News for release 0.38.3

[notmuch-wiki] / getting-started.mdwn

diff --git a/getting-started.mdwn b/getting-started.mdwn
index fac7d8fa08b6db073a55182e760520e0696efa70..05de920c5f15521c4c3a52fb15e2562f25132c5f 100644 (file)
--- a/getting-started.mdwn
+++ b/getting-started.mdwn
@@ -8,7 +8,8 @@
 This is your friendly guide and tutorial to getting started with Notmuch. It
 will help you through the first steps of setting up Notmuch.
 
-All Notmuch commands have [[manual pages|manpages]]. Please refer to them for
+All Notmuch commands have [manual
+pages](https://notmuchmail.org/doc/latest/). Please refer to them for
 details.
 
 ## Prerequisites
@@ -27,9 +28,9 @@ already have messages in this format.
 
 On Linux, the easiest way to install Notmuch is through your distribution's
 package repository. If you're installing Notmuch from a [git
-checkout](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch) or a [source
-release](http://notmuchmail.org/releases/), please refer to the
-[INSTALL](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/blob/HEAD:/INSTALL) document.
+checkout](https://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch) or a [source
+release](https://notmuchmail.org/releases/), please refer to the
+[INSTALL](https://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/blob/HEAD:/INSTALL) document.
 
 ## Configuration
 
@@ -64,30 +65,61 @@ Depending on the amount of mail you have the initial indexing process can take a
 long time, so expect that. Also, the resulting database will require roughly the
 same amount of storage space as your current collection of email.
 
-After this step, you can try out the [[Notmuch command-line
-interface|manpages]], or [[Notmuch Emacs interface|notmuch-emacs]].
+After this step, you can try out the [Notmuch command line
+interface](https://notmuchmail.org/doc/latest/man1/notmuch.html), or
+[[Notmuch Emacs interface|notmuch-emacs]].
 
 ## Converting Existing mbox to Maildir
 
+The [`mb2md`](http://batleth.sapienti-sat.org/projects/mb2md/) tool can be used
+to convert existing mbox files to Maildir.
+
+Beware that the source and destination directory options to `mb2md` are relative
+to the user's home directory, not relative to the current working directory.
+
 ## Delivering New Messages
 
 Notmuch itself does not receive messages. There is no IMAP or POP support. You
 will need to set up other tools, such as fetchmail, offlineimap, or mbsync, to
 receive the messages.
 
-There is two ways to deliver and index the messages:
+There are two ways to deliver and index messages:
 
 * Use an external tool (such as offlineimap or mbsync) to deliver the messages
-  to your mail store, and call `notmuch new` to discover and index the newly
+  to your mail store, and run `notmuch new` to discover and index the newly
   delivered messages (and any other changes in the mail store).
 
 * Use an external tool (such as fetchmail) receive the messages, and configure
-  the tool to use `notmuch insert` to deliver the messages to your mail store
-  and index them.
+  the tool to use `notmuch insert` as a Mail Delivery Agent to deliver the
+  messages to your mail store and index them.
 
 ## Automation Via Hooks
 
-## Backing up and Restoring the Database
+Notmuch supports running [user defined
+hooks](https://notmuchmail.org/doc/latest/man5/notmuch-hooks.html)
+before or after certain commands. Hooks can be arbitrary executable
+programs or scripts. For example, if you always run your mail delivery
+tool first and `notmuch new` after that, you can run the tool from
+Notmuch `pre-new` hook, and simply run `notmuch new` to do both. If
+you always do some tagging after indexing of new messages, you may
+want to set up a `post-new` or `post-insert` hook to do that
+automatically.
+
+## Backing Up and Restoring the Database
+
+The Notmuch database contains a search index of your messages, along with all
+the tags you've added to your messages. The search index can be regenerated by
+indexing the messages again, but the tags will be lost if the database is
+lost. (If you have `maildir.synchronize_flags` configuration option enabled,
+also some of the tags can be regenerated from maildir flags.)
+
+To create a plain-text dump of the tags, run
+
+        notmuch dump --output=dump.txt
+
+To restore the tags from the dump, run
+
+        notmuch restore --input=dump.txt
 
 ## Removing Notmuch
 
@@ -95,6 +127,5 @@ Did not like it after all? All you need to do is remove the database and the
 configuration file. The database is stored in the `.notmuch` directory under
 your mail store. And your mail store is at `notmuch config get database.path`.
 
-Note that the database is where the tags are stored. Everything else can be
-regenerated by indexing again, but the tags will be lost when the database is
-removed. Use the `notmuch dump` command to create a backup of the tags.
+You may want to use the `notmuch dump` command to create a backup of any tags
+you've added before removing the database.