pre>
Select the default options (ed25519 cypher if it allows) and make sure
that the expiration of the key is set to 0 (no expiration). This makes
your life easier but of course for security reasons, this is not a
good practice</strong>.</p>
Bring up your public key:</p>
gpg</span> -</span>-list-keys</span></span></code></pre>
Copy the second line (after the pub</code> line) and paste it into
mutt_oauth2.py</code></p>
ENCRYPTION_PIPE</span> =</span> [</span>'</span>gpg</span>'</span>,</span> '</span>--encrypt</span>'</span>,</span> '</span>--recipient</span>'</span>,</span> '</span>YOUR-GPG-KEY</span>'</span>]</span></span></code></pre>
After this, look at line 79. This includes a client_id</code> for
microsoft</code>. For Thunderbird, the client id is
9e5f94bc-e8a4-4e73-b8be-63364c29d753</code>. Leave the client_secret</code>
value as is. It should look like so:</p>
'</span>client_id</span>'</span>:</span> '</span>9e5f94bc-e8a4-4e73-b8be-63364c29d753</span>'</span>,</span></span>
'</span>client_secret</span>'</span>:</span> '</span>'</span>,</span></span></code></pre>
Now we are ready to generate the access token. Simply run:</p>
./mutt_oauth2.py</span> OUTPUT_TOKEN_FILE</span> -</span>-verbose</span> -</span>-authorize</span></span></code></pre>
A series of prompts should appear. Select microsoft</code>,
localhostauthcode</code> (or authcode</code>), followed by your email address, after which you
should automatically be redirected to a browser for adding your
credentials for authentication. Doing so, should reveal the access
token in your terminal. No need to copy it, it is present in your
OUTPUT_TOKEN_FILE</code> which is encrypted. To obtain the decrypted token,
we run the script again with just the file name as an argument</p>
./mutt_oauth2.py</span> OUTPUT_TOKEN_FILE</span></span></code></pre>
A nice thing is that running this script with the token file also
checks for expiry and renews it if necessary. This can be done
multiple times without worry.</p>
UPDATE (2026-06-19)</strong>: About 20 days after I set this up, for whatever reason the
token file expired on my personal laptop. I'm not entirely sure what
happened but the fix for now was to regenerate the token again. I'll
need to debug the exact cause to prevent it from happening again.</p>
UPDATE (2026-07-29)</strong>: It looks like this problem only appears on my
personal laptop as it's not an authorized device and as
such, 14 days is the maximum duration before which the token needs
to be reauthorized. My office PC is within this "authorized" devices
whitelist and thus doesn't need reauthentication after the initial setup.</p>
Offline email setup</h2>
Now that we are done with the difficult part, we move onto setting up
isync (the binary is called mbsync</code>) which is available in most
distributions. This program basically downloads your emails offline
and synchronizes it with your email's remote IMAP servers. It supports
multiple accounts too. The program is configurable with a
~/.mbsyncrc</code> file4</a></sup>. I highly recommend reading the manual for it
via man mbsync</code>. Here's a starting template:</p>
# -- Global defaults</span></span>
# These will be applied to all accounts</span></span>
</span>
# Create new mail in either location, so if the remote or local has mail</span></span>
# and the other does not, then create it</span></span>
Create Both</span></span>
# never remote mail from either side</span></span>
Remove None</span></span>
# Remove messages marked for deletion from the local side on the</span></span>
# remote. Do not ever delete local if marked for deletion in the</span></span>
# remote. Prevents admins from deleting one's local mail</span></span>
Expunge Far</span></span>
Sync All</span></span>
SyncState *</span></span>
CopyArrivalDate yes</span></span>
# No maximum number of messages</span></span>
MaxMessages 0</span></span>
</span>
# -- First email account</span></span>
IMAPAccount university</span></span>
Host outlook.office365.com</span></span>
Port 993</span></span>
User my-username@university.edu</span></span>
AuthMechs XOAUTH2</span></span>
PassCmd "~/.local/bin/mutt_oauth2.py ~/.local/bin/TOKEN"</span></span>
# Use TLS</span></span>
TLSType IMAPS</span></span>
SystemCertificates yes</span></span>
Timeout 10</span></span>
</span>
# A store defines a collection of mailboxes, so we associate the</span></span>
# remote IMAP mailbox with the account we just configured</span></span>
IMAPStore university-remote</span></span>
# Associate the store with our account</span></span>
Account university</span></span>
</span>
# Where are we going to keep the mail associated with this account</span></span>
MaildirStore university-local</span></span>
SubFolders Verbatim</span></span>
Path ~/.local/share/mail/university/</span></span>
Inbox ~/.local/share/mail/university/INBOX</span></span>
</span>
# Channel to synchronize everything except "Sent" email</span></span>
Channel uni-main</span></span>
Far :university-remote:</span></span>
Near :university-local:</span></span>
# Which directories to synchronize</span></span>
Patterns INBOX "Deleted Items" "Drafts"</span></span>
</span>
# Channel to synchronize "Sent" email</span></span>
Channel uni-sent</span></span>
Far :university-remote:"Sent Items"</span></span>
Near :university-local:Sent</span></span>
</span>
# Group the two channels and sync everything with `mbsync NAME`</span></span>
Group university</span></span>
Channel uni-main</span></span>
Channel uni-sent</span></span>
</span>
# -- Second email account</span></span>
IMAPAccount personal</span></span>
...</span></span></code></pre>
Once you have everything configured, we can start downloading all our
email by running:</p>
mbsync</span> university</span></span></code></pre>
The first time mbsync</code> is run, it will take a fair amount of time,
since you'll be downloading a lot of email (assuming you've been using
your account for a long time). The subsequent runs would be just
incremental downloads, so it's much faster.</p>
After navigating to your local Maildir directory
(~/.local/share/mail/university</code> in my case), you should see all your
emails downloaded and categorized into inbox, drafts, sent, and
deleted-items folders.</p>
A way to automate this to run a script periodically. I use
systemd-timers</a>
where I have a script which is periodically run every 15 mins and
notifies me if there's new email (I'll cover this later in the blogpost).</p>
Sending mail via SMTP</h2>
Sending email is done via msmtp</code></a>. It
is configured by editing ~/.msmtprc</code>5</a></sup>.</p>
defaults</span></span>
auth on</span></span>
tls on</span></span>
tls_trust_file system</span></span>
logfile ~/.cache/msmtp.log</span></span>
timeout 10</span></span>
</span>
# -- First account</span></span>
account university</span></span>
tls_starttls on</span></span>
host smtp.office365.com</span></span>
port 587</span></span>
auth xoauth2</span></span>
user my-username@university.edu</span></span>
passwordeval "~/.local/bin/mutt_oauth2.py ~/.local/bin/TOKEN"</span></span>
from my-username@university.edu</span></span>
</span>
# -- Second account</span></span>
account personal</span></span></code></pre>
This is fairly self-explanatory. One thing to note is that
tls_starttls</code> should be on for this to work. I'm not very familiar
with email security protocols like TLS and STARTTLS but from my
understanding, STARTTLS is an automatic upgrade (if supported) from
the more insecure TLS protocol. TLS however needs to be enabled for
any email service, otherwise it won't work.</p>
Now, we can test our configuration by sending email directly from the
commandline. Save the contents of a file called example-mail</code> as follows:</p>
From: my-username@university.edu</span></span>
To: user@example.com</span></span>
Subject: Hello World</span></span>
</span>
This is a test for msmtp.</span></span></code></pre>
And send the email by running:</p>
cat</span> example-mail</span> |</span> msmtp</span> -</span>t</span> -</span>a</span> university</span></span></code></pre>Indexing email offline with notmuch</h2>
We have receiving and sending email configured. How about reading and
"using" email via an email client. In more technical terms, an email
client is called a mail user agent</em> (MUA), which is typically seen in
email headers. This includes clients like Thunderbird, Apple mail,
neomutt, etc. We will configure notmuch</code> which indexes email and
provides an interface for emacs natively with notmuch.el.</p>
Notmuch is entirely tag based. Basic tags exist like unread</em>,
inbox</em>, draft</em>, sent</em> but you can customize it with more tags to
filter out emails from a particular email address, from a
particular range of date, etc. Tags are heavily used and it's a
different paradigm of handling email compared to your typical webmail
interface. I won't go over the details of tagging in notmuch here for
the sake of brevity (to be covered in another blogpost).</p>
When first setting up notmuch, simply run:</p>
notmuch</span> setup</span></span></code></pre>
This will prompt you for basic information like your name, email address,
Maildir directory, etc. Once this is done, notmuch needs to index your
Maildir. Run the following:</p>
notmuch</span> new</span></span></code></pre>
This should be fairly fast, even if your Maildir is big. Notmuch is
quick like that.</p>
Now you can search an email entry via notmuch search</code>. For example, I
can search emails from a particular sender like so:</p>
notmuch</span> search</span> '</span>from:friend@university.edu</span>'</span></span></code></pre>
I would again advise you to go through the man pages (man notmuch-search</code>) for more details.</p>
Emacs setup for notmuch</h3>
Simply running M-x notmuch</code> should give you a hello screen, where you
can then select tags like inbox</em>, unread</em> to view their respective
email. I have a fairly customized config for notmuch.el but below I
provide a fairly good starting point for a more minimal notmuch
interface^{6</a></sup>:</p>}
;</span>; Notmuch for email</span></span>
(</span>use-package</span> notmuch</span></span>
  :</span>load-path</span> "</span>/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/</span>"</span></span>
  :</span>ensure</span> nil</span></span>
  :</span>defer</span> t</span></span>
  :</span>commands</span> (</span>notmuch notmuch-mua-new-mail</span>)</span></span>
  :</span>init</span></span>
  ;</span>; Search</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-search-oldest-first </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
  :</span>config</span></span>
  ;</span> General UI</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-logo </span>nil</span></span>
	notmuch-column-control </span>1.0</span></span>
	notmuch-hello-auto-refresh </span>t</span></span>
	notmuch-hello-recent-searches-max </span>20</span></span>
	notmuch-hello-thousands-separator </span>"</span>"</span></span>
	notmuch-hello-sections </span>'</span>(</span>notmuch-hello-insert-saved-searches</span>)</span></span>
	notmuch-show-all-tags-list </span>t</span>)</span></span>
</span>
  ;</span> Search</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-search-result-format</span></span>
        '</span>(</span>(</span>"</span>date</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%12s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>"</span>count</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%-7s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>"</span>authors</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%-20s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>"</span>subject</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%-80s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>"</span>tags</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>(%s)</span>"</span>)</span>)</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-tree-result-format</span></span>
        '</span>(</span>(</span>"</span>date</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%12s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>"</span>authors</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%-20s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>(</span>(</span>"</span>tree</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%s</span>"</span>)</span></span>
            (</span>"</span>subject</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>%s</span>"</span>)</span>)</span></span>
           .</span> "</span> %-80s  </span>"</span>)</span></span>
          (</span>"</span>tags</span>"</span> .</span> "</span>(%s)</span>"</span>)</span>)</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-empty-saved-searches </span>t</span>)</span></span>
</span>
  ;</span> Tags</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-archive-tags </span>nil</span> ;</span> I don't archive email</span></span>
	notmuch-message-replied-tags </span>'</span>(</span>"</span>+replied</span>"</span>)</span></span>
	notmuch-message-forwarded-tags </span>'</span>(</span>"</span>+forwarded</span>"</span>)</span></span>
	notmuch-show-mark-read-tags </span>'</span>(</span>"</span>-unread</span>"</span>)</span></span>
	notmuch-draft-tags </span>'</span>(</span>"</span>+draft</span>"</span>)</span></span>
	notmuch-draft-folder </span>"</span>university/Drafts</span>"</span></span>
	notmuch-draft-save-plaintext </span>'</span>ask</span>)</span></span>
</span>
  ;</span> Email composition</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-mua-compose-in </span>'</span>new-window</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-mua-hidden-headers </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-address-command </span>'</span>internal</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-address-use-company </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-always-prompt-for-sender </span>t</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-mua-cite-function</span></span>
	'</span>message-cite-original-without-signature</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-mua-user-agent-function </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
</span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-relative-dates </span>t</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-all-multipart/alternative-parts </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-indent-messages-width </span>0</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-indent-multipart </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-show-part-button-default-action </span>'</span>notmuch-show-view-part</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-wash-wrap-lines-length </span>120</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-unthreaded-show-out </span>nil</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-message-headers </span>'</span>(</span>"</span>To</span>"</span> "</span>Cc</span>"</span> "</span>Subject</span>"</span> "</span>Date</span>"</span>)</span>)</span></span>
  (</span>setq</span> notmuch-message-headers-visible </span>t</span>)</span></span>
</span>
  :</span>bind</span></span>
  (</span> :</span>map</span> global-map</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>C-c m m</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch</span>)</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>C-x m</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-mua-new-mail</span>)</span> ;</span> override </span>`</span>compose-mail</span>'</span></span>
    :</span>map</span> notmuch-search-mode-map</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>/</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-search-filter</span>)</span> ;</span> alias for l</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>r</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-search-reply-to-thread</span>)</span> ;</span> easier to reply to all by default</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>R</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-search-reply-to-thread-sender</span>)</span></span>
    :</span>map</span> notmuch-show-mode-map</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>r</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-show-reply</span>)</span> ;</span> easier to reply to all by default</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>R</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-show-reply-sender</span>)</span></span>
    :</span>map</span> notmuch-hello-mode-map</span></span>
    (</span>"</span>J</span>"</span> .</span> notmuch-jump-search</span>)</span>)</span>)</span></span></code></pre>
You're free to look at my
init.el</code></a>
for my own customization for notmuch.el.</p>
Automating email synchronization with systemd timers</h2>
Let's automate the email sync to happen every 15 mins (or whatever
frequency you prefer). First we create a shell-script to download
email via mbsync</code> and also index the email with notmuch</code>. Let's name it
it syncmail.sh</code> and place it in $HOME/.local/bin/</code>.</p>
#!</span>/bin/sh</span></span>
set</span> -</span>eu</span></span>
</span>
#</span> Set environment variable for notmuch config file</span></span>
export</span> NOTMUCH_CONFIG</span>=</span>"</span>$</span>HOME</span>/.config/notmuch/notmuch-config</span>"</span></span>
</span>
mbsync</span> university</span></span>
</span>
before</span>=</span>$(</span>notmuch</span> count</span> -</span>-lastmod</span> '</span>*</span>'</span> |</span> cut</span> -</span>f3</span>)</span></span>
notmuch</span> new</span> ></span> /dev/null</span></span>
</span>
query</span>=</span>"</span>lastmod:</span>$(</span>(</span>before</span> +</span> 1</span>)</span>)</span>.. and path:university/**</span>"</span></span>
count</span>=</span>$(</span>notmuch</span> count</span> "</span>$</span>query</span>"</span>)</span></span>
</span>
if</span> [</span> "</span>$</span>count</span>"</span> -gt</span> 0</span> ]</span>;</span> then</span></span>
    body</span>=</span>$(</span>notmuch</span> search</span> -</span>-format=json</span> -</span>-limit=5</span> "</span>$</span>query</span>"</span> \</span></span>
	       |</span> jq</span> -</span>r</span> '</span>.[] | "\(.authors): \(.subject)"</span>'</span>)</span></span>
    notify-send</span> "</span>New mail: </span>$</span>count</span>"</span> "</span>$</span>body</span>"</span></span>
fi</span></span></code></pre>
In addition to downloading email and indexing, the script also
notifies through notify-send</code> if there's new email along with a
sender and subject in the notification. Make sure to make the script
executable with</p>
chmod</span> +x</span> ./syncmail.sh</span></span></code></pre>
Then we write the systemd script to run this script periodically.
First we create a syncmail.service</code> file in $HOME/.config/systemd/user/</code>:</p>
[Unit]</span></span>
Description</span>=</span>Sync mail with mbsync and index with notmuch</span></span>
</span>
[Service]</span></span>
Type</span>=</span>oneshot</span></span>
ExecStart</span>=</span>%h</span>/.local/bin/syncmail.sh</span></span></code></pre>
Then we create a timer file (make sure it is named syncmail.timer</code>) for actually running the script every n</code> minutes.</p>
[Unit]</span></span>
Description</span>=</span>Run syncmail every </span>15</span> minutes</span></span>
</span>
[Timer]</span></span>
OnBootSec</span>=</span>2m</span></span>
OnUnitActiveSec</span>=</span>15m</span></span>
Persistent</span>=</span>true</span></span>
</span>
[Install]</span></span>
WantedBy</span>=</span>timers.target</span></span></code></pre>
The advantage over cronjobs is that if your system is asleep or
shutdown, then booting up accomodates accordingly and runs the script
after m</code> minutes (2 minutes in my case).</p>
Finally we enable the script with systemctl</code>:</p>
systemctl</span> -</span>-user</span> daemon-reload</span></span>
systemctl</span> -</span>-user</span> enable</span> -</span>-now</span> syncmail.timer</span></span></code></pre>Concluding remarks</h2>
Now you should have a working setup for using offline email for
Microsoft's O365. This is fairly minimal but if you'd like to have
encrypted emails, addressbooks, etc., please take a look at the
original blogpost from
Fergus</a>.</p>
A basic emailing etiquette I like to follow is to use plaintext as
opposed to html. Read more</a> on why this is better.</p>

Special thanks to Marci</a> for
pointing out grammatical errors and typos.
</div>



It's like the old adage from Vi advocates, "Emacs is a great
operating system, lacking only a decent text editor". Although the latter part I would disagree with. ↩</a></p>
</li>

I just found out that Mozilla has made it very convoluted to
find the source code and build Thunderbird locally. It uses
mercurial instead of Git (in this day and age?). Relevant docs are here</a>. ↩</a></p>
</li>

Even after asking countless times, they've rejected my request
to include notmuch/emacs into the allowed clients list. Ah well, here
we are. ↩</a></p>
</li>

Personally, I dislike that my $HOME</code> directory gets cluttered
with config files that don't respect the XDG
specifications</a>.
I set it to $HOME/.config/mbsync/mbsyncrc</code> by exporting the variable MBSYNCRC</code>. ↩</a></p>
</li>

Same issue with this. I fix it to be at $HOME/.config/msmtp/config</code>. ↩</a></p>
</li>

The default interface is too noisy for me, so I disable a lot of the bells and whistles. ↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>


Switching to GNU Emacs
2024-04-14T00:00:00+00:00
Over the past five years, I've been using Vim</a>
(well NeoVim</a> specifically) for all of my text
editing needs ranging from tinkering with config files, shell scripts,
to writing this website, making LaTeX reports and theses, etc. The
paradigm of modal text editing that is Vim, just feels right. The user
communicates exactly how text needs to be edited. For instance: delete
all characters until a specific character appears? Done. Only delete
lines in the file that cover certain patterns? Built-in regex has you
covered! The point is, once you understand how modal editing works,
any other form of text editing feels like it's from the stone ages.</p>
Now you might ask, why am I switching to GNU
Emacs</a>, the opposing contender to
Vim in the well known editor
war</a>? Well, the more "silly"
reason is that it gives me an opportunity to learn a new piece of
software, understand it's inner workings, etc. The more pragmatic
reason is that, like any rivalry, both sides have their pros and cons.
GNU Emacs presents itself as a truly hackable editor in any way the
user desires. This is thanks to the editor being written and
configured in Emacs lisp</a>,
a dialect of the Lisp family of languages. Vim on the other hand is
written mostly in C but is configured in an obscure language that is
Vimscript. The advantage with Emacs lisp is that one can write not
only specific functions to help in any form of text editing and beyond
(one of the charms of Emacs) but also supplements more experienced
users in contributing to the core development of Emacs. This appeals
to me from a FOSS perspective as I truly believe that free software
development being run by volunteers should be tightly knit with its
user community. This helps not only in raising issues with the
software better but also in users contributing to the
development.</p>
This truly hackable experience, presented by Emacs also benefits in
the form of tasks that are not necessarily based around text-editing.
Thanks to the wonderful community, Emacs boasts a wide-range of
well-written packages such as org-mode</a> (Task
management system with a markup style of its own) and
Magit</a> (A Git porcelain inside Emacs). One of the
primary reasons I've decided to switch is due to org-mode (which I
intend to cover in detail in subsequent blog entries).</p>
Some people might argue that Emacs goes against the UNIX philosophy of
minimalism and "doing one thing right". Technically Emacs is
more of a Lisp environment than a text editor, or like the more famous
vim adage: "Emacs is a great operating system, but it lacks a good
text editor". I cannot really comment here because I'm still very new
to Emacs but the quote does hold some truth. Emacs (atleast from my
first impressions) has esoteric keybindings which are completely
foreign to new users let alone someone coming from a vim background.
Ctrl</code> and Alt</code> (known as Meta</code> in Emacs parlance) are the most
common keys which form part of the key-chord style of using emacs.
These keys obviously are placed at positions on a standard QWERTY
keyboard layout that when used frequently leads to the more infamous
Emacs
pinky</a>
which is basically repetitive strain injury
(RSI)</a>. For
this reason, I will be using emacs with
Evil</a> which is the Vi-emulation
package in emacs, atleast until I get the hang of working with Emacs
before perhaps trying the stock keybindings (which apparently most of
the emacs community adheres to).</p>


Relevant xkcd</figcaption>
</center>
For the next couple weeks I will try to steadily convert to using
Emacs and hopefully perform all of my computing needs with emacs in
the not-so-long future. This blog post is mainly for me to make this
commitment. As a first step, this blog entry is written entirely in Emacs.</p>