<pre>
<b>notmuch</b> <b>count</b> [option ...] <<u>search-term</u>> ...
- <b>notmuch</b> <b>dump</b> [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--] [--output=<<u>file</u>>] [--]
+ <b>notmuch</b> <b>dump</b> [--gzip] [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--output=<<u>file</u>>] [--]
[<<u>search-term</u>> ...]
+ <b>notmuch</b> <b>reindex</b> [option ...] <<u>search-term</u>> ...
+
<b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b> [option ...] <<u>search-term</u>> ...
<b>notmuch</b> <b>show</b> [option ...] <<u>search-term</u>> ...
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-
+ 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.
+</pre>
+<h3> Search prefixes</h3>
+<pre>
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):
+ indicate user-supplied values).
+
+ If notmuch is built with <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processors</b> (see below) some of
+ the prefixes with <regex> forms can be also used to restrict the
+ results to those whose value matches a regular expression (see
+ <b>regex</b>(7)) delimited with //, for example:
+
+ notmuch search 'from:"/bob@.*[.]example[.]com/"'
+
+ <b>body:<word-or-quoted-phrase></b>
+ Match terms in the body of messages.
+
+ <b>from:<name-or-address></b> <b>or</b> <b>from:/<regex>/</b>
+ The <b>from:</b> prefix is used to match the name or address of the
+ sender of an email message.
+
+ <b>to:<name-or-address></b>
+ 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).
+
+ <b>subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase></b> <b>or</b> <b>subject:/<regex>/</b>
+ 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, imme‐
+ diately following <b>subject:</b>.
+
+ <b>attachment:<word></b>
+ The <b>attachment:</b> prefix can be used to search for specific file‐
+ names (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.
+
+ <b>mimetype:<word></b>
+ The <b>mimetype:</b> prefix will be used to match text from the con‐
+ tent-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified by
+ the sender).
+
+ <b>tag:<tag></b> <b>or</b> <b>tag:/<regex>/</b> <b>or</b> <b>is:<tag></b> <b>or</b> <b>is:/<regex>/</b>
+ 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>.
+
+ <b>id:<message-id></b> <b>or</b> <b>mid:<message-id></b> <b>or</b> <b>mid:/<regex>/</b>
+ For <b>id:</b> and <b>mid:</b>, message ID values are the literal contents of
+ the Message-ID: header of email messages, but without the '<',
+ '>' delimiters.
+
+ <b>thread:<thread-id></b>
+ The <b>thread:</b> prefix can be used with the thread ID values that
+ are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email
+ messages). These thread ID values can be seen in the first col‐
+ umn of output from <b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b>
+
+ <b>thread:{<notmuch</b> <b>query>}</b>
+ If notmuch is built with <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processors</b> (see below),
+ threads may be searched for indirectly by providing an arbitrary
+ notmuch query in <b>{}</b>. For example, the following returns threads
+ containing a message from mallory and one (not necessarily the
+ same message) with Subject containing the word "crypto".
+
+ % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory}" and thread:"{subject:crypto}"'
+
+ The performance of such queries can vary wildly. To understand
+ this, the user should think of the query <b>thread:{<something>}</b> as
+ expanding to all of the thread IDs which match <b><something></b>; not‐
+ much then performs a second search using the expanded query.
+
+ <b>path:<directory-path></b> <b>or</b> <b>path:<directory-path>/**</b> <b>or</b> <b>path:/<regex>/</b>
+ The <b>path:</b> prefix searches for email messages that are in partic‐
+ ular directories within the mail store. The directory must be
+ specified relative to the top-level maildir (and without the
+ leading slash). By default, <b>path:</b> matches messages in the speci‐
+ fied directory only. The "/**" suffix can be used to match mes‐
+ sages in the specified directory and all its subdirectories
+ recursively. <b>path:""</b> matches messages in the root of the mail
+ store and, likewise, <b>path:**</b> matches all messages.
+
+ <b>path:</b> will find a message if <u>any</u> copy of that message is in the
+ specific directory.
+
+ <b>folder:<maildir-folder></b> <b>or</b> <b>folder:/<regex>/</b>
+ 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 "new" and "cur" subdirec‐
+ tories. The exact syntax for maildir folders depends on your
+ mail configuration. For maildir++, <b>folder:""</b> matches the inbox
+ folder (which is the root in maildir++), other folder names
+ always start with ".", and nested folders are separated by "."s,
+ such as <b>folder:.classes.topology</b>. For "file system" maildir, the
+ inbox is typically <b>folder:INBOX</b> and nested folders are separated
+ by slashes, such as <b>folder:classes/topology</b>.
+
+ <b>folder:</b> will find a message if <u>any</u> copy of that message is in
+ the specific folder.
+
+ <b>date:<since>..<until></b> <b>or</b> <b>date:<date></b>
+ 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).
+
+ See <b>DATE</b> <b>AND</b> <b>TIME</b> <b>SEARCH</b> below for details on the range expres‐
+ sion, and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time
+ expressions.
+
+ The time range can also be specified using timestamps without
+ including the date prefix using 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. Specifying a time range this way
+ is considered legacy and predates the date prefix.
+
+ <b>lastmod:<initial-revision>..<final-revision></b>
+ The <b>lastmod:</b> prefix can be used to restrict the result by the
+ database revision number of when messages were last modified
+ (tags were added/removed or filenames changed). This is usually
+ used in conjunction with the <b>--uuid</b> argument to <b>notmuch</b> <b>search</b>
+ to find messages that have changed since an earlier query.
+
+ <b>query:<name></b>
+ The <b>query:</b> prefix allows queries to refer to previously saved
+ queries added with <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1). Named queries are only
+ available if notmuch is built with <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processors</b> (see
+ below).
+
+ <b>property:<key>=<value></b>
+ The <b>property:</b> prefix searches for messages with a particular
+ <key>=<value> property pair. Properties are used internally by
+ notmuch (and extensions) to add metadata to messages. A given
+ key can be present on a given message with several different
+ values. See <a href='../notmuch-properties-7/'>notmuch-properties</a>(7) for more details.
+
+ User defined prefixes are also supported, see <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1) for
+ details.
+</pre>
- · from:<name-or-address>
+<h3> Operators</h3>
+<pre>
+ In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
+ Boolean operators (<b>and</b>, <b>or</b>, <b>not</b>, and <b>xor</b>). 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). The shorthand '-<term>' can be used for 'not
+ <term>' but unfortunately this does not work at the start of an expres‐
+ sion. 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).
- · to:<name-or-address>
+ In addition to the standard boolean operators, Xapian provides several
+ operators specific to text searching.
- · subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
+ notmuch search term1 NEAR term2
- · attachment:<word>
+ will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2. The
+ threshold can be set like this:
- · tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)
+ notmuch search term1 NEAR/2 term2
- · id:<message-id>
+ The search
- · thread:<thread-id>
+ notmuch search term1 ADJ term2
- · folder:<maildir-folder>
+ will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2, but in the
+ same order as in the query. The threshold can be set the same as with
+ NEAR:
- · path:<directory-path> or path:<directory-path>/**
+ notmuch search term1 ADJ/7 term2
+</pre>
- · date:<since>..<until>
+<h3> Stemming</h3>
+<pre>
+ <b>Stemming</b> in notmuch means that these searches
- The <b>from:</b> prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of
- an email message.
+ notmuch search detailed
+ notmuch search details
+ notmuch search detail
- 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).
+ will all return identical results, because Xapian first "reduces" the
+ term to the common stem (here 'detail') and then performs the search.
- 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>.
+ There are two ways to turn this off: a search for a capitalized word
+ will be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for "John" and not
+ get results for "Johnson"; phrase searches are also unstemmed (see
+ below for details). Stemming is currently only supported for English.
+ Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
+</pre>
- The <b>attachment:</b> prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or
- extensions) of attachments to email messages.
+<h3> Wildcards</h3>
+<pre>
+ It is possible to use a trailing '*' as a wildcard. A search for
+ 'wildc*' will match 'wildcard', 'wildcat', etc.
+</pre>
- 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>.
+<h3> Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes</h3>
+<pre>
+ Xapian (and hence notmuch) prefixes are either <b>boolean</b>, supporting
+ exact matches like "<u>tag:inbox</u>" or <b>probabilistic</b>, supporting a more
+ flexible <b>term</b> based searching. Certain <b>special</b> prefixes are processed
+ by notmuch in a way not strictly fitting either of Xapian's built in
+ styles. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as follows.
- For <b>id:</b>, message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID:
- header of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters.
+ <b>Boolean</b>
+ <b>tag:</b>, <b>id:</b>, <b>thread:</b>, <b>folder:</b>, <b>path:</b>, <b>property:</b>
- 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>
+ <b>Probabilistic</b>
+ <b>body:</b>, <b>to:</b>, <b>attachment:</b>, <b>mimetype:</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
- "/**" suffix can be used to match messages in the specified directory
- and all its subdirectories recursively. <b>path:</b>"<b>&</b>quot;"<b>&</b>quot; matches messages in
- the root of the mail store and, likewise, <b>path:**</b> matches all messages.
+ <b>Special</b>
+ <b>from:</b>, <b>query:</b>, <b>subject:</b>
+</pre>
- 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 "new" and "cur" subdirectories. The exact syn-
- tax for maildir folders depends on your mail configuration. For
- maildir++, <b>folder:</b>"<b>&</b>quot;"<b>&</b>quot; matches the inbox folder (which is the root in
- maildir++), other folder names always start with ".", and nested fold-
- ers are separated by "."s, such as <b>folder:.classes.topology</b>. For "file
- system" maildir, the inbox is typically <b>folder:INBOX</b> and nested folders
- are separated by slashes, such as <b>folder:classes/topology</b>.
+<h3> Terms and phrases</h3>
+<pre>
+ In general Xapian distinguishes between lists of terms and <b>phrases</b>.
+ Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you probably need to
+ protect those from your shell) and insist that those unstemmed words
+ occur in that order. One useful, but initially surprising feature is
+ that the following are equivalent ways to write the same phrase.
- 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.
+ · "a list of words"
- 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:
+ · a-list-of-words
- date:<since>..<until>
+ · a/list/of/words
- See <b>DATE</b> <b>AND</b> <b>TIME</b> <b>SEARCH</b> below for details on the range expression, and
- supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time expressions.
+ · a.list.of.words
- The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax of:
+ Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with proba‐
+ bilistic prefixes such as <b>to:</b>, <b>from:</b>, and <b>subject:</b>. In particular
- <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
+ subject:(pizza free)
- Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds since
- 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
+ is equivalent to
- 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).
+ subject:pizza and subject:free
- 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).
+ Both of these will match a subject "Free Delicious Pizza" while
+
+ subject:"pizza free"
+
+ will not.
+</pre>
+
+<h3> Quoting</h3>
+<pre>
+ Double quotes are also used by the notmuch query parser to protect
+ boolean terms, regular expressions, or subqueries containing spaces or
+ other special characters, e.g.
+
+ tag:"a tag"
+
+ folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"
+
+ thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}"
+
+ As with phrases, you need to protect the double quotes from the shell
+ e.g.
+
+ % notmuch search 'folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"'
+ % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}" and thread:{to:mallory}'
</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 ("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
+ 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.
</pre>
<pre>
date:<since>..<until>
- The above expression restricts the results to only messages from
+ 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 "yesterday".
- In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it could describe
+ <since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
+ 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 yesterday). Similarly, date:january..febru-
+ 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
+ If specifying a time range using timestamps in conjunction with the
+ date prefix, each timestamp must be preceded by @ (ASCII hex 40). As
+ above, each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds
+ since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. For example:
+ date:@<initial-timestamp>..@<final-timestamp>
+
+ date:<expr>..! can be used as a shorthand for date:<expr>..<expr>. The
+ expansion takes place before interpretation, and thus, for example,
+ date:monday..! matches from the beginning of Monday until the end of
+ Monday. With <b>Xapian</b> <b>Field</b> <b>Processor</b> support (see below), non-range
+ date queries such as date:yesterday will work, but otherwise will give
+ unexpected results; if in doubt use date:yesterday..!
+
+ 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
+ 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 possi-
- ble to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start
+ Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's possi‐
+ ble 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..yesterday).
</pre>
<h3> Relative date and time</h3>
<pre>
- [N|number]
+ [N|number] (years|months|weeks|days|hours|hrs|minutes|mins|sec‐
onds|secs) [...]
All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
</pre>
+<h2>XAPIAN FIELD PROCESSORS</h2>
+<pre>
+ Certain optional features of the notmuch query processor rely on the
+ presence of the Xapian field processor API. You can determine if your
+ notmuch was built against a sufficiently recent version of Xapian by
+ running
+
+ % notmuch config get built_with.field_processor
+
+ Currently the following features require field processor support:
+
+ · non-range date queries, e.g. "date:today"
+
+ · named queries e.g. "query:my_special_query"
+
+ · regular expression searches, e.g. "subject:/^\[SPAM\]/"
+
+ · thread subqueries, e.g. "thread:{from:bob}"
+</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)
+ <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-reindex-1/'>notmuch-reindex</a>(1),
+ <b>notmuch-properties</b>(1), <b>*notmuch-reply</b>(1), <a href='../notmuch-restore-1/'>notmuch-restore</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>not‐</a>
+ <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>much-search</a>(1), <b>*notmuch-show</b>(1), <a href='../notmuch-tag-1/'>notmuch-tag</a>(1)
</pre>
<h2>AUTHOR</h2>
<h2>COPYRIGHT</h2>
<pre>
- 2014, Carl Worth and many others
+ 2009-2019, Carl Worth and many others
</pre>
-<h2>0.18</h2>
+<h2>0.29</h2>
projects / notmuch-wiki / blobdiff