NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)
NAME
notmuch-search-terms - syntax for notmuch queries
SYNOPSIS
notmuch count [options...] <search-term>...
notmuch dump [ <filename> ] [--] [ <search-term>...]
notmuch search [options...] <search-term>...
notmuch show [options...] <search-term>...
notmuch tag +<tag>|-<tag> [...] [--] <search-term>...
DESCRIPTION
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 ("*") 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 <brackets>
indicate user-supplied values):
from:<name-or-address>
to:<name-or-address>
subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
attachment:<word>
tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)
id:<message-id>
thread:<thread-id>
folder:<directory-path>
date:<since>..<until>
The from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of
an email message.
The to: 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 subject: 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 sub-
ject:.
The attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or
extensions) of attachments to email messages.
For tag: and is: valid tag values include inbox and unread by default
for new messages added by notmuch new as well as any other tag values
added manually with notmuch tag.
For id:, message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID:
header of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters.
The thread: 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
notmuch search
The folder: prefix can be used to search for email message files that
are contained within particular directories within the mail store. Only
the directory components below the top-level mail database path are
available to be searched.
The date: 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:<since>..<until>
See DATE AND TIME SEARCH below for details on the range expression, and
supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time expressions.
The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax of:
<initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
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 ( and, or, not , 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).
DATE AND TIME SEARCH
notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of express-
ing dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in rela-
tive terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined
("1 hour 25 minutes") 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.
The range expression
date:<since>..<until>
The above expression restricts the results to only messages
from <since> to <until>, based on the Date: header.
<since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yes-
terday". In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time
it could describe (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is
taken as the latest time it could describe (the end of yester-
day). Similarly, date:january..february matches from the begin-
ning of January to the end of February.
Currently, we do not support spaces in range expressions. You
can replace the spaces with '_', or (in most cases) '-', 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's
possible to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. 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 ".." (for example date:yesterday)
won't work, as it's not interpreted as a range expression at
all. You can achieve the expected result by duplicating the
expr both sides of ".." (for example date:yesterday..yester-
day).
Relative date and time
[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, hun-
dred. Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or
"this" (e.g., "last week" or "this month").
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
Supported absolute time formats
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
Supported absolute date formats
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
Time zones
(+|-)HH:MM
(+|-)HH[MM]
Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
SEE ALSO
notmuch(1), notmuch-config(1), notmuch-count(1), notmuch-dump(1), not-
much-hooks(5), notmuch-new(1), notmuch-reply(1), notmuch-restore(1),
notmuch-search(1), notmuch-show(1), notmuch-tag(1)
Notmuch 0.15