NOTMUCH(1)

NAME
notmuch - thread-based email index, search, and tagging

SYNOPSIS
notmuch command [args ...]

DESCRIPTION
Notmuch is a command-line based program for indexing, searching, reading, and tagging large collections of email messages. The quickest way to get started with Notmuch is to simply invoke the notmuch command with no arguments, which will interactively guide you through the process of indexing your mail.

NOTE
While the command-line program notmuch provides powerful functionality, it does not provide the most convenient interface for that functionality. More sophisticated interfaces are expected to be built on top of either the command-line interface, or more likely, on top of the notmuch library interface. See http://notmuchmail.org for more about alternate interfaces to notmuch.

COMMANDS
The setup command is used to configure Notmuch for first use, (or to reconfigure it later).

    setup
        Interactively sets up notmuch for first use. The setup command will prompt for your full name, your primary email address, any alternate email addresses you use, and the directory containing your email archives. Your answers will be written to a configuration file in ${NOTMUCH_CONFIG} (if set) or ${HOME}/.notmuch-config . This configuration file will be created with descriptive comments, making it easy to edit by hand later to change the configuration. Or you can run notmuch setup again to change the configuration. The mail directory you specify can contain any number of sub-directories and should primarily contain only files with individual email messages (eg. maildir or mh archives are perfect). If there are other, non-email files (such as indexes maintained by other email programs) then notmuch will do its best to detect those and ignore them. Mail storage that uses mbox format, (where one mbox file contains many messages), will not work with notmuch. If that's how your mail is currently stored, it is recommended you first convert it to maildir format with a utility such as mb2md before running notmuch setup . Invoking notmuch with no command argument will run setup if the setup command has not previously been completed.
The new command is used to incorporate new mail into the notmuch database.

    new Find and import any new messages to the database. The new command scans all sub-directories of the database, performing full-text indexing on new messages that are found. Each new message will automatically be tagged with both the inbox and unread tags. You should run notmuch new once after first running notmuch setup to create the initial database. The first run may take a long time if you have a significant amount of mail (several hundred thousand messages or more). Subsequently, you should run notmuch new whenever new mail is delivered and you wish to incorporate it into the database. These subsequent runs will be much quicker than the initial run. Invoking notmuch with no command argument will run new if notmuch setup has previously been completed, but notmuch new has not previously been run.
Several of the notmuch commands accept search terms with a common syntax. See the SEARCH SYNTAX section below for more details on the supported syntax. The search, show and count commands are used to query the email database.

    search [options...] <search-term>...
        Search for messages matching the given search terms, and display as results the threads containing the matched messages. The output consists of one line per thread, giving a thread ID, the date of the newest (or oldest, depending on the sort option) matched message in the thread, the number of matched messages and total messages in the thread, the names of all participants in the thread, and the subject of the newest (or oldest) message. Supported options for search include

        --format=(json|text)
            Presents the results in either JSON or plain-text (default).

        --output=(summary|threads|messages|files|tags)

            summary
                Output a summary of each thread with any message matching the search terms. The summary includes the thread ID, date, the number of messages in the thread (both the number matched and the total number), the authors of the thread and the subject.

            threads
                Output the thread IDs of all threads with any message matching the search terms, either one per line (--format=text) or as a JSON array (--format=json).

            messages
                Output the message IDs of all messages matching the search terms, either one per line (--format=text) or as a JSON array (--format=json).

            files
                Output the filenames of all messages matching the search terms, either one per line (--format=text) or as a JSON array (--format=json).

            tags
                Output all tags that appear on any message matching the search terms, either one per line (--format=text) or as a JSON array (--format=json).

        --sort=(newest-first|oldest-first)
            This option can be used to present results in either chronological order (oldest-first) or reverse chronological order (newest-first). Note: The thread order will be distinct between these two options (beyond being simply reversed). When sorting by oldest-first the threads will be sorted by the oldest message in each thread, but when sorting by newest-first the threads will be sorted by the newest message in each thread.
        By default, results will be displayed in reverse chronological order, (that is, the newest results will be displayed first). See the SEARCH SYNTAX section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.

    show [options...] <search-term>...
        Shows all messages matching the search terms. The messages will be grouped and sorted based on the threading (all replies to a particular message will appear immediately after that message in date order). The output is not indented by default, but depth tags are printed so that proper indentation can be performed by a post-processor (such as the emacs interface to notmuch). Supported options for show include

        --entire-thread
            By default only those messages that match the search terms will be displayed. With this option, all messages in the same thread as any matched message will be displayed.

        --format=(text|json|mbox|raw)

            text (default for messages)
                The default plain-text format has all text-content MIME parts decoded. Various components in the output, (message, header, body, attachment, and MIME part), will be delimited by easily-parsed markers. Each marker consists of a Control-L character (ASCII decimal 12), the name of the marker, and then either an opening or closing brace, ('{' or '}'), to either open or close the component. For a multipart MIME message, these parts will be nested.

            json
                The output is formatted with Javascript Object Notation (JSON). This format is more robust than the text format for automated processing. The nested structure of multipart MIME messages is reflected in nested JSON output. JSON output always includes all messages in a matching thread; in effect --format=json implies --entire-thread

            mbox
                All matching messages are output in the traditional, Unix mbox format with each message being prefixed by a line beginning with "From " and a blank line separating each message. Lines in the message content beginning with "From " (preceded by zero or more '>' characters) have an additional '>' character added. This reversible escaping is termed "mboxrd" format and described in detail here:
                http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html

            raw (default for a single part, see --part)
                For a message, the original, raw content of the email message is output. Consumers of this format should expect to implement MIME decoding and similar functions. For a single part (--part) the raw part content is output after performing any necessary MIME decoding. The raw format must only be used with search terms matching single message.

        --part=N
            Output the single decoded MIME part N of a single message. The search terms must match only a single message. Message parts are numbered in a depth-first walk of the message MIME structure, and are identified in the 'json' or 'text' output formats.

        --verify
            Compute and report the validity of any MIME cryptographic signatures found in the selected content (ie. "multipart/signed" parts). Status of the signature will be reported (currently only supported with --format=json), and the multipart/signed part will be replaced by the signed data.

        --decrypt
            Decrypt any MIME encrypted parts found in the selected content (ie. "multipart/encrypted" parts). Status of the decryption will be reported (currently only supported with --format=json) and the multipart/encrypted part will be replaced by the decrypted content.
    A common use of notmuch show is to display a single thread of email messages. For this, use a search term of "thread:<thread-id>" as can be seen in the first column of output from the notmuch search command. See the SEARCH SYNTAX section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.

    count <search-term>...
        Count messages matching the search terms. The number of matching messages is output to stdout. With no search terms, a count of all messages in the database will be displayed.
The reply command is useful for preparing a template for an email reply.

    reply [options...] <search-term>...
        Constructs a reply template for a set of messages. To make replying to email easier, notmuch reply takes an existing set of messages and constructs a suitable mail template. The Reply-to header (if any, otherwise From:) is used for the To: address. Vales from the To: and Cc: headers are copied, but not including any of the current user's email addresses (as configured in primary_mail or other_email in the .notmuch-config file) in the recipient list It also builds a suitable new subject, including Re: at the front (if not already present), and adding the message IDs of the messages being replied to to the References list and setting the In-Reply-To: field correctly. Finally, the original contents of the emails are quoted by prefixing each line with '> ' and included in the body. The resulting message template is output to stdout. Supported options for reply include

        --format=(default|headers-only)

            default
                Includes subject and quoted message body.

            headers-only
                Only produces In-Reply-To, References, To, Cc, and Bcc headers.
        See the SEARCH SYNTAX section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>. Note: It is most common to use notmuch reply with a search string matching a single message, (such as id:<message-id>), but it can be useful to reply to several messages at once. For example, when a series of patches are sent in a single thread, replying to the entire thread allows for the reply to comment on issue found in multiple patches.
The tag command is the only command available for manipulating database contents.

    tag +<tag>|-<tag> [...] [--] <search-term>...
        Add/remove tags for all messages matching the search terms. Tags prefixed by '+' are added while those prefixed by '-' are removed. For each message, tag removal is performed before tag addition. The beginning of <search-terms> is recognized by the first argument that begins with neither '+' nor '-'. Support for an initial search term beginning with '+' or '-' is provided by allowing the user to specify a "--" argument to separate the tags from the search terms. See the SEARCH SYNTAX section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.
The dump and restore commands can be used to create a textual dump of email tags for backup purposes, and to restore from that dump

    dump [<filename>]
        Creates a plain-text dump of the tags of each message. The output is to the given filename, if any, or to stdout. These tags are the only data in the notmuch database that can't be recreated from the messages themselves. The output of notmuch dump is therefore the only critical thing to backup (and much more friendly to incremental backup than the native database files.)

    restore <filename>
        Restores the tags from the given file (see notmuch dump. Note: The dump file format is specifically chosen to be compatible with the format of files produced by sup-dump. So if you've previously been using sup for mail, then the notmuch restore command provides you a way to import all of your tags (or labels as sup calls them).
The part command can used to output a single part of a multipart MIME message.

    part --part=<part-number> <search-term>...
        Output a single MIME part of a message. A single decoded MIME part, with no encoding or framing, is output to stdout. The search terms must match only a single message, otherwise this command will fail. The part number should match the part "id" field output by the "--format=json" option of "notmuch show". If the message specified by the search terms does not include a part with the specified "id" there will be no output. See the SEARCH SYNTAX section below for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.
The config command can be used to get or set settings int the notmuch configuration file.

    config get <section>.<item>
        The value of the specified configuration item is printed to stdout. If the item has multiple values, each value is separated by a newline character. Available configuration items include at least
            database.path
            user.name
            user.primary_email
            user.other_email
            new.tags

    config set <section>.<item> [values ...]
        The specified configuration item is set to the given value. To specify a multiple-value item, provide each value as a separate command-line argument. If no values are provided, the specified configuration item will be removed from the configuration file.

SEARCH SYNTAX
Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms. The search terms can consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases) which will match all messages that contain all of the given terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or recipient headers. As a special case, a search string consisting of exactly a single asterisk ("*") will match all messages. In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where <brackets> indicate user-supplied values):
    from:<name-or-address>
    to:<name-or-address>
    subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
    attachment:<word>
    tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)
    id:<message-id>
    thread:<thread-id>
    folder:<directory-path> The from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of an email message. The to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc). Any term prefixed with subject: will match only text from the subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is supported by including quotation marks around the phrase, immediately following subject:. The attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or extensions) of attachments to email messages. For tag: and is: valid tag values include inbox and unread by default for new messages added by notmuch new as well as any other tag values added manually with notmuch tag. For id:, message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID: header of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters. The thread: prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email messages). These thread ID values can be seen in the first column of output from notmuch search The folder: prefix can be used to search for email message files that are contained within particular directories within the mail store. Only the directory components below the top-level mail database path are available to be searched. In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with Boolean operators ( and, or, not , etc.). Each term in the query will be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no explicit operator is provided, (except that terms with a common prefix will be implicitly combined with OR until we get Xapian defect #402 fixed). Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the Boolean operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized expression). Finally, results can be restricted to only messages within a particular time range, (based on the Date: header) with a syntax of:
    <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp> Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. This is not the most convenient means of expressing date ranges, but until notmuch is fixed to accept a more convenient form, one can use the date program to construct timestamps. For example, with the bash shell the following syntax would specify a date range to return messages from 2009-10-01 until the current time:
    $(date +%s -d 2009-10-01)..$(date +%s)

ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables can be used to control the behavior of notmuch.

NOTMUCH_CONFIG
    Specifies the location of the notmuch configuration file. Notmuch will use ${HOME}/.notmuch-config if this variable is not set.

SEE ALSO
The emacs-based interface to notmuch (available as notmuch.el in the Notmuch distribution). The notmuch website: http://notmuchmail.org

CONTACT
Feel free to send questions, comments, or kudos to the notmuch mailing list <notmuch@notmuchmail.org> . Subscription is not required before posting, but is available from the notmuchmail.org website. Real-time interaction with the Notmuch community is available via IRC (server: irc.freenode.net, channel: #notmuch).