By default, alpine uses a mail directory called mail in the user's home directory. Alpine's configuration file resides in the home directory at ~/.pinerc. The following settings can be used to enable TLS and the Maildir IMAP format for sending and receiving e-mail:
smtp-server=smtp.server.com/user=me/tls/novalidate-cert
inbox-path={imap.server.com/user=me/ssl/novalidate-cert}INBOX
The smtp.server.com address has to point to an SMTP server, respectively imap.server.com to an IMAP server. The novalidate-cert setting is there if you have personally generated a certificate, which will make alpine skip the warning about a self-issued certificate. TLS, respectively SSL can be turned off by removing them along with the / delimiters.
An additional setting can be made:
feature-list=enable-incoming-folders
which will allow you to read any other folders that you may have created through IMAP.