Ubuntu Manpage: urlscan - browse the URLs in an email message from a terminal

NAME

       urlscan - browse the URLs in an email message from a terminal

SYNOPSIS

       urlscan [options] < message

       urlscan [options] message

DESCRIPTION

urlscan accepts a single email message on standard input, then displays a terminal-based
list of the URLs in the given message. Selecting a URL uses the Python webbrowser module
to determine which browser to open. The BROWSER environment variable will be used if it is
set.

urlscan is primarily intended to be used with the mutt (1) mailreader, but it should work
well with any terminal-based mail program.

urlscan is similar to urlview(1), but has the following additional features:

1. Support for more message encodings, such as quoted-printable and base64.

2. Extraction and display of the context surrounding each URL. Toggle context view on/off
with c. Reverse displayed order of URLs with R.

3. Copy current URL to primary selection with P or to clipboard with C.

4. URLs are shortened by default to fit on one line. Toggle one or all shortened URLs with
s or S.

5. Incremental case-insensitive search using /. Footer shows current search term. / again
resets search.

6. Cycle through all available palettes (color and black & white available by default)
using p. Running urlscan -g will generate a ~/.config/urlscan/config.json file for editing
or adding additional pallettes and keybindings. See

http://urwid.org/manual/displayattributes.html#display-attributes

for color options and allowed values. Set display width with `--width`.

7. u will unescape the highlighted URL if necessary.

8. Run a command with the selected URL as the argument or pipe the selected URL to a
command using the --run-safe, --run and --pipe arguments.

9. Use l to cycle through whether URLs are opened using the Python webbrowser module
(default), xdg-open (if installed) or a function passed on the command line with --run-
safe or --run. The --run and --run-safe functions will respect the value of --pipe.

10. F1 shows the help menu.

11. Scan certain email headers for URLs. Currently Link, Archived-At and List-* are
scanned when --headers is passed.

12. Queue multiple URLs for opening and open them all at once with a and o.

OPTIONS

       -c, --compact
              Display a simple list of the extracted URLs, instead of showing the context of each
              URL. Also toggle with `c` from within the viewer.

       -d, --dedupe
              Remove duplicated URLs from the list of URLs.

       -E, --regex <expression>
              Use <expression> in place of the default set of regular expressions, to be used for
              any kind of  matching.  This  is  useful  for  example  when  selectively  avoiding
              'mailto:'  links or any other pattern that urlscan could interpret as urls (such as
              '<filename>.<extension>'). Usage example:

                  $ urlscan --regex 'https?://.+.240

       -f, --run-safe <expression>
              Execute <expression> in place of opening URL with a browser. Use {} in <expression>
              to substitute in the URL. Examples:

                  $ urlscan --run-safe 'tmux set buffer {}'

       -g, --genconf
              Generate ~/.config/urlscan/config.json with default options.

       -H, --nohelp
              Start with header menu hidden.

       --headers
              Scan email headers for URLs.

       -n, --no-browser
              Disables  the  selection  interface and print the links to standard output.  Useful
              for scripting (implies --compact).

       -p, --pipe
              Pipe the selected URL to the command specified by `--run-safe` or `--run`. This  is
              preferred  when  the  command  supports  it,  as  it is more secure and tolerant of
              special characters in the URL. Example:

                  $ urlscan --run-safe 'xclip -i' --pipe file.txt

       -R, --reverse
              Reverse displayed order of URLs.

       -r, --run <expression>
              Execute <expression> in place of opening URL with a browser. Use {} in <expression>
              to substitute in the URL. Shell features such as  and > can be used, but it is less
              secure. Examples:

                  $ urlscan --run 'echo {} | xclip -i' file.txt

       -s, --single
              Exit urlscan after opening or copying a single browser link.

                  $ urlscan -s file.txt

       -w, --width
              Set display width.

       -W, --whitespace-off
              Suppress output of blank lines and ellipses lines.

MUTT INTEGRATION

       To integrate urlscan with mutt, include the following two commands in ~/.muttrc:

       macro index,pager \cb "<pipe-message> urlscan<Enter>" "call urlscan to extract URLs out of
       a message"

       macro attach,compose \cb "<pipe-entry> urlscan<Enter>" "call urlscan to extract URLs out
       of a message"

       Once these lines are in your mutt configuration file, pressing Control-b will allow you to
       browse and open the URLs in the currently selected message.

       Alternately,  you  can  pipe  a  message  into urlscan using the '|' operator. This can be
       useful for applying a different flag (such as the '-d' or '-c' options).

KEYBINDINGS

       Run urlscan -g to generate ~/.config/urlscan/config.json. All of the keys will be  listed.
       You can either leave in place or delete any that will not be altered.

       To unset a binding, set it equal to "". For example: "P": ""

       The follow actions are supported:

       add_url -- add a URL to the queue (Default: a)

       all_escape -- toggle unescape all URLs (Default: u)

       all_shorten -- toggle shorten all URLs (Default: S)

       bottom -- move cursor to last item (Default: G)

       clear_screen -- redraw screen (Default: Ctrl-l)

       clipboard -- copy highlighted URL to clipboard using xsel/xclip (Default: C)

       clipboard_pri -- copy highlighted URL to primary selection using xsel/xclip (Default: P)

       context -- show/hide context (Default: c)

       del_url -- delete URL from the queue (Default: d)

       down -- cursor down (Default: j)

       help_menu -- show/hide help menu (Default: F1)

       link_handler -- cycle link handling (webbrowser, xdg-open or custom) (Default: l)

       open_queue -- open all URLs in queue (Default: o)

       open_queue_win -- open all URLs in queue in new window (Default: O)

       open_url -- open selected URL (Default: space or enter)

       palette -- cycle through palettes (Default: p)

       quit -- quit (Default: q or Q)

       reverse -- reverse display order (Default: R)

       shorten -- toggle shorten highlighted URL (Default: s)

       top -- move to first list item (Default: g)

       up -- cursor up (Default: k)

FILES

       $HOME/.config/urlscan/config.json

       Only required if additional or modified palettes or keybindings are desired.

AUTHOR

       This  manual  page  was  written  by Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org> and Scott Hansen
       <firecat4153@gmail.com>

                                           6 March 2021                                URLSCAN(1)