March 19, 2024

View PDF attachments as text in Mutt

To do so, install pdftotext:

$ sudo apt install poppler-utils

Look for a mailcap file. If none exists:

$ touch .config/mutt/mailcap

Then add the following line:

application/pdf; pdftotext -layout -q %s -; copiousoutput;

Next you need to add these lines to your .muttrc:

auto_view application/pdf 
set mailcap_path = ~/.config/mutt/mailcap 

You now can type m to view a PDF file as text.

You can read more about mailcap and auto_view in the manual of Mutt.

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