How to install and configure Alpine for Microsoft 365 email

Owned by Barb Yantha
Last updated: Mar 21, 2023 by Gwendolyn Shaver
2 min read

These are instructions on how to set up your Linux system to be able to download, unpackage, compile, and set up your Alpine program for use with your UWaterloo email address using OAUTH2 authentication.

The instructions are for personal UWaterloo accounts or UWaterloo generic accounts that authenticate with the generic account password, ie. not for shared mailboxes.

You will need to make sure that you are using a version of Alpine (2.24 or higher) that supports OAUTH2 authentication. You can verify this by running the command “alpine -supported”.

The instructions have been tested on Ubuntu 5.13.0.35-generic x86_64.

 

First Step: Install Build Essentials / Install Any System Updates

 The first step is to be sure that your Linux environment is up to date and that you have the proper files to be able to properly configure your Alpine program.

Input these commands:

“sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall zlib1g-dev -y”

  • Installs metapackages needed to be able to compile software

 

"sudo apt update"

"sudo apt upgrade"

  • Updates your “apt” packages repository and completes any necessary software updates

These commands can be combined using “sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y”

Compile and install the ALPINE client

Now you can compile and install the Alpine client.

  1. Run 'sudo apt install alpine”. This command will install the software so that you can open it for the first time and create your mail directory.

  2.  Open ALPINE for the first time.

  3. Type “alpine” into your terminal command line

    1. This will create a mail folder for you

  4. After opening Alpine, you will need to update your ".pinerc" configuration file. An example configuration can be found here: https://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~ccalzone/Docs/imap-on-pine-mutt.html

If you run into an error after initialization, you can solve this by adding a customized header to your ALPINE Config:

  1.  On the ALPINE landing page, after authentication, go to ( S )etup, then ( C )onfig

  2. Use the ( W )hereIs command to search for "Customized Headers"

  3. Add the header, exactly as the screenshot shows below.

  4. Save and restart ALPINE