Re: [PLUG] "Online only" terminal IMAP client?

On Mon, Jun 12, 2023 at 9:12 PM N. Albert via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:

I'm thinking it might be difficult to get an answer to this anywhere,
but I figured this would probably be the place to ask since I'm sure
some of you use terminal mail readers.

Does anyone here know of any console mail clients (IMAP/SMTP) for Linux
that can operate *fully online*?

By this, I mean a client that does not (or can be configured to not)
store anything locally while running, or modify the file system in any
way. It also shouldn't allow access to the file system in any way, e.g.
attaching documents from the file system needs to be restricted.
Basically, I'm looking for something that's like a webmail client, in
that the way it utilizes the IMAP protocol is that of an online only
reader that doesn't cache anything locally. I've looked around a bit at
the usual stuff (mutt, alpine, neomutt, etc.), but they also seem to
very much rely on storing everything locally and often support multiple
formats (e.g. reading from a Maildir). Online only by definition means
IMAP only and nothing else, no POP3, no reading from maildirs on disk, etc.

Additionally, I need to be able to pass in the IMAP connection details
on the fly, i.e. via arguments or by specifying a config file.

Another way to think about this: if you launched this program and then
gave your personal machine to a stranger, s/he shouldn't be able to do
anything "undesired" on your machine while the program is running...
i.e. there shouldn't be any access to the file system possible from
within the client, and the client shouldn't really modify anything on
the file system in the course of operation. The user shouldn't be able
to do anything that would make anything "stick around" after the program
exits.

It's fine if this isn't the only way the client operates, as long as it
can operate in this mode somehow, and the mode *can't* be changed while
the program is running (once launched).

Does such a client even exist? I'd prefer not to have to write my own...
I've written an IMAP server and webmail client before, but working with
ncurses has never been much fun for me, and I don't want to reinvent the
wheel here.

Thanks!
Albert
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