Accessing Outlook Mail Outside the Proprietary Bloatware

1. Download isync (the executable of isync is called mbsync), and gpg (this might be already installed in your system).
2. If you are in a Debian based distro, install libsasl2-modules-kdexoauth2, else, if you are in an Arch based distro install cyrus-sasl-xoauth2-git (AUR). This allows to use XOAUTH2 (required by outlook) with isync.
3. Run gpg --gen-key, to generate a GPG key, that is needed for the next steps.
4. Download mutt_oauth.py from mutt's repo, and give it permissions to be executed with chmod u+x mutt_oauth2.py.
5. Edit mutt_oauth2.py:
   • Replace YOUR_GPG_IDENTITY with the mail that you entered in the gpg key generation step.
   • Set client_id to 9e5f94bc-e8a4-4e73-b8be-63364c29d753.
6. Run mutt_oauth2.py your@mail.com.token --authorize, that will save the resulting token into your@mail.com.token file (customize this path). When you run the script, it will load a webpage in your web browser, where you will be asked for your Outlook password. Once it verifies your password, it will redirect to a blank page. Look at the URL of this blank page, there is a section of the url under a key named code (it looks like a hash code), copy this code to the terminal where you have mutt_oauth2.py and hit enter.

7. Add the following contents to your ~/.mbsyncrc:

   IMAPAccount outlook
   # Address to connect to
   Host outlook.office365.com
   User your@mail.com
   AuthMechs XOAUTH2
   PassCmd "mutt_oauth2.py your@mail.com.token" # be sure to set the correct paths here
   # Use SSL
   SSLType IMAPS
   CertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt  # this path can be different in some distros
   
   IMAPStore outlook-remote
   Account outlook
   
   MaildirStore outlook-local
   SubFolders Verbatim
   # The trailing "/" is important
   Path ~/.mail/outlook/
   Inbox ~/.mail/outlook/Inbox
   
   Channel outlook
   Far :outlook-remote:
   Near :outlook-local:
   Patterns *
   # Automatically create missing mailboxes, both locally and on the server
   Create Both
   # Sync the movement of messages between folders and deletions, add after making sure the sync works
   Expunge Both
   # Save the synchronization state files in the relevant directory
   SyncState *
   

Now, If you execute the command mbsync outlook, it should download your mails to the ~/.mail/outlook directory!

1. Install msmtp with the package manager of your distro, or compile it yourself if you are that kind of person.

2. Create the file ~/.msmtprc with the following contents:

   account your@mail.com
   from your@mail.com
   user your@mail.com
   auth xoauth2
   passwordeval "mutt_oauth2.py your@mail.com.token" # be careful with the paths in this command
   host smtp.office365.com
   port 587
   tls on
   tls_starttls on
   tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt # this path can change depending on the distro
   
   account default : your@mail.com
   

Test that everything is ok with this command: echo -e "\nSending regards from Terminal." | msmtp -a default some-friend@mail.com.

Once you have a isync and msmtp working, you can use great tools as mutt or neomutt to read and send email very efficiently from terminal. But, if you like to live inside Emacs (or you prefer GUI over TUI), the next section of the blog explains how to use Emacs to read/write mail from the confort of your perfectly configured development environment.