1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 # Notmuch -- The mail indexer
6 Because dealing with your mail can be so much better.
8 * "Not much mail" is what Notmuch thinks about your email
9 collection. Even if you receive 12000 messages per month or have on
10 the order of millions of messages that you've been saving for
11 decades. Regardless, Notmuch will be able to quickly search all of
12 it. It's just plain not much mail.
14 * "Not much mail" is also what you should have in your inbox at any
15 time. Notmuch gives you what you need, (tags and fast search), so
16 that you can keep your inbox tamed and focus on what really matters
17 in your life, (which is surely not email).
19 * Notmuch is an answer to [Sup](http://sup.rubyforge.org/).
20 Sup is a very good email program written by William Morgan (and
21 others) and is the direct inspiration for Notmuch. Notmuch began as
22 an effort to rewrite performance-critical pieces of Sup in C rather
23 than ruby. From there, it grew into a separate project. One
24 significant contribution Notmuch makes compared to Sup is the
25 separation of the indexer/searcher from the user interface. (Notmuch
26 provides a library interface so that its indexing/searching/tagging
27 features can be integrated into any email program.)
29 * Notmuch is not much of an email program. It doesn't receive messages
30 (no POP or IMAP support). It doesn't send messages (no mail composer,
31 no network code at all). And for what it does do (email search) that
32 work is provided by an external library,
33 [Xapian](http://xapian.org). So if Notmuch provides no user
34 interface and Xapian does all the heavy lifting, then what's left
37 If you've been looking for a fast, global-search and tag-based email
38 reader to use within your text editor or in a terminal, then Notmuch
39 may be exactly what you've been looking for.
41 If you're a developer of an existing email program and would love a
42 good library interface for fast, global search with support for
43 arbitrary tags, then Notmuch also may be exactly what you've been
48 [[The latest news from notmuch|news]]
52 To get started with notmuch, just run "notmuch" at the command line.
53 The configuration wizard will walk you through initial setup,
54 including specifying the location of your mail store and how to start
55 the initial indexing. After that, come back and checkout our docs:
57 * [[Notmuch manual pages|manpages]]
58 * [[General how-tos|howto]]
60 * [[Excluding and deleting messages|excluding]]
61 * [[Initial tagging|Initial_Tagging]]
62 * [[Tips for using notmuch within Emacs|emacstips]]
63 * [[Remote usage|remoteusage]]
64 * [[Performance|performance]]
66 Apart from the wiki, help is available via email and on IRC (see
67 below). Join the mailing list. Read the archives. Ask questions.
69 ## Email clients and front ends
71 Notmuch ships with a powerful set of [[command-line tools|manpages]], an
72 [[email client for Emacs|emacstips]], another
73 [client for vim](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/blob/HEAD:/contrib/notmuch-vim/README),
74 and a [[Mutt integration script|notmuch-mutt]].
76 There are also many other [[email clients and frontends|frontends]] based on
77 Notmuch. And a few tips about integrating it with [[Mutt|mutttips]] and [[Vim|vimtips]].
81 * [[Emacs UI screenshots|screenshots]]
85 [Notmuch source releases](http://notmuchmail.org/releases/) are available as
88 Notmuch is packaged for the following distributions:
90 * [Debian](http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=notmuch) (Please use at
91 least the packages from squeeze-backports, squeeze packages are very
93 * [Fedora](https://community.dev.fedoraproject.org/packages/notmuch)
94 * [Gentoo](http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-mail/notmuch)
95 * [Slackware](http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.37/office/notmuch/)
96 * [Ubuntu](http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=notmuch)
98 ## Development and Contributing
100 All of the code for Notmuch is available as [free
101 software](http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) released
102 under the GNU [GPL version
103 3](http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html). The latest
104 versions can be checked out via git with this command:
106 git clone git://notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
109 [Notmuch code history online](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch). And
111 [subscribe to the `notmuch-commits` list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch-commits)
112 to watch every commit made to notmuch and the notmuchmail.org web
115 We have a [buildbot](http://buildbot.notmuchmail.org/grid) (here's
117 [configuration](https://github.com/tomprince/buildbot-configs/tree/notmuch)).
119 Contributions, such as patches, to Notmuch are most welcome. Please refer to the
120 [[guide to contributing|contributing]].
122 ## Bug and patch tracking
124 The tagging and filtering features of notmuch make it quite suitable
125 for use as a bug- and patch-tracker. We are currently experimenting
126 with using it for this purpose for notmuch development, using a
127 utility called [[nmbug]]. The status of bugs and current patches can also be
128 followed [online](http://nmbug.tethera.net/status).
130 Bug reports should be sent to the Notmuch mailing list notmuch@notmuchmail.org.
132 ## Contact: Email & IRC
134 Comments? Please feel free to email the notmuch mailing list:
135 notmuch@notmuchmail.org (subscription is not required, but you can
136 also subscribe to the
137 [notmuch mailing list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch)). You
139 [online list archives](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/),
141 [web forum (nabble)](http://notmuch.198994.n3.nabble.com/), or
142 download an [mbox file](http://notmuchmail.org/archives/notmuch.mbox)
143 of the entire mailing-list.
145 The `mb2md` utility can be used to convert the archives to maildir
146 format which is convenient for reading the archives within notmuch
149 If you prefer real-time chat, there is often someone on the
150 [#notmuch](irc://chat.freenode.net/#notmuch)@irc.freenode.net IRC
155 If you have a feature idea/request, please send it to the
156 [mailing list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch). You
157 don't have to be subscribed to send, although there might be a delay
162 This wiki is maintained using [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info). Here are
163 [[instructions on how to edit the wiki|wikiwriteaccess]].