[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>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.

       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):

       · from:&lt;name-or-address&gt;

       · to:&lt;name-or-address&gt;

       · subject:&lt;word-or-quoted-phrase&gt;

       · attachment:&lt;word&gt;

       · tag:&lt;tag&gt; (or is:&lt;tag&gt;)

       · id:&lt;message-id&gt;

       · thread:&lt;thread-id&gt;

       · folder:&lt;maildir-folder&gt;

       · path:&lt;directory-path&gt; or path:&lt;directory-path&gt;/**

       · date:&lt;since&gt;..&lt;until&gt;

       The <b>from:</b> prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender  of
       an email message.

       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).

       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, immediately following <b>sub-</b>
       <b>ject:</b>.

       The <b>attachment:</b> prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or
       extensions) of attachments to email messages.

       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>.

       For <b>id:</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.

       The  <b>thread:</b> prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are gen‐
       erated internally by notmuch (and do not  appear  in  email  messages).
       These  thread  ID values can be seen in the first column of output from
       <b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b>

       The <b>path:</b> prefix searches for email messages  that  are  in  particular
       directories within the mail store. The directory must be specified rel‐
       ative to the top-level maildir (and  without  the  leading  slash).  By
       default,  <b>path:</b>  matches  messages in the specified directory only. The
       &quot;/**&quot; suffix can be used to match messages 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.

       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; subdirectories. The exact syn‐
       tax  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 fold‐
       ers 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>.

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

       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) with a range
       syntax of:

       date:&lt;since&gt;..&lt;until&gt;

       See <b>DATE</b> <b>AND</b> <b>TIME</b> <b>SEARCH</b> below for details on the range expression, 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.

       In  addition  to  individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
       Boolean operators ( <b>and</b>, <b>or</b>, <b>not</b> , etc.). 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 until we get Xapian defect #402 fixed).

       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).
</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.

       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.

       Entering date:expr without  &quot;..&quot;  (for  example  date:yesterday)  won&apos;t
       work,  as  it&apos;s  not  interpreted as a range expression at all. You can
       achieve the expected result by duplicating the expr both sides of  &quot;..&quot;
       (for example date:yesterday..yesterday).
</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>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-reply-1/'>notmuch-reply</a>(1),
       <a href='../notmuch-restore-1/'>notmuch-restore</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>notmuch-search</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-show-1/'>notmuch-show</a>(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>
       2014, Carl Worth and many others
</pre>

<h2>0.19</h2>