# Approaches to initial tagging of messages

This page collects scripts and strategies for organizing mail using
notmuch and doing automated initial tagging.

Here's a very general and ad-hoc approach to initial message tagging.
The `[new]` config section allows you to control which tags new messages
receive.  This sets all new messages to get the *new* tag:

    [new]
    tags=new;

After running `notmuch new`, all new messages will be marked *new*.
You can then do various tag post-processing by just acting on messages
with that tag.  For instance, a post-processing script might do the
following:

    # immediately archive all messages from "me"
    notmuch tag -new -- tag:new and from:me@example.com

    # delete all messages from a spammer:
    notmuch tag +deleted -- from:spam@spam.com

    # tag all message from notmuch mailing list
    notmuch tag +notmuch -- to:notmuch@notmuchmail.org

    # finally, retag all "new" messages "inbox" and "unread"
    notmuch tag +inbox +unread -new -- tag:new

Since the post-processing is only acting on a few messages, it is
generally extrememly fast.


# Other solutions

* [This
  email](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/2010/001691.html)
  (and related thread) details Carl Worth's approach to tagging. It is
  email id:87r5o8stbj.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org in the notmuch mailing
  list archives.


* [This
  email](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/2010/001690.html)
  (and related thread) details one user's setup, which includes using
  the inbox tag as a "new mail" flag. It is email
  id:87hbp5j9dv.fsf@hackervisions.org in the notmuch mailing list
  archives.

* [This email](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/2011/003976.html)
  details another user's setup, which uses a dedicated tag for marking new mail,
  which is then sorted with a python script using Bogofilter for spam detection.
  This is generally a great deal faster than a shell-scripted approach.
  This approach introduces a workflow built around a "watch" tag. Here, the user
  is only presented with threads as they are started. At this point the user can
  choose to watch the thread, in which case future messages will be tagged with
  "inbox", or ignore it. This provides an excellent means for dealing with a
  large flux of messages with a low signal-to-noise.  It is email
  id:"87tyfu3k5a.fsf@gmail.com" in the notmuch mailing list archives.


# Notmuch Delivery Agent -- `notmuch-deliver`

The [Notmuch Delivery Agent](http://github.com/alip/notmuch-deliver/)
([announcement](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/2010/002871.html)) is
a tool for delivering emails to maildir, add them to the Notmuch database, and
tag them as desired.