Mutt: Saving a message as a text file

Question

I would like to save a message in Mutt as a text file somewhere outside of my maildir. For example, ~/documents/notes. I have found instructions for Saving Messages to Files which says that I should press either C or esc-C (depending on if I want headers or not) and then enter the directory I want to save to. When I do this and enter ~/documents/notes, Mutt says: "/home/user/documents/notes is not a mailbox".

I want to save the message to a plain directory, not a mailbox. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Use C (copy-message) or <Esc>C (decode-copy) if you want to save the mail as a mail message, necessarily in a mailbox. This mailbox can contain only one message if you want, but it won't be a text/plain file. If the mailbox (file or directory) doesn't exist yet, you shouldn't get an error: Mutt will propose you to create the mailbox.

If you just want to save the text of the body, then:

1. Type v (view-attachments).
2. Select the text/plain body (this is often the part that is selected by default, so that you won't have to do anything special here in most cases).
3. Type s (save-entry) to save the body to a file.

Answer 2

You might try something like this: Start a reply to the message which will open the message in your chosen editor whereupon you can save what you have in your editor to a local file.