[notmuch-wiki] / manpages / notmuch-search-terms-7.mdwn

<h1>NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)</h1>

<h2>NAME</h2>
<pre>
       notmuch-search-terms - syntax for notmuch queries
</pre>

<h2>SYNOPSIS</h2>
<pre>
       <b>notmuch</b> <b>count</b> [option ...] &lt;<u>search-term</u>&gt; ...

       <b>notmuch</b>  <b>dump</b>  [--format=(batch-tag|sup)]  [--]  [--output=&lt;<u>file</u>&gt;] [--]
       [&lt;<u>search-term</u>&gt; ...]

       <b>notmuch</b> <b>reindex</b> [option ...] &lt;<u>search-term</u>&gt; ...

       <b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b> [option ...] &lt;<u>search-term</u>&gt; ...

       <b>notmuch</b> <b>show</b> [option ...] &lt;<u>search-term</u>&gt; ...

       <b>notmuch</b> <b>tag</b> +&lt;<u>tag</u>&gt; ... -&lt;<u>tag</u>&gt; [--] &lt;<u>search-term</u>&gt; ...
</pre>

<h2>DESCRIPTION</h2>
<pre>
       Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.

       The search terms can consist of free-form  text  (and  quoted  phrases)
       which   will   match  all  messages  that  contain  all  of  the  given
       terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or recipi‐
       ent headers.

       As  a  special  case,  a  search  string consisting of exactly a single
       asterisk (&quot;*&quot;) will match all messages.
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Search prefixes</h3>
<pre>
       In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used  to  force
       terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where &lt;brackets&gt;
       indicate user-supplied values).

       If notmuch is built with <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processors</b> (see  below)  some  of
       the  prefixes  with  &lt;regex&gt;  forms  can  be  also used to restrict the
       results  to  those  whose  value  matches  a  regular  expression  (see
       <b>regex</b>(7)) delimited with //, for example:

          notmuch search &apos;from:/bob@.*[.]example[.]com/&apos;

       <b>from:&lt;name-or-address&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>from:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b>
              The  <b>from:</b>  prefix  is  used to match the name or address of the
              sender of an email message.

       <b>to:&lt;name-or-address&gt;</b>
              The <b>to:</b> prefix is used to match the names or  addresses  of  any
              recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).

       <b>subject:&lt;word-or-quoted-phrase&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>subject:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b>
              Any  term  prefixed  with <b>subject:</b> will match only text from the
              subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in  the  subject  is
              supported  by including quotation marks around the phrase, imme‐
              diately following <b>subject:</b>.

       <b>attachment:&lt;word&gt;</b>
              The <b>attachment:</b> prefix can be used to search for specific  file‐
              names (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.

       <b>mimetype:&lt;word&gt;</b>
              The  <b>mimetype:</b>  prefix  will be used to match text from the con‐
              tent-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified  by
              the sender).

       <b>tag:&lt;tag&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>tag:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b> <b>or</b> <b>is:&lt;tag&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>is:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b>
              For  <b>tag:</b>  and  <b>is:</b> valid tag values include <b>inbox</b> and <b>unread</b> by
              default for new messages added by <b>notmuch</b> <b>new</b>  as  well  as  any
              other tag values added manually with <b>notmuch</b> <b>tag</b>.

       <b>id:&lt;message-id&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>mid:&lt;message-id&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>mid:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b>
              For  <b>id:</b> and <b>mid:</b>, message ID values are the literal contents of
              the Message-ID: header of email messages, but without  the  &apos;&lt;&apos;,
              &apos;&gt;&apos; delimiters.

       <b>thread:&lt;thread-id&gt;</b>
              The  <b>thread:</b>  prefix  can be used with the thread ID values that
              are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in  email
              messages).  These thread ID values can be seen in the first col‐
              umn of output from <b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b>

       <b>path:&lt;directory-path&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>path:&lt;directory-path&gt;/**</b> <b>or</b> <b>path:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b>
              The <b>path:</b> prefix searches for email messages that are in partic‐
              ular  directories  within  the mail store. The directory must be
              specified relative to the top-level  maildir  (and  without  the
              leading slash). By default, <b>path:</b> matches messages in the speci‐
              fied directory only. The &quot;/**&quot; suffix can be used to match  mes‐
              sages  in  the  specified  directory  and all its subdirectories
              recursively. <b>path:&quot;&quot;</b> matches messages in the root  of  the  mail
              store and, likewise, <b>path:**</b> matches all messages.

              <b>path:</b>  will find a message if <u>any</u> copy of that message is in the
              specific directory.

       <b>folder:&lt;maildir-folder&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>folder:/&lt;regex&gt;/</b>
              The <b>folder:</b> prefix searches for email messages by maildir or  MH
              folder.  For  MH-style folders, this is equivalent to <b>path:</b>. For
              maildir, this includes messages in the &quot;new&quot; and &quot;cur&quot; subdirec‐
              tories.  The  exact  syntax  for maildir folders depends on your
              mail configuration. For maildir++, <b>folder:&quot;&quot;</b> matches  the  inbox
              folder  (which  is  the  root  in maildir++), other folder names
              always start with &quot;.&quot;, and nested folders are separated by &quot;.&quot;s,
              such as <b>folder:.classes.topology</b>. For &quot;file system&quot; maildir, the
              inbox is typically <b>folder:INBOX</b> and nested folders are separated
              by slashes, such as <b>folder:classes/topology</b>.

              <b>folder:</b>  will  find  a message if <u>any</u> copy of that message is in
              the specific folder.

       <b>date:&lt;since&gt;..&lt;until&gt;</b> <b>or</b> <b>date:&lt;date&gt;</b>
              The <b>date:</b> prefix can be used to restrict  the  results  to  only
              messages  within  a  particular  time  range (based on the Date:
              header).

              See <b>DATE</b> <b>AND</b> <b>TIME</b> <b>SEARCH</b> below for details on the range  expres‐
              sion, and supported syntax for &lt;since&gt; and &lt;until&gt; date and time
              expressions.

              The time range can also be specified  using  timestamps  with  a
              syntax of:

              &lt;initial-timestamp&gt;..&lt;final-timestamp&gt;

              Each  timestamp  is  a number representing the number of seconds
              since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.

       <b>lastmod:&lt;initial-revision&gt;..&lt;final-revision&gt;</b>
              The <b>lastmod:</b> prefix can be used to restrict the  result  by  the
              database  revision  number  of  when messages were last modified
              (tags were added/removed or filenames changed). This is  usually
              used  in  conjunction with the <b>--uuid</b> argument to <b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b>
              to find messages that have changed since an earlier query.

       <b>query:&lt;name&gt;</b>
              The <b>query:</b> prefix allows queries to refer  to  previously  saved
              queries  added  with  <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1).  Named queries are only
              available if notmuch is built with <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processors</b>  (see
              below).

       <b>property:&lt;key&gt;=&lt;value&gt;</b>
              The  <b>property:</b>  prefix  searches  for messages with a particular
              &lt;key&gt;=&lt;value&gt; property pair. Properties are used  internally  by
              notmuch  (and  extensions)  to add metadata to messages. A given
              key can be present on a given  message  with  several  different
              values.  See <a href='../notmuch-properties-7/'>notmuch-properties</a>(7) for more details.
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Operators</h3>
<pre>
       In  addition  to  individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
       Boolean operators (<b>and</b>, <b>or</b>, <b>not</b>, and <b>xor</b>). Each term in the query  will
       be  implicitly  connected  by  a logical AND if no explicit operator is
       provided (except that terms with a common  prefix  will  be  implicitly
       combined  with  OR).   The  shorthand  &apos;-&lt;term&gt;&apos;  can  be used for &apos;not
       &lt;term&gt;&apos; but unfortunately this does not work at the start of an expres‐
       sion.   Parentheses  can also be used to control the combination of the
       Boolean operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by
       the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized
       expression).

       In addition to the standard boolean operators, Xapian provides  several
       operators specific to text searching.

          notmuch search term1 NEAR term2

       will  return  results  where  term1  is  within  10 words of term2. The
       threshold can be set like this:

          notmuch search term1 NEAR/2 term2

       The search

          notmuch search term1 ADJ term2

       will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2, but in the
       same  order  as in the query. The threshold can be set the same as with
       NEAR:

          notmuch search term1 ADJ/7 term2
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Stemming</h3>
<pre>
       <b>Stemming</b> in notmuch means that these searches

          notmuch search detailed
          notmuch search details
          notmuch search detail

       will all return identical results, because Xapian first  &quot;reduces&quot;  the
       term to the common stem (here &apos;detail&apos;) and then performs the search.

       There  are  two  ways to turn this off: a search for a capitalized word
       will be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for &quot;John&quot; and  not
       get  results  for  &quot;Johnson&quot;;  phrase  searches are also unstemmed (see
       below for details).  Stemming is currently only supported for  English.
       Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Wildcards</h3>
<pre>
       It  is  possible  to  use  a  trailing  &apos;*&apos; as a wildcard. A search for
       &apos;wildc*&apos; will match &apos;wildcard&apos;, &apos;wildcat&apos;, etc.
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes</h3>
<pre>
       Xapian (and hence notmuch)  prefixes  are  either  <b>boolean</b>,  supporting
       exact  matches  like  &quot;<u>tag:inbox</u>&quot;  or  <b>probabilistic</b>, supporting a more
       flexible <b>term</b> based searching. Certain <b>special</b> prefixes  are  processed
       by  notmuch  in  a way not strictly fitting either of Xapian&apos;s built in
       styles. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as follows.

       <b>Boolean</b>
              <b>tag:</b>, <b>id:</b>, <b>thread:</b>, <b>folder:</b>, <b>path:</b>, <b>property:</b>

       <b>Probabilistic</b>
              <b>to:</b>, <b>attachment:</b>, <b>mimetype:</b>

       <b>Special</b>
              <b>from:</b>, <b>query:</b>, <b>subject:</b>
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Terms and phrases</h3>
<pre>
       In general Xapian distinguishes between lists  of  terms  and  <b>phrases</b>.
       Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you probably need to
       protect those from your shell) and insist that  those  unstemmed  words
       occur  in  that  order. One useful, but initially surprising feature is
       that the following are equivalent ways to write the same phrase.

       · &quot;a list of words&quot;

       · a-list-of-words

       · a/list/of/words

       · a.list.of.words

       Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with proba‐
       bilistic prefixes such as <b>to:</b>, <b>from:</b>, and <b>subject:</b>. In particular

          subject:(pizza free)

       is equivalent to

          subject:pizza and subject:free

       Both of these will match a subject &quot;Free Delicious Pizza&quot; while

          subject:&quot;pizza free&quot;

       will not.
</pre>

<h2>DATE AND TIME SEARCH</h2>
<pre>
       notmuch  understands a variety of standard and natural ways of express‐
       ing dates and times, both in absolute terms (&quot;2012-10-24&quot;) and in rela‐
       tive  terms (&quot;yesterday&quot;). Any number of relative terms can be combined
       (&quot;1 hour 25 minutes&quot;) and an absolute date/time can  be  combined  with
       relative  terms  to  further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of
       the syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; The range expression</h3>
<pre>
       date:&lt;since&gt;..&lt;until&gt;

       The above expression  restricts  the  results  to  only  messages  from
       &lt;since&gt; to &lt;until&gt;, based on the Date: header.

       &lt;since&gt;  and &lt;until&gt; can describe imprecise times, such as &quot;yesterday&quot;.
       In this case, &lt;since&gt; is taken as the earliest time it  could  describe
       (the beginning of yesterday) and &lt;until&gt; is taken as the latest time it
       could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly,  date:january..febru‐
       ary matches from the beginning of January to the end of February.

       date:&lt;expr&gt;..!  can be used as a shorthand for date:&lt;expr&gt;..&lt;expr&gt;. The
       expansion takes place before interpretation,  and  thus,  for  example,
       date:monday..!  matches  from  the beginning of Monday until the end of
       Monday.  With <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processor</b>  support  (see  below),  non-range
       date  queries such as date:yesterday will work, but otherwise will give
       unexpected results; if in doubt use date:yesterday..!

       Currently, we do not support  spaces  in  range  expressions.  You  can
       replace the spaces with &apos;_&apos;, or (in most cases) &apos;-&apos;, or (in some cases)
       leave the spaces out altogether. Examples in this man page  use  spaces
       for clarity.

       Open-ended  ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it&apos;s possi‐
       ble to specify date:..&lt;until&gt; or date:&lt;since&gt;.. to not limit the  start
       or end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on
       open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Relative date and time</h3>
<pre>
       [N|number]         (years|months|weeks|days|hours|hrs|minutes|mins|sec‐
       onds|secs) [...]

       All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.

       Units  can  be  abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous
       single m being m for minutes and M for months.

       Number can also be written out one,  two,  ...,  ten,  dozen,  hundred.
       Additionally, the unit may be preceded by &quot;last&quot; or &quot;this&quot; (e.g., &quot;last
       week&quot; or &quot;this month&quot;).

       When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date  and  time
       specification  will  be  relative  from the specified absolute date and
       time.

       Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Supported absolute time formats</h3>
<pre>
       · H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)]

       · H[H] (am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)

       · HHMMSS

       · now

       · noon

       · midnight

       · Examples: 17:05, 5pm
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Supported absolute date formats</h3>
<pre>
       · YYYY-MM[-DD]

       · DD-MM[-[YY]YY]

       · MM-YYYY

       · M[M]/D[D][/[YY]YY]

       · M[M]/YYYY

       · D[D].M[M][.[YY]YY]

       · D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]

       · Mon[thname] D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] [YYYY]

       · Wee[kday]

       Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.

       Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.

       Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
</pre>

<h3> &nbsp; Time zones</h3>
<pre>
       · (+|-)HH:MM

       · (+|-)HH[MM]

       Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
</pre>

<h2>XAPIAN FIELD PROCESSORS</h2>
<pre>
       Certain optional features of the notmuch query processor  rely  on  the
       presence  of  the Xapian field processor API. You can determine if your
       notmuch was built against a sufficiently recent version  of  Xapian  by
       running

          % notmuch config get built_with.field_processor

       Currently the following features require field processor support:

       · non-range date queries, e.g. &quot;date:today&quot;

       · named queries e.g. &quot;query:my_special_query&quot;

       · regular expression searches, e.g. &quot;subject:/^\[SPAM\]/&quot;
</pre>

<h2>SEE ALSO</h2>
<pre>
       <a href='../notmuch-1/'>notmuch</a>(1),  <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-count-1/'>notmuch-count</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-dump-1/'>notmuch-dump</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-hooks-5/'>not‐</a>
       <a href='../notmuch-hooks-5/'>much-hooks</a>(5), <a href='../notmuch-insert-1/'>notmuch-insert</a>(1),  <a href='../notmuch-new-1/'>notmuch-new</a>(1),  <a href='../notmuch-reindex-1/'>notmuch-reindex</a>(1),
       <b>notmuch-properties</b>(1),   <b>*notmuch-reply</b>(1),   <a href='../notmuch-restore-1/'>notmuch-restore</a>(1),  <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>not‐</a>
       <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>much-search</a>(1), <b>*notmuch-show</b>(1), <a href='../notmuch-tag-1/'>notmuch-tag</a>(1)
</pre>

<h2>AUTHOR</h2>
<pre>
       Carl Worth and many others
</pre>

<h2>COPYRIGHT</h2>
<pre>
       2009-2018, Carl Worth and many others
</pre>

<h2>0.26</h2>