X-Git-Url: https://git.cworth.org/git?a=blobdiff_plain;f=howto.mdwn;h=fea9e522424c7356be1b048e56f3447213ae6ec0;hb=725818094e123b6b5f093c4285a4bac5aa650ecb;hp=58868c6e474b546a33b43b95b8fda471f35b82ba;hpb=540b2879f1b505155b807bd6fcc23025b6e31297;p=notmuch-wiki diff --git a/howto.mdwn b/howto.mdwn index 58868c6..fea9e52 100644 --- a/howto.mdwn +++ b/howto.mdwn @@ -1,18 +1,56 @@ [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]] #How to... -* .. print only filenames of a search +Some tips about how to do some useful things with notmuch, and the +various "third party" notmuch utilities. -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: +* **Receive mail** - #!/usr/bin/env python - import sys - import notmuch - - q = notmuch.Database().create_query(" ".join(sys.argv[1:])) - for m in q.search_messages(): print m.get_filename() + 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: -* .. sync notmuch tags and maildir flags + * [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. + + * [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 initial tagging of messages. + +* **Use notmuch from python** + + Notmuch includes python bindings to the notmuch shared + library. Extensive API documentation [is + available](http://notmuch.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 snippet will produce a list of mails matching the given + expression: + + >>> 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 @@ -20,13 +58,13 @@ Given you have the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH envi 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 @@ -35,3 +73,99 @@ Given you have the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH envi 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 not seamless, but fairly straightforward. + There are two principal possibilities, each with its own ups and downs: + + * Using mutt-notmuch, which will create a "virtual" maildir folder with + search results whenever a search is made. The upside is that you can + search all your folders simultanously; the downside is that your + modifications in the results listing do not carry over, also having + to switch folders comes with some more annoyances. + + 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. 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.) + + * Using a simple macro that will emulate the "limit" mutt functionality + using notmuch. + + See the [**alternative notmuch integration**](http://log.or.cz/?p=228) + blog post for instructions and details, + or simply put these two macros to your muttrc: + + # 'L' performs a notmuch query, showing only the results + macro index L "unset wait_keyread -p 'notmuch query: ' x; echo \$x >~/.cache/mutt_terms~i \"\`notmuch search --output=messages \$(cat ~/.cache/mutt_terms) | head -n 600 | perl -le '@a=<>;chomp@a;s/\^id:// for@a;$,=\"|\";print@a'\`\"" "show only messages matching a notmuch pattern" + # 'a' shows all messages again (supersedes default binding) + macro index a "all\n" "show all messages (undo limit)" + + The upside (if you are used to working in the context of a single folder) + is that this really does use the limit functionality of mutt + and you are still in your original folder. + The downside is that this approach has scaling problems + and works well only for reasonably specific queries. + + +* **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. + +* **Take advantage of tags that are special to notmuch** + + See [[tags special to notmuch|special-tags]].