1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 #Tips and Tricks for using notmuch with Emacs
6 The main Notmuch message reading client is **notmuch.el**, which is an
7 [emacs](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) major mode, and is
8 included in the notmuch package.
12 To use the Notmuch emacs mode, first add the following line to your
17 or you can load the package via autoload:
19 (autoload 'notmuch "notmuch" "notmuch mail" t)
21 Then, either run "emacs -f notmuch", or execute the command `M-x
22 notmuch` from within a running emacs.
24 ## Navigating & reading mails
26 When first starting notmuch in emacs, you will be presented with the
27 notmuch "hello" page. From here you can do searches, see lists of
28 recent searches, saved searches, message tags, help information, etc.
30 Executing a search will open a new buffer in `notmuch-search-mode`
31 displaying the search results. Each line in the search results
32 represents a message thread. Hitting the '?' key will show help for
35 In general, the 'q' will kill the current notmuch buffer and return
36 you to the previous buffer (sort of like a 'pop').
38 In search mode, navigating to a thread and hitting return will then
39 open a new buffer in `notmuch-show-mode`, which will show the actual
40 message contents of the thread.
44 In any notmuch mode, you can start a new message by hitting the 'm'
45 key. To reply to a message or thread, just hit the 'r' key.
47 When composing new messages, you will be entered in emacs's
48 `message-mode`, which is a powerful mode for composing and sending
49 messages. When in message mode, you can type `C-c ?` for help.
51 If you would like to use address autocompletion when composing
52 messages, see [address completion](#address_completion).
54 When you are ready to send a message, type `C-c C-c`. By default
55 message mode will use your sendmail command to send mail, so make sure
56 that works. One annoying standard configuration of message mode is
57 that it will hide the sent mail in your emacs frame stack, but it will
58 not close it. If you type several mails in an emacs session they will
59 accumulate and make switching between buffers more annoying. You can
60 avoid that behavior by adding `(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)`
61 in your `.emacs` file (or doing `M-x
62 customize-variable<RET>message-kill-buffer-on-exit<RET>`) which will
63 really close the mail window after sending it.
67 Using the `M-x mml-attach-file` command, you can attach any file to be
68 sent with your mail. By default this command is bound to the menu item
69 *Attachments--Attach File* with the key binding `C-c C-a`. The
70 variable `mml-dnd-attach-options` (`M-x
71 customize-variable<RET>mml-dnd-attach-options<RET>`) can be set to
72 allow the prompting for various attachment options (such as
73 inline/attachment) if you want to do that.
75 For those who prefer a more graphical interface, you can also simply
76 drag and drop files from a file manager into a mail composition window
77 to have them attached. In Ubuntu this works without any modifications
78 if files are dragged from the file manager.
80 And for those who prefer working from command line, the following
81 script opens new emacs window with empty message and attaches files
82 mentioned as script arguments. (Note: The script expects that you have
83 `(server-start)` in your `.emacs` file.)
88 fullpath=$(readlink --canonicalize $1)
89 attach_cmds="$attach_cmds (mml-attach-file \"$fullpath\")"
92 emacsclient -a '' -c -e "(progn (compose-mail) $attach_cmds)"
97 # Advanced tips and tweaks
99 ## Add a key binding to add/remove/toggle a tag
101 The `notmuch-{search,show}-{add,remove}-tag` functions are very useful
102 for making quick tag key bindings. For instance, here's an example
103 of how to make a key binding to add the "spam" tag and remove the
104 "inbox" tag in notmuch-show-mode:
106 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S"
108 "mark message as spam"
110 (notmuch-show-add-tag "spam")
111 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "inbox")))
113 You can do the same for threads in `notmuch-search-mode` by just
114 replacing "show" with "search" in the called functions.
116 The definition above makes use of a lambda function, but you could
117 also define a separate function first:
119 (defun notmuch-show-tag-spam()
120 "mark message as spam"
122 (notmuch-show-add-tag "spam")
123 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "inbox")))
124 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S" 'notmuch-show-tag-spam)
126 Here's a more complicated example of how to add a toggle "deleted"
129 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "d"
131 "toggle deleted tag for message"
133 (if (member "deleted" (notmuch-show-get-tags))
134 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "deleted")
135 (notmuch-show-add-tag "deleted"))))
137 ## How to do FCC/BCC...
139 The Emacs interface to notmuch will automatically add an `Fcc`
140 header to your outgoing mail so that any messages you send will also
141 be saved in your mail store. You can control where this copy of the
142 message is saved by setting the variables `message-directory` (which
143 defines a base directory) and `notmuch-fcc-dirs` which defines the
144 subdirectory relative to `message-directory` in which to save the
145 mail. Enter a directory (without the maildir `/cur` ending which
146 will be appended automatically). To customize both variables at the
147 same time, use the fancy command:
149 M-x customize-apropos<RET>\(notmuch-fcc-dirs\)\|\(message-directory\)
151 This mechanism also allows you to select different folders to be
152 used for the outgoing mail depending on your selected `From`
153 address. Please see the documentation for the variable
154 `notmuch-fcc-dirs` in the customization window for how to arrange
157 ## How to customize `notmuch-saved-searches`
159 When starting notmuch, a list of saved searches and message counts is
160 displayed, replacing the older `notmuch-folders` command. The set of
161 saved searches displayed can be modified directly from the notmuch
162 interface (using the `[save]` button next to a previous search) or by
163 customising the variable `notmuch-saved-searches`.
165 An example setting might be:
167 (setq notmuch-saved-searches '(("inbox" . "tag:inbox")
168 ("unread" . "tag:inbox AND tag:unread")
169 ("notmuch" . "tag:inbox AND to:notmuchmail.org")))
171 Of course, you can have any number of saved searches, each configured
172 with any supported search terms (see "notmuch help search-terms").
174 Some users find it useful to add `and not tag:delete` to those
175 searches, as they use the `delete` tag to mark messages as
176 deleted. This causes messages that are marked as deleted to be removed
177 from the commonly used views of messages. Use whatever seems most
180 ## Viewing HTML messages with an external viewer
182 The emacs client can display an HTML message inline using either the
183 `html2text` library or some text browser, like w3m or lynx. This is
184 controlled by the `mm-text-html-renderer` variable.
186 The first option is theorically better, because it can generate
187 strings formatted for emacs and do whatever you want, e.g., substitute
188 text inside <b> tags for bold text in the buffer. The library, however
189 is still in a very early development phase and cannot yet process
190 properly many elements, like tables and <style> directives, and even
191 the generated text is often poorly formatted.
193 Among the available browsers, w3m seems to do a better job converting
194 the html, and if you have the w3m emacs package, you can use it,
195 instead of the w3m-standalone, and thus preserve the text formatting.
197 But if the rendering fails for one reason or another, or if you really
198 need to see the graphical presentation of the HTML message, it can be
199 useful to display the message in an external viewer, such as a web
200 browser. Here's a little script that Keith Packard wrote, which he
206 cat "$@" > "$dir"/msg
207 if munpack -C "$dir" -t < "$dir"/msg 2>&1 | grep 'Did not find'; then
208 sed -n '/[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]/,$p' "$dir"/msg > $dir/part1.html
211 for i in "$dir"/part*; do
212 if grep -q -i -e '<html>' -e 'text/html' "$i"; then
219 Save that script somewhere in your `${PATH}`, make it executable,
220 and change the invocation of `iceweasel` to any other HTML viewer if
221 necessary. Then within the emacs client, press '|' to pipe the
222 current message, then type "view-html".
224 Keith mentions the following caveat, "Note that if iceweasel isn't
225 already running, it seems to shut down when the script exits. I
228 ## msmtp, message mode and multiple accounts
230 As an alternative to running a mail server such as sendmail or postfix
231 just to send email, it is possible to use
232 [msmtp](http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/). This small application will
233 look like `/usr/bin/sendmail` to a MUA such as emacs message mode, but
234 will just forward the email to an external SMTP server. It's fairly
235 easy to set up and it supports several accounts for using different
236 SMTP servers. The msmtp pages have several examples.
238 A typical scenario is that you want to use the company SMTP server
239 for email coming from your company email address, and your personal
240 server for personal email. If msmtp is passed the envelope address
241 on the command line (the -f/--from option) it will automatically
242 pick the matching account. The only trick here seems to be getting
243 emacs to actually pass the envelope from. There are a number of
244 overlapping configuration variables that control this, and it's a
245 little confusion, but setting these three works for me:
247 - `mail-specify-envelope-from`: `t`
249 - `message-sendmail-envelope-from`: `header`
251 - `mail-envelope-from`: `header`
253 With that in place, you need a `.msmtprc` with the accounts configured
254 for the domains you want to send out using specific SMTP servers and
255 the rest will go to the default account.
257 If you have a hard time getting the above to work for you, as I did,
258 it's also possible to add a message-send-mail-hook in your .emacs to
259 send the from header explicitly as an argument to msmtp as described
260 [here](http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/GnusMSMTP#toc2) on the
264 ## <span id="address_completion">Address completion when composing</span>
266 There are currently two solutions to this:
268 [bbdb](http://bbdb.sourceforge.net) is a contact database for emacs
269 that works quite nicely together with message mode, including
270 address autocompletion.
272 You can also use the notmuch database as a mail address book itself.
273 To do this you need a command line tool that outputs likely address
274 candidates based on a search string. There are currently two
277 * The python tool `notmuch_address.py` (`git clone
278 http://commonmeasure.org/~jkr/git/notmuch_addresses.git`) (slower, but
279 no compilation required so good for testing the setup)
282 [addrlookup](http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch) (faster, but
283 needs compiling). The addrlookup binary needs to be compiled.
285 `http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch/raw/static-sources/src/addrlookup.c`
288 cc -o addrlookup addrlookup.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gobject-2.0` -lnotmuch
290 You can perform tab-completion using either of these programs. Just add the following to your .emacs:
292 (require 'notmuch-address)
293 (setq notmuch-address-command "/path/to/address_fetching_program")
294 (notmuch-address-message-insinuate)
297 ## How to sign/encrypt messages with gpg
299 Messages can by signed using gpg by invoking `M-x
300 mml-secure-sign-pgpmime` (or `M-x
301 mml-secure-encrypt-pgpmime`). These functions are available via the
302 standard `message-mode` keybindings `C-c C-m s p` and `C-c C-m c
303 p`. To sign outgoing mail by default, use the `message-setup-hook`
304 in your `.emacs` file:
306 ;; Sign messages by default.
307 (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'mml-secure-sign-pgpmime)
309 This inserts the required `<#part sign=pgpmime>` into the beginning
310 of the mail text body and will be converted into a pgp signature
311 when sending (so one can just manually delete that line if signing
314 Alternatively, you may prefer to use `mml-secure-message-sign-pgpmime` instead
315 of `mml-secure-sign-pgpmime` to sign the whole message instead of just one
318 ### Troubleshooting message-mode gpg support
320 - If you have trouble with expired subkeys, you may have encounted
321 emacs bug #7931. This is fixed in git commit 301ea744c on
322 2011-02-02. Note that if you have the Debian package easypg
323 installed, it will shadow the fixed version of easypg included with