1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 # Notmuch -- Just an email system
4 If you've been looking for a fast, global-search and tag-based email
5 system to use within your text editor or in a terminal...
7 If you're the kind of person that gets excited about being able to
8 write shell scripts for exploring and manipulating your email...
10 If you're a developer of an existing email program and would love a
11 good library interface for fast, global search with support for
14 If you want the convenience of fast, reliable search of all your
15 email, but don't want to give a 3rd-party access to your email...
17 Then notmuch may be exactly what you've been looking for.
19 ## Why is it named Notmuch?
21 * "Not much mail" is what Notmuch thinks about your email
22 collection. Even if you receive 12000 messages per month or have on
23 the order of millions of messages that you've been saving for
24 decades. Regardless, Notmuch will be able to quickly search all of
25 it. It's just plain not much mail.
27 * "Not much mail" is also what you should have in your inbox at any
28 time. Notmuch gives you what you need, (tags and fast search), so
29 that you can keep your inbox tamed and focus on what really matters
30 in your life, (which is surely not email).
32 * Notmuch is an answer to [Sup](http://supmua.org/).
33 Sup is a very good email program written by William Morgan (and
34 others) and is the direct inspiration for Notmuch. Notmuch began as
35 an effort to rewrite performance-critical pieces of Sup in C rather
36 than ruby. From there, it grew into a separate project. One
37 significant contribution Notmuch makes compared to Sup is the
38 separation of the indexer/searcher from the user interface. (Notmuch
39 provides a library interface so that its indexing/searching/tagging
40 features can be integrated into any email program.)
42 * Notmuch is not much of an email program. It doesn't receive messages
43 (no POP or IMAP support). It doesn't send messages (no mail composer,
44 no network code at all). And for what it does do (email search) that
45 work is provided by an external library,
46 [Xapian](http://xapian.org). So if Notmuch provides no user
47 interface and Xapian does all the heavy lifting, then what's left
52 [[The latest news from notmuch|news]]
56 To get started with notmuch, just run "notmuch" at the command line.
57 This command will walk you through initial setup, including specifying
58 the location of your mail store and how to start the initial indexing.
59 After that, come back and checkout our documentation:
61 * [[Notmuch manual pages|manpages]]
62 * [[General how-tos|howto]]
63 * [[Frequently Asked Questions|faq]]
65 * [[Excluding and deleting messages|excluding]]
66 * [[Initial tagging|Initial_Tagging]]
67 * [[Tips for using notmuch within Emacs|emacstips]]
68 * [[Remote usage|remoteusage]]
69 * [[Performance|performance]]
70 * [[References|references]]
72 Apart from the wiki, help is available via email and on IRC (see
73 below). Join the mailing list. Read the archives. Ask questions.
75 ## Email clients and front ends
77 Notmuch ships with a powerful set of [[command-line tools|manpages]], an
78 [[email client for Emacs|emacstips]], another
79 [client for vim](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/blob/HEAD:/vim/README),
80 and a [[Mutt integration script|notmuch-mutt]].
82 There are also many other [[email clients and frontends|frontends]] based on
83 Notmuch. And a few tips about integrating it with [[Mutt|mutttips]] and [[Vim|vimtips]].
87 * [[Emacs UI screenshots|screenshots]]
91 [Notmuch source releases](http://notmuchmail.org/releases/) are available as
94 Notmuch is packaged for at least the following distributions:
96 * [Arch Linux](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?q=notmuch)
97 * [Debian](http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=notmuch)
98 * [Fedora](https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/notmuch)
99 * [Gentoo](http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-mail/notmuch)
100 * [openSUSE](https://build.opensuse.org/search?search_text=notmuch)
101 * [Slackware](http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.37/office/notmuch/)
102 * [Ubuntu](http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=notmuch)
104 Notmuch can be installed on Mac OS X using [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/ports.php?by=name&substr=notmuch).
106 ## Development and Contributing
108 All of the code for Notmuch is available as [free
109 software](http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) released
110 under the GNU [GPL version
111 3](http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html). The latest
112 versions can be checked out via git with this command:
114 git clone git://notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
117 [Notmuch code history online](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch). And
119 [subscribe to the `notmuch-commits` list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch-commits)
120 to watch every commit made to notmuch and the notmuchmail.org web
123 We have a [buildbot](http://buildbot.notmuchmail.org/grid) (here's
125 [configuration](https://github.com/tomprince/buildbot-configs/tree/notmuch)).
127 Contributions, such as patches, to Notmuch are most welcome. Please refer to the
128 [[guide to contributing|contributing]].
130 ## Troubleshooting and reporting bugs
132 For hints about troubleshooting and bug reporting see [[bugs]].
134 For a list of known bugs see the [[nmbug status page|http://nmbug.tethera.net/status/#Bugs]]
136 ## Contact: Email & IRC
138 Comments? Please feel free to email the notmuch mailing list:
139 notmuch@notmuchmail.org (subscription is not required, but you can
140 also subscribe to the
141 [notmuch mailing list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch)). You
143 [online list archives](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/),
145 [web forum (nabble)](http://notmuch.198994.n3.nabble.com/), or
146 download an [mbox file](http://notmuchmail.org/archives/notmuch.mbox)
147 of the entire mailing-list.
149 The `mb2md` utility can be used to convert the archives to maildir
150 format which is convenient for reading the archives within notmuch
153 If you prefer real-time chat, there is often someone on the
154 [#notmuch](irc://chat.freenode.net/#notmuch)@irc.freenode.net IRC
159 If you have a feature idea/request, please send it to the
160 [mailing list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch). You
161 don't have to be subscribed to send, although there might be a delay
166 This wiki is maintained using [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info). Here are
167 [[instructions on how to edit the wiki|wikiwriteaccess]]. The wiki contents are
168 mostly [[dual licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 and GPLv3+|COPYING]].