Re: sending mutlipart/mixed draft file

"Kevin J. McCarthy" <[email protected]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:21:49 +0800

Newsgroups	gmane.mail.mutt.devel
Message-ID	<aZvx_RxIhxuvf5cw@qinghai>

On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 01:50:59PM +0100, Olaf Hering via Mutt-dev wrote:
>I would like to relay the body of an existing email, which should be
>ready to use with its 'multipart/mixed;boundary="_something_";' container.
>So I created a draft file for the -H option with headers MIME-Version,
>Content-Type, Content-Disposition and the ready-to-use body. But for
>some reason there is a call to mutt_remove_multipart_mixed in
>mutt_prepare_template, and as a result there is data loss in the mail.
>(I think this is the reason why it does not work)
>
>I wonder what the rationale for that is? The commit messages from 2019
>mean nothing to me.

This goes back, way before 2019.  The commit in 2019 just added some 
support for multipart/alternative and renamed the functions.

The rationale is that mutt, as a MUA, always wants to generate the email 
for you.

When working with a draft file, Mutt removes the mixed container, if 
present, and takes out the pieces, and later assembles the email itself 
in a way it understands.  In particular, Mutt only supports a "flat" 
structure, with minor support for multipart/alternative.  Nested stuff 
is very likely not to survive how you want.

There is no pass-through mode for draft files, because Mutt can't 
properly generate or modify the email if it doesn't understand the 
parts.

>Should there be a way for a user to prepare an email upfront and let mutt
>just add From/To/Date/Message-Id etc as needed to the mail and be done with
>it?

No, for that, IMO you're better off editing the headers by yourself via 
a script or something, and then invoking your MTA directly.  Mutt just 
isn't set up to work that way.

-- 
Kevin J. McCarthy
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