Provided by: aerc_0.17.0-1ubuntu0.24.04.3_amd64 
NAME
aerc-stylesets - styleset file specification for aerc(1)
SYNOPSIS
aerc uses a simple configuration syntax to configure the styleset for its ui.
STYLESET CONFIGURATION
The styleset is described as <object>.<attribute> = <value> pairs.
For example, in the line below, the foreground color of the style object msglist_unread is set to
cornflowerblue
msglist_unread.fg = cornflowerblue
The configuration also allows wildcard matching of the keys to configure multiple style objects at a
time.
ATTRIBUTES
The following options are available to be modified for each of the style objects.
<object>.fg = <color>
The foreground color of the style object is set.
<object>.bg = <color>
The background color of the style object is set.
<object>.bold = true|false|toggle
The bold attribute of the style object is set/unset.
<object>.blink = true|false|toggle
The blink attribute of the style object is set/unset. The terminal needs to support blinking text.
<object>.underline = true|false|toggle
The underline attribute of the style object is set/unset. The terminal needs to support underline
text.
<object>.italic = true|false|toggle
The italic attribute of the style object is set/unset. The terminal needs to support italic text.
<object>.dim = true|false|toggle
The dim attribute of the style object is set/unset. The terminal needs to support half-bright text.
<object>.reverse = true|false|toggle
Reverses the color of the style object. Exchanges the foreground and background colors.
If the value is false, it doesn't change anything.
<object>.normal = true
All the attributes of the style object are unset.
The value doesn't matter.
<object>.default = true
Set the style object to the default style of the context. Usually based on the terminal.
The value doesn't matter.
STYLE OBJECTS
The style objects represent the various ui elements or ui instances for styling.
┌───────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Style Object │ Description │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ default │ The default style object used for │
│ │ normal ui elements while not using │
│ │ specialized configuration. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ error │ The style used to show errors. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ warning │ The style used when showing warnings. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ success │ The style used for success messages. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ title │ The style object used to style titles │
│ │ in ui elements. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ header │ The style object used to style │
│ │ headers in ui elements. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ statusline_default │ The default style applied to the │
│ │ statusline. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ statusline_error │ The style used for error messages in │
│ │ statusline. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ statusline_success │ The style used for success messages │
│ │ in statusline. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_default │ The default style for messages in a │
│ │ message list. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_unread │ Unread messages in a message list. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_read │ Read messages in a message list. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_flagged │ The messages with the flagged flag. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_deleted │ The messages marked as deleted. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_marked │ The messages with the marked flag. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_result │ The messages which match the current │
│ │ search. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_answered │ The messages marked as answered. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_gutter │ The message list gutter. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_pill │ The message list pill. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ msglist_thread_folded │ Visible messages that have folded │
│ │ thread children. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ dirlist_default │ The default style for directories in │
│ │ the directory list. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ dirlist_unread │ The style used for directories with │
│ │ unread messages │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ dirlist_recent │ The style used for directories with │
│ │ recent messages │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ part_switcher │ Background for the part switcher in │
│ │ the message viewer. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ part_filename │ Attachment file name in the part │
│ │ switcher. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ part_mimetype │ Attachment/part MIME type in the part │
│ │ switcher. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ completion_default │ The default style for the completion │
│ │ engine. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ completion_gutter │ The completion gutter. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ completion_pill │ The completion pill. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ tab │ The style for the tab bar. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ stack │ The style for ui stack element. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ spinner │ The style for the loading spinner. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ border │ The style used to draw borders (only │
│ │ the bg color is used unless you │
│ │ customize border-char-vertical and/or │
│ │ border-char-horizontal in aerc.conf). │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ selector_default │ The default style for the selector ui │
│ │ element. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ selector_focused │ The focused item in a selector ui │
│ │ element. │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ selector_chooser │ The item chooser in a selector ui │
│ │ element. │
└───────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
These next style objects only affect the built-in colorize filter and must be declared under a [viewer]
section of the styleset file.
┌─────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┐
│ Style Object │ Description │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ url │ URLs. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ header │ RFC-822-like header names. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ signature │ Email signatures. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ diff_meta │ Patch diff meta lines. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ diff_chunk │ Patch diff chunks. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ diff_chunk_func │ Patch diff chunk function names. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ diff_add │ Patch diff added lines. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ diff_del │ Patch diff deleted lines. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ quote_1 │ First level quoted text. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ quote_2 │ Second level quoted text. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ quote_3 │ Third level quoted text. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ quote_4 │ Fourth level quoted text. │
├─────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│ quote_x │ Above fourth level quoted text. │
└─────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘
User defined styles can be used to style arbitrary strings in go-templates (see .Style in aerc-
templates(7)). User styles must be defined in the [user] ini section. Styles can be referenced by their
name (e.g. red.fg is named "red").
Example:
[user]
red.fg=red
User styles are layered with other styles applied to the context in which they are rendered. The user
style colors (fg and/or bg) will only be effective if the context style does not define any. Other
boolean attributes will be merged with the underlying style boolean attributes.
For example, if the context style is:
fg=red bold
And the inline style is:
fg=yellow italic underline
The effective style will be:
fg=red bold italic underline
FNMATCH STYLE WILDCARD MATCHING
The styleset configuration can be made simpler by using the fnmatch style wildcard matching for the style
object.
The special characters used in the fnmatch wildcards are:
┌─────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ Pattern │ Meaning │
├─────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ * │ Matches everything │
├─────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ ? │ Matches any single character │
└─────────┴──────────────────────────────┘
For example, the following wildcards can be made using this syntax.
┌────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Example │ Description │
├────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ *.fg = blue │ Set the foreground color of all style │
│ │ objects to blue. │
├────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ *list.bg = hotpink │ Set the background color of all style │
│ │ objects that end in list to hotpink. │
└────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
Note that the statements in a given styleset are parsed in the order in which they are written. That
means that with the following styleset:
msglist_marked.fg = pink
msglist_*.fg = white
The msglist_marked.fg attribute will be set to white.
SELECTED MODIFIER
The selected modifier can be applied to any style object. The style provided for the selected modifier is
applied on top of the style object it corresponds to.
If you would like to make sure message that are flagged as read in the msglist appear in yellow
foreground and black background. You can specify that with this:
msglist_default.selected.fg = yellow
msglist_default.selected.bg = black
If we specify the global style selected modifier using fnmatch as below:
*.selected.reverse = toggle
This toggles the reverse switch for selected version of all the style objects.
selected objects inherit from all attributes of their non-selected counterparts. selected statements are
parsed after non-selected ones and effectively override the attributes of the non-selected style object.
LAYERED STYLES
Some styles, (currently the msglist_* and dirlist_* ones) are applied in layers. If a style differs from
the base (in this case *list_default) then that style applies, unless overridden by a higher layer. If fg
and bg colors are not defined explicitly (or defined to the default color) they will be considered as
"transparent" and the colors from the lower layer will be used instead.
The order that msglist_* styles are applied in is, from first to last:
1. msglist_default
2. msglist_unread
3. msglist_read
4. msglist_answered
5. msglist_flagged
6. msglist_deleted
7. msglist_result
8. msglist_thread_folded
9. msglist_marked
So, the marked style will override all other msglist styles.
The order for dirlist_* styles is:
1. dirlist_default
2. dirlist_unread
3. dirlist_recent
DYNAMIC MESSAGE LIST STYLES
All msglist_* styles can be defined for specific email header values. The syntax is as follows:
msglist_<name>.<header>,<header_value>.<attribute> = <attr_value>
If <header_value> starts with a tilde character ~, it will be interpreted as a regular expression.
Examples:
msglist*.X-Sourcehut-Patchset-Update,APPROVED.fg = green
msglist*.X-Sourcehut-Patchset-Update,NEEDS_REVISION.fg = yellow
msglist*.X-Sourcehut-Patchset-Update,REJECTED.fg = red
"msglist_*.Subject,~^(\[[w-]+]\s*)?\[(RFC )?PATCH.fg" = #ffffaf
"msglist_*.Subject,~^(\[[w-]+]\s*)?\[(RFC )?PATCH.selected.fg" = #ffffaf
When a dynamic style is matched to an email header, it will be used in priority compared to its non-
dynamic counterpart. Provided the following styleset:
msglist_marked.fg = blue
msglist_*.Subject,~foobar.fg = red
An email with foobar it its subject will be colored in red all the time, since msglist_* also applies to
msglist_marked.
COLORS
The color values are set using the values accepted by the tcell library. The values can be one of the
following.
default
The color is set as per the system or terminal default.
<Color name>
Any w3c approved color name is used to set colors for the style.
<Hex code>
Hexcode for a color can be used. The format must be #XXXXXX.
<Dec number>
Color based on the terminal palette index. Valid numbers are between 0 and 255.
DEFAULTS
Before parsing a styleset, it is first initialized with the following defaults:
*.selected.reverse=toggle
title.reverse=true
header.bold=true
*error.bold=true
error.fg=red
warning.fg=yellow
success.fg=green
statusline*.default=true
statusline_default.reverse=true
statusline_error.fg=red
statusline_error.reverse=true
statusline_warning.fg=yellow
statusline_warning.reverse=true
msglist_unread.bold=true
msglist_deleted.fg=gray
msglist_result.fg=green
msglist_pill.reverse=true
part_mimetype.dim=true
part_mimetype.selected.dim=false
part_filename.selected.bold=true
completion_pill.reverse=true
tab.reverse=true
border.reverse = true
selector_focused.reverse=true
selector_chooser.bold=true
You can choose either to reset everything by starting your styleset with these two lines:
*.default=true
*.normal=true
Or selectively override style object attributes.
SEE ALSO
aerc(1) aerc-config(5)
AUTHORS
Originally created by Drew DeVault and maintained by Robin Jarry who is assisted by other open source
contributors. For more information about aerc development, see https://sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/.
2025-06-19 AERC-STYLESETS(7)