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, either using a patched mutt that handles internally
11 notmuch, or use a sets of scripts/handler within mutt to achieve something close.
15 # Using Notmuch with mutt-kz
19 git clone https://github.com/karelzak/mutt-kz.git
21 ./configure && make && make install
26 set nm_default_uri="notmuch:///PATH/TO/MY/Maildir" # path to the maildir
27 set virtual_spoolfile=yes # enable virtual folders
28 set sendmail="/PATH/TO/bin/nm_sendmail" # enables parsing of outgoing mail
30 "INBOX" "notmuch://?query=tag:INBOX and NOT tag:archive"\
31 "Unread" "notmuch://?query=tag:unread"\
32 "Starred" "notmuch://?query=tag:*"\
33 "Sent" "notmuch://?query=tag:sent" # sets up queries for virtual folders
35 macro index \\\\ "<vfolder-from-query>" # looks up a hand made query
36 macro index A "<modify-labels>+archive -unread -inbox\\n" # tag as Archived
37 macro index I "<modify-labels>-inbox -unread\\n" # removed from inbox
38 macro index S "<modify-labels-then-hide>-inbox -unread +junk\\n" # tag as Junk mail
39 macro index + "<modify-labels>+*\\n<sync-mailbox>" # tag as starred
40 macro index - "<modify-labels>-*\\n<sync-mailbox>" # tag as unstarred
42 set sidebar_width = 20
43 set sidebar_visible = yes # set to "no" to disable sidebar view at startup
44 color sidebar_new yellow default
46 bind index <left> sidebar-prev # got to previous folder in sidebar
47 bind index <right> sidebar-next # got to next folder in sidebar
48 bind index <space> sidebar-open # open selected folder from sidebar
50 macro index ,@) "<enter-command> set sidebar_visible=no; macro index ~ ,@( 'Toggle sidebar'<Enter>"
51 macro index ,@( "<enter-command> set sidebar_visible=yes; macro index ~ ,@) 'Toggle sidebar'<Enter>"
52 macro index ~ ,@( 'Toggle sidebar' # toggle the sidebar
56 when you open `mutt` you get the INBOX opened. There you can crawl through your
57 mails, and tag them as appropriate, either manually using the " ` " command, or using
58 the bindings defined in configuration (such as A/I/S/+/-).
60 ## Mail tagging on sending
62 You may have noticed in `mutt-kz`'s configuration that I set the `sendmail` variable
63 of mutt to a `nm_sendmail` script. This is for tagging outgoing mail each time I send
64 a mail. Here is the content of the script (which may be used directly in mutt's
65 variable, I did not try).
67 Source of nm_sendmail:
70 tee >(notmuch-deliver -t sent -f Sent) | sendmail $*
72 ## Mail filtering/tagging
74 For mail tagging on arrival, I prefer to use a simple procmail delivery along with
75 notmuch-delivery (which can be compiled in the `contrib/` directory of notmuch's sources).
77 Of course, you could use formail or maildrop, instead of procmail, but it is flexible
78 enough for my needs, and here is an example of configuration that can be useful:
80 PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
82 # ensure each mail is unique
84 | formail -D 8192 msgid.cache
86 # update addressbook with current mail
88 | /usr/local/bin/notmuch_abook update
93 # manage dynamic tagging, using the ' + ' token in mail addresses
94 # e.g.: user+TAG@fqdn.tld will generate the tag TAG
96 * ^TO\/user\+[a-z0-9]+@fqdn\.tld
97 * MATCH ?? ^user\+\/[a-z0-9]+
102 # match all mails from mailing-lists, don't let them go to inbox, but tag them with ml
106 TAGS="${TAGS} -t ml -r inbox"
109 # tag all mails coming from mutt-kz mailing list
111 * .*mutt-kz\.lists\.fedoraproject\.org.*
112 | notmuch-deliver $TAGS -t mutt -t notmuch
114 # tag all mails coming from notmuch mailing list
116 * .*notmuch\.notmuchmail\.org.*
117 | notmuch-deliver $TAGS -t notmuch
119 # Mark all spams as junk mail
121 * ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
122 | notmuch-deliver -t junk
126 | notmuch-deliver -t junk
128 ### All unmatched mails
131 | notmuch-deliver -v $TAGS
133 ## Addressbook management and vim
135 There are some emacs tips over [here](http://notmuchmail.org/emacstips/#index15h2) that
136 explains how to configure emacs with an addressbook, but the few solutions were not fast enough
137 for me. And I never could test the vala-based code. So I updated the notmuch_addresses code to
138 use a cache to be able to make better matches and still be lightning fast.
140 And finally, I needed to have a way to autocomplete my recipients' addresses
141 automagically from within `vim`. So that's why I created the `notmuch_abook` code.
142 You can either install it as a plugin in vim, using vundle:
144 Vundle 'guyzmo/notmuch-abook'
146 Or if you're not using vim (which is objectively the best editor ever), you may
147 want to use it as standalone:
149 % pip install notmuch_abook
151 To configure the address book, append to `~/.notmuch-config` the following:
153 % cat > ~/.notmuch-config << EOF
156 path=/home/YOURUSERNAME/.notmuch-abook.db
161 where YOURUSERNAME is your home directory. Then, you can sync the addressbook cache
162 by running. It will create the database file specified in configuration, and go through
163 all notmuch's indexed mails to get all addresses headers and cache them. It takes around
164 20 seconds on my 10000 mails index:
166 % notmuch_abook create
168 And you can query for addresses using the lookup command, which will match the beginning
169 of each word in the name and address, as follows:
171 % notmuch_abook lookup Foo
172 Foobar Bar <bar@bar.com>
173 Bar Foobar <bar@bar.com>
174 Bar Bar <foobar@bar.com>
175 Bar Bar <bar@foobar.com>
176 Bar Bar <bar@bar.foo>
178 If you're using vim, when you edit a mail having a filetype set to mail, you will be
179 able to open a completion menu when you do <C-x><C-u> at every address header.
181 # Using Notmuch with bare Mutt, the old fashioned way
184 [notmuch-mutt](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/tree/HEAD:/contrib/notmuch-mutt),
185 which will create a "virtual" maildir folder with search results whenever a
186 search is made. The upside is that you can search all your folders
187 simultanously; the downside is that your modifications in the results listing
188 do not carry over, also having to switch folders comes with some more
192 [how to use Notmuch with Mutt](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/)
193 has been written by Stefano Zacchiroli.
195 <small>(Note by the howto author: I've linked the howto from this wiki rather
196 than splicing it in, in order to avoid duplication of information. If you
197 think it would be better to have it here, feel free to copy the text
199 [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)
200 in markdown syntax from the Git repository of my homepage.)</small>
202 ## Using a simple macro that will emulate the "limit" mutt functionality
205 See the [alternative notmuch integration](http://log.or.cz/?p=228)
206 blog post for instructions and details,
207 or simply put these two macros to your muttrc:
209 # 'L' performs a notmuch query, showing only the results
210 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"
211 # 'a' shows all messages again (supersedes default <alias> binding)
212 macro index a "<limit>all\n" "show all messages (undo limit)"
214 The upside (if you are used to working in the context of a single folder) is
215 that this really does use the limit functionality of mutt and you are still in
216 your original folder. The downside is that this approach has scaling problems
217 and works well only for reasonably specific queries.
219 ## Using [notmuchfs](https://github.com/tsto/notmuchfs)
221 Notmuchfs provides virtual maildirs at the file system level, and mutt can be
222 placed on top. See [README.mutt](https://github.com/tsto/notmuchfs/blob/master/README.MUTT.md)