1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 #Tips and Tricks for using notmuch with Emacs
4 The main Notmuch message reading client is **notmuch.el**, which is an
5 [emacs](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) major mode, and is
6 included in the notmuch package.
10 To use the Notmuch emacs mode, first add the following line to your
15 Then, either run "emacs -f notmuch", or execute the command "M-x
16 notmuch" from within a running emacs.
18 ## Navigating & reading mails
20 When first starting notmuch in emacs, you will be presented with the
21 notmuch "hello" page. From here you can do searches, see lists of
22 recent searches, saved searches, message tags, help information, etc.
24 Executing a search will open a new buffer in notmuch-search-mode
25 displaying the search results. Each line in the search results
26 represents a message thread. Hitting the '?' key will show help for
29 In general, the 'q' will kill the current notmuch buffer and return
30 you to the previous buffer (sort of like a 'pop').
32 In search mode, navigating to a thread and hitting return will then
33 open a new buffer in notmuch-show-mode, which will show the actual
34 message contents of the thread.
38 In any notmuch mode, you can start a new message by hitting the 'm'
39 key. To reply to a message or thread, just hit the 'r' key.
41 When composing new messages, you will be entered in emacs's
42 "message-mode", which is a powerful mode for composing and sending
43 messages. When in message move, you can type "C-c ?" for help.
45 If you would like to use address autocompletion, see the [address
46 completion howto](#address_completion)" below.
48 When you are ready to send a message, type "C-c C-c". By default
49 message mode will use your sendmail command to send mail, so make sure
50 that works. One annoying standard configuration of message mode is
51 that it will hide the sent mail in your emacs frame stack, but it will
52 not close it. If you type several mails in an emacs session they will
53 accumulate and make switching between buffers more annoying. You can
54 avoid that behavior by adding `(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)`
55 in your .emacs file which will really close the mail window after
60 Using the `M-x mml-attach-file` command, you can attach any file to be
61 send with your mail. By default this command is bound to the menu item
62 `Attachments--Attach File` with the key binding `C-c C-a`. The
63 variable `mml-dnd-attach-options` (M-x
64 customize-variable<RET>`mml-dnd-attach-options`) can be set to allow
65 the prompting for various attachment options (such as
66 inline/attachement) if you want to do that.
68 For those who prefer graphics, you can also simply drag and drop files
69 from a file manager into a mail composition window to have it attached
70 (assuming you are using emacs with X support). At least in Ubuntu it
71 works by dragging from the file manager without any modifications.
73 And for those who prefer working from command line, the following
74 script opens new emacs window with empty message and attaches files
75 mentioned as script arguments. (Note: The script expects that you have
76 `(server-start)` in your .emacs)
81 attach_cmds="$attach_cmds (mml-attach-file \"$1\")"
84 emacsclient -a '' -c -e "(progn (compose-mail) $attach_cmds)"
89 <h2 id="advanced_tips">Advanced tips and tweaks</h2>
91 * <span id="custom_keybinding">**Add a key binding to add/remove/toggle a tag.**</span>
93 The notmuch-{search,show}-{add,remove}-tag functions are very useful
94 for making quick tag key bindings. For instance, here's an example
95 of how to make a key binding to add the "spam" tag and remove the
96 "inbox" tag in notmuch-show-mode:
98 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S"
100 "mark message as spam"
102 (notmuch-show-add-tag "spam")
103 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "inbox")))
105 You can do the same for threads in notmuch-search-mode by just
106 replacing "show" with "search" in the called functions.
108 The definition above makes use of a lambda function, but you could
109 also define a separate function first:
111 (defun notmuch-show-tag-spam()
112 "mark message as spam"
114 (notmuch-show-add-tag "spam")
115 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "inbox")))
116 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "S" 'notmuch-show-tag-spam)
118 Here's a more complicated example of how to add a toggle "deleted"
121 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "d"
123 "toggle deleted tag for message"
125 (if (member "deleted" (notmuch-show-get-tags))
126 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "deleted")
127 (notmuch-show-add-tag "deleted"))))
129 * <span id="fcc">**How to do FCC/BCC...**</span>
131 Any notmuch reply will automatically include your primary email
132 address in a BCC so that any messages you send will (eventually) end
133 up in your mail store as well. But this doesn't do anything for
134 messages that you compose that are not replies.
136 Another method is to save the file in a folder of your local
137 Maildir, usually called FCC (file carbon copy). You can achieve this
138 by setting the variables `message-directory` (which defines a base
139 directory) and `notmuch-fcc-dirs` which defines the subdirectory
140 relative to message-directory in which to save the mail. Enter a
141 directory (without the maildir /cur ending which will be appended
142 automatically). To customize both variables at the same time, use
145 M-x customize-apropos<RET>\(notmuch-fcc-dirs\)\|\(message-directory\)
147 This method will even allow you to select different outboxes
148 depending on your selected from address, if you need that
149 functionality. Please see the documentation on the variable in the
150 customization window for how to do so.
152 * <span id="customize_notmuch_folder">**How to customize notmuch-folders**</span>
154 There's a "notmuch-folder" command available in the emacs client
155 that displays a list of "folders" and the number of messages in
156 each. Each folder is simply a named search specification. To
157 configure this mode, edit your ${HOME}/.emacs file and include text
158 something like the following:
160 (setq notmuch-folders '(("inbox" . "tag:inbox")
161 ("unread" . "tag:inbox AND tag:unread")
162 ("notmuch" . "tag:inbox AND to:notmuchmail.org")))
164 Of course, you can have any number of folders, each configured
165 with any supported search terms (see "notmuch help search-terms").
167 Personally, I find it fairly useful to add "not tag:delete" to those
168 views as I use that tag to mark messages as deleted and it
169 automatically removes them from my standard views. Use whatever
170 seems most useful to you.
172 * **Viewing HTML messages with an external viewer**
174 The emacs client can often display an HTML message inline, but it
175 sometimes fails for one reason or another, (or is perhaps inadequate
176 if you really need to see the graphical presentation of the HTML
179 In this case, it can be useful to display the message in an external
180 viewer, such as a web browser. Here's a little script that Keith
181 Packard wrote, which he calls view-html:
186 cat "$@" > "$dir"/msg
187 if munpack -C "$dir" -t < "$dir"/msg 2>&1 | grep 'Did not find'; then
188 sed -n '/[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]/,$p' "$dir"/msg > $dir/part1.html
191 for i in "$dir"/part*; do
192 if grep -q -i -e '<html>' -e 'text/html' "$i"; then
199 Save that script somewhere in your ${PATH}, make it executable, and
200 change the invocation of iceweasel to any other HTML viewer if
201 necessary. Then within the emacs client, press "|" to pipe the
202 current message, then type "view-html".
204 Keith mentions the following caveat, "Note that if iceweasel isn't
205 already running, it seems to shut down when the script exits. I
208 * **msmtp, message mode and multiple accounts**
210 As an alternative to running a mail server such as sendmail or
211 postfix just to send email, it is possible to use
212 [msmtp](http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/). This small application will
213 look like /usr/bin/sendmail to a MUA such as emacs message mode, but
214 will just forward the email to an external SMTP server. It's fairly
215 easy to set up and it support several account for using different
216 SMTP servers. The msmtp pages have several examples.
218 A typical scenario is that you want to use the company SMTP server
219 for email coming from your company email address, and your personal
220 server for personal email. If msmtp is passed the envelope address
221 on the command line (the -f/--from option) it will automatically
222 pick the matching account. The only trick here seems to be getting
223 emacs to actually pass the envelope from. There are a number of
224 overlapping configuration variables that control this, and it's a
225 little confusion, but setting these three works for me:
227 - mail-specify-envelope-from: t
229 - message-sendmail-envelope-from: header
231 - mail-envelope-from: header
233 With that in place, you need a .msmtprc with the accounts configured
234 for the domains you want to send out using specific SMTP servers and
235 the rest will go to the default account.
237 * <span id="address_completion">**how to get email address completion**</span>
239 There are currently two solutions to this:
241 [bbdb](http://bbdb.sourceforge.net) is a contact database for emacs
242 that works quite nicely together with message mode, including
243 address autocompletion.
245 You can also use the notmuch database as a mail address book itself.
246 To do this you need a command line tool that outputs likely address
247 candidates based on a search string. There are currently two
250 * The python tool notmuch\_address.py ('git clone
251 http://jkr.acm.jhu.edu/git/notmuch_addresses.git`) (slower, but
252 no compilation required so good for testing the setup)
255 [addrlookup](http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch) (faster, but
256 needs compiling). The addrlookup binary needs to be compiled.
258 http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch/raw/static-sources/src/addrlookup.c
261 cc -o addrlookup addrlookup.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gobject-2.0` -lnotmuch
263 EUDC is integrated into emacs and is needed for tab completion of
264 email addresses. See [this
265 mail](http://mid.gmane.org/87fx3uflkx.fsf@jhu.edu)
266 (id:87fx3uflkx.fsf@jhu.edu) for more information.
268 * <span id="sign_messages_gpg">**how to sign/encrypt my messages with
271 You can manually sign your messages with gpg by invoking `M-x
272 mml-secure-sign-pgpmime` (or `M-x
273 mml-secure-encrypt-pgpmime`). These functions are available via the
274 convenient (*cough cough*) keybindings `C-c C-m s p` and `C-c C-m c
275 p` by default. To sign my outgoing mail by default, I use this hook
278 ;;sign messages by default
279 (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'mml-secure-sign-pgpmime)
281 This inserts the blurb `<#part sign=pgpmime>` into the beginning of
282 my mail text body and will be converted into a pgp signature when
283 sending (so I can just manually delete that line if I do not want a