1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
3 Notmuch is a great mail indexing tool that can also be used *in conjunction*
4 with existing Mail User Agents (MUA) instead of replacing them. The advantage of
5 such mixed solutions is that users can benefit from notmuch features (such as
6 full-text search and thread reconstruction) without *having to* change MUA.
8 A popular geek MUA is [the Mutt e-mail client](http://www.mutt.org); integrating
9 notmuch with Mutt is not seamless, but fairly straightforward. There are two
10 principal possibilities, each with its own ups and downs:
12 # Using Notmuch with mutt-kz
16 git clone https://github.com/karelzak/mutt-kz.git
18 ./configure && make && make install
23 set nm_default_uri="notmuch:///PATH/TO/MY/Maildir" # path to the maildir
24 set virtual_spoolfile=yes # enable virtual folders
25 set sendmail="/PATH/TO/bin/nm_sendmail" # enables parsing of outgoing mail
27 "INBOX" "notmuch://?query=tag:INBOX and NOT tag:archive"\
28 "Unread" "notmuch://?query=tag:unread"\
29 "Starred" "notmuch://?query=tag:*"\
30 "Sent" "notmuch://?query=tag:sent" # sets up queries for virtual folders
32 macro index \\ "<vfolder-from-query>" # looks up a hand mane query
33 macro index A "<modify-labels>+archive -unread -inbox\n" # tag as Archived
34 macro index I "<modify-labels>-inbox -unread\n" # removed from inbox
35 macro index S "<modify-labels-then-hide>-inbox -unread +junk\n" # tag as Junk mail
36 macro index + "<modify-labels>+*\n<sync-mailbox>" # tag as starred
37 macro index - "<modify-labels>-*\n<sync-mailbox>" # tag as unstarred
39 set sidebar_width = 20
40 set sidebar_visible = yes # set to "no" to disable sidebar view at startup
41 color sidebar_new yellow default
43 bind index <left> sidebar-prev # got to previous folder in sidebar
44 bind index <right> sidebar-next # got to next folder in sidebar
45 bind index <space> sidebar-open # open selected folder from sidebar
47 macro index ,@) "<enter-command> set sidebar_visible=no; macro index ~ ,@( 'Toggle sidebar'<Enter>"
48 macro index ,@( "<enter-command> set sidebar_visible=yes; macro index ~ ,@) 'Toggle sidebar'<Enter>"
49 macro index ~ ,@( 'Toggle sidebar' # toggle the sidebar
53 when you open `mutt` you get the INBOX opened. There you can crawl through your
54 mails, and tag them as appropriate, either manually using the " ` " command, or using
55 the bindings defined in configuration (such as A/I/S/+/-).
57 * Mail tagging on sending
59 You may have noticed in `mutt-kz`'s configuration that I set the `sendmail` variable
60 of mutt to a `nm_sendmail` script. This is for tagging outgoing mail each time I send
61 a mail. Here is the content of the script (which may be used directly in mutt's
62 variable, I did not try).
64 Source of nm_sendmail:
67 tee >(notmuch-deliver -t sent -f Sent) | sendmail $*
69 ## Mail filtering/tagging
71 For mail tagging on arrival, I prefer to use a simple procmail delivery along with
72 notmuch-delivery (which can be compiled in the `contrib/` directory of notmuch's sources).
74 Of course, you could use formail or maildrop, instead of procmail, but it is flexible
75 enough for my needs, and here is an example of configuration that can be useful:
77 PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
79 # ensure each mail is unique
81 | formail -D 8192 msgid.cache
83 # update addressbook with current mail
85 | /usr/local/bin/notmuch_abook update
90 # manage dynamic tagging, using the ' + ' token in mail addresses
91 # e.g.: user+TAG@fqdn.tld will generate the tag TAG
93 * ^TO\/user\+[a-z0-9]+@fqdn\.tld
94 * MATCH ?? ^user\+\/[a-z0-9]+
99 # match all mails from mailing-lists, don't let them go to inbox, but tag them with ml
103 TAGS="${TAGS} -t ml -r inbox"
106 # tag all mails coming from mutt-kz mailing list
108 * .*mutt-kz\.lists\.fedoraproject\.org.*
109 | notmuch-deliver $TAGS -t mutt -t notmuch
111 # tag all mails coming from notmuch mailing list
113 * .*notmuch\.notmuchmail\.org.*
114 | notmuch-deliver $TAGS -t notmuch
116 # Mark all spams as junk mail
118 * ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
119 | notmuch-deliver -t junk
123 | notmuch-deliver -t junk
125 ### All unmatched mails
128 | notmuch-deliver -v $TAGS
130 ## Addressbook management and vim
132 There are some emacs tips over [here](http://notmuchmail.org/emacstips/#index15h2) that
133 explains how to configure emacs with an addressbook, but the few solutions were not fast enough
134 for me. And I never could test the vala-based code. So I updated the notmuch_addresses code to
135 use a cache to be able to make better matches and still be lightning fast.
137 And finally, I needed to have a way to autocomplete my recipients' addresses
138 automagically from within `vim`. So that's why I created the `notmuch_abook` code.
139 You can either install it as a plugin in vim, using vundle:
141 Vundle 'guyzmo/notmuch-abook'
143 Or if you're not using vim (which is objectively the best editor ever), you may
144 want to use it as standalone:
146 % pip install notmuch_abook
148 To configure the address book, append to `~/.notmuch-config` the following:
150 % cat > ~/.notmuch-config << EOF
153 path=/home/YOURUSERNAME/.notmuch-abook.db
158 where YOURUSERNAME is your home directory. Then, you can sync the addressbook cache
159 by running. It will create the database file specified in configuration, and go through
160 all notmuch's indexed mails to get all addresses headers and cache them. It takes around
161 20 seconds on my 10000 mails index:
163 % notmuch_abook create
165 And you can query for addresses using the lookup command, which will match the beginning
166 of each word in the name and address, as follows:
168 % notmuch_abook lookup Foo
169 Foobar Bar <bar@bar.com>
170 Bar Foobar <bar@bar.com>
171 Bar Bar <foobar@bar.com>
172 Bar Bar <bar@foobar.com>
173 Bar Bar <bar@bar.foo>
175 If you're using vim, when you edit a mail having a filetype set to mail, you will be
176 able to open a completion menu when you do <C-x><C-u> at every address header.
178 # Using Notmuch with bare Mutt, the old fashioned way
181 [notmuch-mutt](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/tree/HEAD:/contrib/notmuch-mutt),
182 which will create a "virtual" maildir folder with search results whenever a
183 search is made. The upside is that you can search all your folders
184 simultanously; the downside is that your modifications in the results listing
185 do not carry over, also having to switch folders comes with some more
189 [how to use Notmuch with Mutt](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/)
190 has been written by Stefano Zacchiroli.
192 <small>(Note by the howto author: I've linked the howto from this wiki rather
193 than splicing it in, in order to avoid duplication of information. If you
194 think it would be better to have it here, feel free to copy the text
196 [available](http://git.upsilon.cc/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=zack-homepage.git;a=history;f=blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt.mdwn)
197 in markdown syntax from the Git repository of my homepage.)</small>
199 * Using a simple macro that will emulate the "limit" mutt functionality
202 See the [alternative notmuch integration](http://log.or.cz/?p=228)
203 blog post for instructions and details,
204 or simply put these two macros to your muttrc:
206 # 'L' performs a notmuch query, showing only the results
207 macro index L "<enter-command>unset wait_key<enter><shell-escape>read -p 'notmuch query: ' x; echo \$x >~/.cache/mutt_terms<enter><limit>~i \"\`notmuch search --output=messages \$(cat ~/.cache/mutt_terms) | head -n 600 | perl -le '@a=<>;chomp@a;s/\^id:// for@a;$,=\"|\";print@a'\`\"<enter>" "show only messages matching a notmuch pattern"
208 # 'a' shows all messages again (supersedes default <alias> binding)
209 macro index a "<limit>all\n" "show all messages (undo limit)"
211 The upside (if you are used to working in the context of a single folder) is
212 that this really does use the limit functionality of mutt and you are still in
213 your original folder. The downside is that this approach has scaling problems
214 and works well only for reasonably specific queries.