[[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
-# Notmuch -- The mail indexer
+# Notmuch -- Just an email system
-## Why Notmuch?
+If you've been looking for a fast, global-search and tag-based email
+system to use within your text editor or in a terminal...
+
+If you're the kind of person that gets excited about being able to
+write shell scripts for exploring and manipulating your email...
+
+If you're a developer of an existing email program and would love a
+good library interface for fast, global search with support for
+arbitrary tags...
+
+If you want the convenience of fast, reliable search of all your
+email, but don't want to give a 3rd-party access to your email...
+
+Then notmuch may be exactly what you've been looking for.
+
+## Why is it named Notmuch?
* "Not much mail" is what Notmuch thinks about your email
collection. Even if you receive 12000 messages per month or have on
that you can keep your inbox tamed and focus on what really matters
in your life, (which is surely not email).
-* Notmuch is an answer to [Sup](http://sup.rubyforge.org/).
+* Notmuch is an answer to [Sup](http://supmua.org/).
Sup is a very good email program written by William Morgan (and
others) and is the direct inspiration for Notmuch. Notmuch began as
an effort to rewrite performance-critical pieces of Sup in C rather
features can be integrated into any email program.)
* Notmuch is not much of an email program. It doesn't receive messages
- (no POP or IMAP suport). It doesn't send messages (no mail composer,
+ (no POP or IMAP support). It doesn't send messages (no mail composer,
no network code at all). And for what it does do (email search) that
work is provided by an external library,
[Xapian](http://xapian.org). So if Notmuch provides no user
interface and Xapian does all the heavy lifting, then what's left
here? Not much.
-Notmuch is still in the early stages of development, but there are
-already two user interfaces available for it (one for emacs and one
-for vim). If you've been looking for a fast, global-search and
-tag-based email reader to use within your text editor or in a
-terminal, then Notmuch may be exactly what you've been looking for.
-
-Otherwise, if you're a developer of an existing email program and
-would love a good library interface for fast, global search with
-support for arbitrary tags, then Notmuch also may be exactly what
-you've been looking for.
-
## News
[[The latest news from notmuch|news]]
## Documentation
-So far, there is not much documentation. Eventually, the wiki will
-contain a reference for users. This is what we have so far:
+To get started with notmuch, just run "notmuch" at the command line.
+This command will walk you through initial setup, including specifying
+the location of your mail store and how to start the initial indexing.
+After that, come back and checkout our documentation:
+ * [[Notmuch manual pages|manpages]]
* [[General how-tos|howto]]
- * [[Initial_Tagging]]
+ * [[Frequently Asked Questions|faq]]
+ * [[Searching]]
+ * [[Excluding and deleting messages|excluding]]
+ * [[Initial tagging|Initial_Tagging]]
* [[Tips for using notmuch within Emacs|emacstips]]
- * [[Remote Usage|remoteusage]]
+ * [[Remote usage|remoteusage]]
* [[Performance|performance]]
+ * [[References|references]]
+ * [[Notmuch Library Language Bindings|bindings]]
+
+Apart from the wiki, help is available via email and on IRC (see
+below). Join the mailing list. Read the archives. Ask questions.
+
+## Email clients and front ends
-Apart from the wiki, help is available via email. Join the mailing
-list. Read the archives. Ask questions.
+Notmuch ships with a powerful set of [[command-line tools|manpages]], an
+[[email client for Emacs|notmuch-emacs]], another
+[client for vim](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/blob/HEAD:/vim/README),
+and a [[Mutt integration script|notmuch-mutt]].
-## Source code
+There are also many other [[email clients and frontends|frontends]] based on
+Notmuch. And a few tips about integrating it with [[Mutt|mutttips]] and [[Vim|vimtips]].
+
+## Screenshots
-Either way, please feel free to jump in. All of the code for Notmuch
-is available as [free
+* [[Emacs UI screenshots|screenshots]]
+
+## Obtaining Notmuch
+
+[Notmuch source releases](http://notmuchmail.org/releases/) are available as
+source tar balls.
+
+Notmuch is packaged for at least the following operating systems and
+distributions:
+
+* [Arch Linux](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?q=notmuch)
+* [Debian](http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=notmuch)
+* [Fedora](https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/notmuch)
+* [Gentoo](http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-mail/notmuch)
+* [NetBSD](http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/mail/notmuch/README.html)
+* [openSUSE](https://build.opensuse.org/search?search_text=notmuch)
+* OS X [Homebrew](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/notmuch.rb), [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/ports.php?by=name&substr=notmuch), or [pkgsrc](http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/mail/notmuch/README.html).
+* [Slackware](http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.37/office/notmuch/)
+* [Ubuntu](http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=notmuch)
+
+## Development and Contributing
+
+All of the code for Notmuch is available as [free
software](http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) released
under the GNU [GPL version
3](http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html). The latest
versions can be checked out via git with this command:
- git clone git://notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
+ git clone git://notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
-You can browse the [Notmuch code
-history](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch) online. And finally,
-you can [subscribe to the `notmuch-commits`
-list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch-commits) to watch
-every commit made to notmuch and the notmuchmail.org web site.
+You can browse the
+[Notmuch code history online](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch). And
+finally, you can
+[subscribe to the `notmuch-commits` list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch-commits)
+to watch every commit made to notmuch and the notmuchmail.org web
+site.
-Patches are most welcome and should be sent to notmuch@notmuchmail.org.
-Please try to follow the [[patch submission guidelines|patchformatting]]
-when submitting patches to notmuch. We are currently test-driving a [Patchwork
-instance](http://patchwork.notmuchmail.org/project/notmuch) to help us keep track
-of [the patches](http://patchwork.notmuchmail.org/project/notmuch/list).
+We have a [buildbot](http://buildbot.notmuchmail.org/grid) (here's
+its
+[configuration](https://github.com/tomprince/buildbot-configs/tree/notmuch)).
-Source code of notmuch releases can be downloaded [here](http://notmuchmail.org/releases/).
+Contributions, such as patches, to Notmuch are most welcome. Please refer to the
+[[guide to contributing|contributing]].
-## Binary packages
+## Troubleshooting and reporting bugs
-* [Debian](http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=notmuch), [Ubuntu](http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=notmuch)
+For hints about troubleshooting and bug reporting see [[bugs]].
-## Screenshots
-
-* [[Emacs UI screenshots|screenshots]]
+For a list of known bugs see the [[nmbug status page|http://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/status/#Bugs]]
## Contact: Email & IRC
Comments? Please feel free to email the notmuch mailing list:
notmuch@notmuchmail.org (subscription is not required, but you can
-subscribe to the [notmuch
-list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch) if you would
-like to). You can also browse the [online
-archives](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/) of the mailing
-list, read them as a [web forum
-(nabble)](http://notmuch.198994.n3.nabble.com/), or download an
-[mbox file](http://notmuchmail.org/archives/notmuch.mbox) of the entire
-mailing-list.
+also subscribe to the
+[notmuch mailing list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch)). You
+can also browse the
+[online list archives](http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/),
+read them as a
+[web forum (nabble)](http://notmuch.198994.n3.nabble.com/), or
+download an [mbox file](http://notmuchmail.org/archives/notmuch.mbox)
+of the entire mailing-list.
The `mb2md` utility can be used to convert the archives to maildir
format which is convenient for reading the archives within notmuch
[#notmuch](irc://chat.freenode.net/#notmuch)@irc.freenode.net IRC
channel.
-## Feature Ideas
+## Feature ideas
-We have started a [[feature requests|feature-requests]] page on this
-wiki. No, things you add there won't automatically get implemented -
-but it's a nice way to collect ideas.
+If you have a feature idea/request, please send it to the
+[mailing list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch). You
+don't have to be subscribed to send, although there might be a delay
+for non-subscribers.
-### Website
+## Website
-This wiki is maintained using
-[ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info). Instructions on how to edit it can be
-found [[here|wikiwriteaccess]].
+This website is a wiki, maintained using [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info). Here
+are [[instructions on how to edit the wiki|wikiwriteaccess]]. The wiki contents
+are mostly [[dual licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 and GPLv3+|COPYING]].
projects / notmuch-wiki / blobdiff