8 **notmuch** **count** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
10 **notmuch** **dump** [--gzip] [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--output=<*file*>] [--] [<*search-term*> ...]
12 **notmuch** **reindex** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
14 **notmuch** **search** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
16 **notmuch** **show** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
18 **notmuch** **tag** +<*tag*> ... -<*tag*> [--] <*search-term*> ...
23 Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.
25 The search terms can consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases)
26 which will match all messages that contain all of the given
27 terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or
30 As a special case, a search string consisting of exactly a single
31 asterisk ("\*") will match all messages.
36 In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force
37 terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where <brackets>
38 indicate user-supplied values).
40 Some of the prefixes with <regex> forms can be also used to restrict
41 the results to those whose value matches a regular expression (see
42 **regex(7)**) delimited with //, for example::
44 notmuch search 'from:"/bob@.*[.]example[.]com/"'
46 body:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
47 Match terms in the body of messages.
49 from:<name-or-address> or from:/<regex>/
50 The **from:** prefix is used to match the name or address of
51 the sender of an email message.
54 The **to:** prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any
55 recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
57 subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase> or subject:/<regex>/
58 Any term prefixed with **subject:** will match only text from the
59 subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is
60 supported by including quotation marks around the phrase,
61 immediately following **subject:**.
64 The **attachment:** prefix can be used to search for specific
65 filenames (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.
68 The **mimetype:** prefix will be used to match text from the
69 content-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified by
72 tag:<tag> or tag:/<regex>/ or is:<tag> or is:/<regex>/
73 For **tag:** and **is:** valid tag values include **inbox** and
74 **unread** by default for new messages added by **notmuch new** as
75 well as any other tag values added manually with **notmuch tag**.
77 id:<message-id> or mid:<message-id> or mid:/<regex>/
78 For **id:** and **mid:**, message ID values are the literal
79 contents of the Message-ID: header of email messages, but without
80 the '<', '>' delimiters.
83 The **thread:** prefix can be used with the thread ID values that
84 are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email
85 messages). These thread ID values can be seen in the first column
86 of output from **notmuch search**
88 thread:{<notmuch query>}
89 Threads may be searched for indirectly by providing an arbitrary
90 notmuch query in **{}**. For example, the following returns
91 threads containing a message from mallory and one (not necessarily
92 the same message) with Subject containing the word "crypto".
96 % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory}" and thread:"{subject:crypto}"'
98 The performance of such queries can vary wildly. To understand
99 this, the user should think of the query **thread:{<something>}**
100 as expanding to all of the thread IDs which match **<something>**;
101 notmuch then performs a second search using the expanded query.
103 path:<directory-path> or path:<directory-path>/** or path:/<regex>/
104 The **path:** prefix searches for email messages that are in
105 particular directories within the mail store. The directory must
106 be specified relative to the top-level maildir (and without the
107 leading slash). By default, **path:** matches messages in the
108 specified directory only. The "/\*\*" suffix can be used to match
109 messages in the specified directory and all its subdirectories
110 recursively. **path:""** matches messages in the root of the mail
111 store and, likewise, **path:\*\*** matches all messages.
113 **path:** will find a message if *any* copy of that message is in
114 the specific directory.
116 folder:<maildir-folder> or folder:/<regex>/
117 The **folder:** prefix searches for email messages by maildir or
118 MH folder. For MH-style folders, this is equivalent to
119 **path:**. For maildir, this includes messages in the "new" and
120 "cur" subdirectories. The exact syntax for maildir folders depends
121 on your mail configuration. For maildir++, **folder:""** matches
122 the inbox folder (which is the root in maildir++), other folder
123 names always start with ".", and nested folders are separated by
124 "."s, such as **folder:.classes.topology**. For "file system"
125 maildir, the inbox is typically **folder:INBOX** and nested
126 folders are separated by slashes, such as
127 **folder:classes/topology**.
129 **folder:** will find a message if *any* copy of that message is
130 in the specific folder.
132 date:<since>..<until> or date:<date>
133 The **date:** prefix can be used to restrict the results to only
134 messages within a particular time range (based on the Date:
137 See **DATE AND TIME SEARCH** below for details on the range
138 expression, and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and
141 The time range can also be specified using timestamps without
142 including the date prefix using a syntax of:
144 <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
146 Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds
147 since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. Specifying a time range this way
148 is considered legacy and predates the date prefix.
150 lastmod:<initial-revision>..<final-revision>
151 The **lastmod:** prefix can be used to restrict the result by the
152 database revision number of when messages were last modified (tags
153 were added/removed or filenames changed). This is usually used in
154 conjunction with the ``--uuid`` argument to **notmuch search** to
155 find messages that have changed since an earlier query.
158 The **query:** prefix allows queries to refer to previously saved
159 queries added with **notmuch-config(1)**.
161 property:<key>=<value>
162 The **property:** prefix searches for messages with a particular
163 <key>=<value> property pair. Properties are used internally by
164 notmuch (and extensions) to add metadata to messages. A given key
165 can be present on a given message with several different values.
166 See **notmuch-properties(7)** for more details.
168 User defined prefixes are also supported, see **notmuch-config(1)** for
174 In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
175 Boolean operators (**and**, **or**, **not**, and **xor**). Each term
176 in the query will be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no
177 explicit operator is provided (except that terms with a common prefix
178 will be implicitly combined with OR). The shorthand '-<term>' can be
179 used for 'not <term>' but unfortunately this does not work at the
180 start of an expression. Parentheses can also be used to control the
181 combination of the Boolean operators, but will have to be protected
182 from interpretation by the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks
183 around any parenthesized expression).
185 In addition to the standard boolean operators, Xapian provides several
186 operators specific to text searching.
190 notmuch search term1 NEAR term2
192 will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2. The
193 threshold can be set like this:
197 notmuch search term1 NEAR/2 term2
203 notmuch search term1 ADJ term2
205 will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2, but in the
206 same order as in the query. The threshold can be set the same as with
211 notmuch search term1 ADJ/7 term2
217 **Stemming** in notmuch means that these searches
221 notmuch search detailed
222 notmuch search details
223 notmuch search detail
225 will all return identical results, because Xapian first "reduces" the
226 term to the common stem (here 'detail') and then performs the search.
228 There are two ways to turn this off: a search for a capitalized word
229 will be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for "John" and not
230 get results for "Johnson"; phrase searches are also unstemmed (see
231 below for details). Stemming is currently only supported for
232 English. Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
237 It is possible to use a trailing '\*' as a wildcard. A search for
238 'wildc\*' will match 'wildcard', 'wildcat', etc.
241 Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes
242 ----------------------------------
244 Xapian (and hence notmuch) prefixes are either **boolean**, supporting
245 exact matches like "tag:inbox" or **probabilistic**, supporting a more
246 flexible **term** based searching. Certain **special** prefixes are
247 processed by notmuch in a way not strictly fitting either of Xapian's
248 built in styles. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as
252 **tag:**, **id:**, **thread:**, **folder:**, **path:**, **property:**
254 **body:**, **to:**, **attachment:**, **mimetype:**
256 **from:**, **query:**, **subject:**
261 In general Xapian distinguishes between lists of terms and
262 **phrases**. Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you
263 probably need to protect those from your shell) and insist that those
264 unstemmed words occur in that order. One useful, but initially
265 surprising feature is that the following are equivalent ways to write
273 Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with
274 probabilistic prefixes such as **to:**, **from:**, and **subject:**. In particular
284 subject:pizza and subject:free
286 Both of these will match a subject "Free Delicious Pizza" while
297 Double quotes are also used by the notmuch query parser to protect
298 boolean terms, regular expressions, or subqueries containing spaces or
299 other special characters, e.g.
307 folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"
311 thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}"
313 As with phrases, you need to protect the double quotes from the shell
318 % notmuch search 'folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"'
319 % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}" and thread:{to:mallory}'
324 notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of expressing
325 dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in relative
326 terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined ("1
327 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can be combined with
328 relative terms to further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of the
329 syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
334 date:<since>..<until>
336 The above expression restricts the results to only messages from <since>
337 to <until>, based on the Date: header.
339 <since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
340 In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it could describe
341 (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken as the latest time it
342 could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly, date:january..february
343 matches from the beginning of January to the end of February.
345 If specifying a time range using timestamps in conjunction with the
346 date prefix, each timestamp must be preceded by @ (ASCII hex 40). As
347 above, each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds
348 since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. For example:
350 date:@<initial-timestamp>..@<final-timestamp>
352 Currently, spaces in range expressions are not supported. You can
353 replace the spaces with '\_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases)
354 leave the spaces out altogether. Examples in this man page use spaces
357 Open-ended ranges are supported. I.e. it's possible to specify
358 date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start or
359 end time, respectively.
364 date:<expr> works as a shorthand for date:<expr>..<expr>.
365 For example, date:monday matches from the beginning of Monday until
368 Relative date and time
369 ----------------------
372 (years\|months\|weeks\|days\|hours\|hrs\|minutes\|mins\|seconds\|secs)
375 All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
377 Units can be abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous
378 single m being m for minutes and M for months.
380 Number can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred.
381 Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this" (e.g., "last
382 week" or "this month").
384 When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date and time
385 specification will be relative from the specified absolute date and
388 Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
390 Supported absolute time formats
391 -------------------------------
393 - H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am\|a.m.\|pm\|p.m.)]
395 - H[H] (am\|a.m.\|pm\|p.m.)
405 - Examples: 17:05, 5pm
407 Supported absolute date formats
408 -------------------------------
422 - D[D][(st\|nd\|rd\|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]
424 - Mon[thname] D[D][(st\|nd\|rd\|th)] [YYYY]
428 Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
430 Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
432 Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
441 Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
447 **notmuch-config(1)**,
448 **notmuch-count(1)**,
450 **notmuch-hooks(5)**,
451 **notmuch-insert(1)**,
453 **notmuch-reindex(1)**,
454 **notmuch-properties(1)**,
455 ***notmuch-reply(1)**,
456 **notmuch-restore(1)**,
457 **notmuch-search(1)**,
458 ***notmuch-show(1)**,