What is VM?

VM, short for “View Mail,” is a mail reader that runs within the Emacs editor. If you are already an Emacs-user, you will be working in a familiar environment. You might have even used other Emacs-based mail readers such as Rmail and Gnus. If you are new to Emacs, you can start using VM via the menubar and toolbar until you become familiar with it. Then you can move on to keyboard shortcuts and advanced features. You should be aware that there are two major strands of Emacs versions, called “Gnu Emacs” and “XEmacs.” VM works in both of them. XEmacs might be a bit easier for new users due to its advanced support for menus and other interactive features. Please be sure to try both of them before deciding on your choice.

Emacs provides a powerful text-based user interface for VM users, with facilities for quick navigation, incremental searching , sophisticated customization and powerful add-on functions. You also have all the editing features of Emacs available for composing mail, without having to switch environments.

VM was developed by Kyle Jones starting in 1989. It was a leader in mail-reading functionality by introducing features like thread management, virtual folders, automatic archiving of messages and a full treatment of MIME. VM can interface to other packages available in Emacs, for remote file access, BBDB address book, GPG encryption and Org mode task management etc. It can also invoke external utilities available on your system such as mail filtering tools and html rendering tools.

VM can read and store mail on your file system (both local and remote). It can also handle mail stored in remote file servers running POP and IMAP protocols. The local folders are stored in a Unix-standard mbox format, which is also used by most other mail readers including Thunderbird. In fact, VM can seamlessly operate on Thunderbird folders and, if you use a remote mail server, you can view the same folders in VM and Thunderbird concurrently. In addition, VM can also store mail in the Babyl format used by Emacs Rmail. So, it is also possible to inter-operate with Rmail if you have archived mail in that format.

There are also a few things that VM cannot (yet) do. It does not have the ability to deal with maildir folders. It cannot be used to read newsgroups and RSS feeds. It does not have its own mail filtering tools. It does not have support for the Secure MIME (S/MIME) protocol. However, active development of VM is continuing. It may acquire some of these features before long.

VM has been found most useful by professional users who must deal with large quantities of email in the course of their work, and deal with it efficiently and reliably. We enjoy using VM and find that it is better than any other mail tool in its flexibility and efficiency. We hope you will too!

– VM Development Team