Last Updated: February 25, 2016
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· jeffpamer

Homebrew Mutt Compiled Against Slang

I've seen several articles referencing the fact that Mutt compiled against slang has better color handling than ncurses. If you have Mutt already installed you can check your version by running

mutt -v

You will see a reference to either 'ncurses' or 'slang' somewhere in that output.

The default homebrew installation of mutt is always compiled against ncurses. There is an option the use slang, but there seems to be some miscommunication out there of how to enable it. First, uninstall mutt if you have it installed.

brew uninstall mutt
brew cleanup

I usually 'cleanup' after uninstalls/reinstalls just to be safe.
Then

brew install mutt --with-s-lang

Note the extra dash in 's-lang'. Double check your version when that finishes, and you should be all set.