X-Git-Url: https://git.cworth.org/git?a=blobdiff_plain;f=howto.mdwn;h=6a7d45a32b6456ec8cb64681c28a9589c5198ae1;hb=6bf178eeb7c467d2a6a7e3f1b2f19c7e170b31b5;hp=c62409fc9b35a2b243717202afacfd059f0afc0f;hpb=849b5df14e24d4e4b7215575315b7ad515326943;p=notmuch-wiki
diff --git a/howto.mdwn b/howto.mdwn
index c62409f..6a7d45a 100644
--- a/howto.mdwn
+++ b/howto.mdwn
@@ -4,22 +4,52 @@
Some tips about how to do some useful things with notmuch, and the
various "third party" notmuch utilities.
-* Print only filenames of a search
+* **Receive mail**
- Given you have the python bindings installed (or simply set your
- PYTHONPATH environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python
- directory), this script will print the filenames of a matching
- search:
+ Notmuch requires either [maildir
+ flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) or a "mh"-style
+ maildirectory to operate on. Basically any setup in which each mail
+ is in a file of its own will work. Here are some generally
+ well-regarded mail retrieval tools:
- #!/usr/bin/env python
- import sys
- import notmuch
- search = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])
- q = notmuch.Database().create_query(search)
- for m in q.search_messages():
- print m.get_filename()
+ * [offlineimap](https://github.com/nicolas33/offlineimap/) -
+ quite useful and widely tested, it also offers a handy hook that
+ will come in useful a bit later in our setup. Also supports
+ "presynchook" and "postsynchook" command that will get run
+ whenever you sync. Point _postsynchook_ to a script that gets run
+ on every sync and that will do the automatic updating and tagging
+ of your notmuch database.
-* Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags
+ * [mbsync](http://isync.sourceforge.net/)
+
+ * [getmail](http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/)
+
+ * [fetchmail](http://fetchmail.berlios.de/)
+
+ See the [[initial_tagging]] page for more info on intial tagging of messages.
+
+* **Print only filenames of a search (python bindings)**
+
+ Notmuch includes python bindings to the notmuch shared
+ library. Extensive API documentation [is
+ available](http://notmuchmail.readthedocs.org/).
+
+ The bindings are very simple to use. As an example, given you have
+ the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH
+ environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory),
+ this script will print the filenames of a matching search:
+
+ >>> import notmuch
+ >>> db = notmuch.Database()
+ >>> query = db.create_query('tag:inbox AND NOT tag:killed')
+ >>> list(query.search_messages()) # doctest:+ELLIPSIS
+ [...]
+
+* **Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags**
+
+ notmuch **since version 0.5** syncs maildir flags and respective
+ tags in both directions. This part applies only to notmuch prior to
+ version 0.5:
Some IMAP users rely on maildir flags that convey the status "seen",
"replied", "trashed", in order to synchronize the status of their
@@ -27,13 +57,13 @@ various "third party" notmuch utilities.
flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) is simply a defined part
of their filename). Notmuch will by default happily ignore those
flags and will never modify them either, as there is no built-in
- support for sunchronizing your notmuch tags with your imap maildir
+ support for synchronizing your notmuch tags with your imap maildir
flags (seen, replied, trashed, etc). However there are currently 2
ways in which you can achieve synchronization.
[notmuchsync](http://spaetz.github.com/notmuchsync/) is a utility
- that allows synchronization in either direction, as well as pruning
- of deleted files.
+ (based on the cnotmuch python bindings) that allows synchronization
+ in either direction, as well as pruning of deleted files.
The second solution allows for fast maildir flag to notmuch tag
synchronization (and only in that direction) requires patching the
@@ -42,3 +72,68 @@ various "third party" notmuch utilities.
be viewed as a [source diff in this git
repository](http://github.com/spaetz/notmuch-all-feature/commit/df3b087cefb85e9d16fd17540e348bcb854dd7ee).
+* **Using notmuch with Mutt**
+
+ Notmuch is a great mail indexing tool that can also be used *in conjunction*
+ with existing Mail User Agents (MUA) instead of replacing them. The advantage
+ of such mixed solutions is that users can benefit from notmuch features (such
+ as full-text search and thread reconstruction) without *having to* change
+ MUA.
+
+ A popular geek MUA is [the Mutt e-mail client](http://www.mutt.org);
+ integrating notmuch with Mutt is fairly straightforward. An
+ [**how to use Notmuch with Mutt**](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/)
+ has been written by Stefano Zacchiroli, together with some glue code. Check
+ out the
+ [howto](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/)
+ for more information.
+
+ (Note by the howto author: I've linked the howto from this wiki rather
+ than splicing it in, in order to avoid duplication of information. If you
+ think it would be better to have it here, feel free to copy the text
+ here. The howto is
+ [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)
+ in markdown syntax from the Git repository of my homepage.)
+
+* **Automatically retagging the database (e.g., when upgrading versions)**
+
+ Certain versions of notmuch include new automatic tags (for example, between
+ 0.3 and 0.10, automatic tagging of signed and encrypted messages was added).
+ However, for users running with databases created in older versions of
+ notmuch, these tags are missing in pre-existing messages and need to be
+ added. One way to do this is as follows:
+
+ $ notmuch dump ~/out.nm
+ $ mv ~/Mail/.notmuch ~/.notmuch.bak
+ $ notmuch new
+ $ notmuch tag -inbox -unread '*'
+ $ notmuch restore --accumulate ~/out.nm
+
+ At this point, one should run a sanity check on the tags, and if everything
+ has merged correctly, the ~/.notmuch.bak directory is expendable, as is
+ ~/out.nm.
+
+* **Dealing with mbox and other formats**
+
+ notmuch by itself is unable to handle non-maildir mail archives. One tool
+ to solve this is called mb2md. Assuming an mbox in ~/test.mbox and ones
+ mail archives to be in ~/Mail, an invocation would look like
+
+ $ mb2md -s ~/test.mbox -d ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname
+
+ Note that specifying the paths for -s and -d is necessary. This will create
+ a new maildir in ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname from the mbox at ~/test.mbox.
+
+ Often the formats are more convoluted, however. Many lists provide an
+ almost-but-not-quite-mbox format that mailman produces, as can be seen, for
+ example, [here](http://lists.xapian.org/pipermail/xapian-devel/). These
+ files can be converted with some degree of success to mbox using the script
+ found
+ [here](http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/converting-mailman-gzipd-text-archive-files-to-proper-mbox-files),
+ and from mbox to maildir as above.
+
+ However, many of these lists also have a gmane version, which, where it
+ exists, achieves far better results than dealing with the messy mailman
+ output. Using the instructions from [Gmane's
+ site](http://gmane.org/export.php), we can download an mbox file, which we
+ can then convert to maildir using mb2md or other utility.