X-Git-Url: https://git.cworth.org/git?p=obsolete%2Fnotmuch-wiki;a=blobdiff_plain;f=howto.mdwn;h=f4ef721a00f5016809b555014a300dcf65feb8eb;hp=1f6c51e32264078593b956491aa977d0ef9cc3b9;hb=HEAD;hpb=3211f72a4906bf3cab086988d991fd37e9eba40b diff --git a/howto.mdwn b/howto.mdwn index 1f6c51e..f4ef721 100644 --- a/howto.mdwn +++ b/howto.mdwn @@ -1,141 +1,130 @@ -[[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]] -#How to... +# How to... Some tips about how to do some useful things with notmuch, and the various "third party" notmuch utilities. -* **Receive mail** - - Notmuch requires either [maildir - flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) or a "mh"-style - maildirectory to operate on. Basically any setup in which each mail - is in a file of its own will work. Here are some generally - well-regarded mail retrieval tools: - - * [offlineimap](https://github.com/nicolas33/offlineimap/) - - quite useful and widely tested, it also offers a handy hook that - will come in useful a bit later in our setup. Also supports - "presynchook" and "postsynchook" command that will get run - whenever you sync. Point _postsynchook_ to a script that gets run - on every sync and that will do the automatic updating and tagging - of your notmuch database. - - * [mbsync](http://isync.sourceforge.net/) - - * [getmail](http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/) - - * [fetchmail](http://fetchmail.berlios.de/) - - See the [[initial_tagging]] page for more info on intial tagging of messages. - -* **Print only filenames of a search (python bindings)** - - Notmuch includes [python bindings](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/notmuch) - to the notmuch shared library. Extensive API documentation - [is available](http://notmuchmail.readthedocs.org/). - - The bindings are very simple to use. As an example, given you have - the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH - environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory), - this script will print the filenames of a matching search: - - #!/usr/bin/env python - import sys - import notmuch - search = " ".join(sys.argv[1:]) - q = notmuch.Database().create_query(search) - for m in q.search_messages(): - print m.get_filename() - -* **Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags** - - notmuch **since version 0.5** syncs maildir flags and respective - tags in both directions. This part applies only to notmuch prior to - version 0.5: - - Some IMAP users rely on maildir flags that convey the status "seen", - "replied", "trashed", in order to synchronize the status of their - mail across mail clients (a [maildir - flag](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) is simply a defined part - of their filename). Notmuch will by default happily ignore those - flags and will never modify them either, as there is no built-in - support for synchronizing your notmuch tags with your imap maildir - flags (seen, replied, trashed, etc). However there are currently 2 - ways in which you can achieve synchronization. - - [notmuchsync](http://spaetz.github.com/notmuchsync/) is a utility - (based on the cnotmuch python bindings) that allows synchronization - in either direction, as well as pruning of deleted files. - - The second solution allows for fast maildir flag to notmuch tag - synchronization (and only in that direction) requires patching the - notmuch source code. The patch has been posted in this mail - *id:1267450136-31749-1-git-send-email-Sebastian@SSpaeth.de* and can - be viewed as a [source diff in this git - repository](http://github.com/spaetz/notmuch-all-feature/commit/df3b087cefb85e9d16fd17540e348bcb854dd7ee). - -* **Using notmuch with Mutt** - - Notmuch is a great mail indexing tool that can also be used *in conjunction* - with existing Mail User Agents (MUA) instead of replacing them. The advantage - of such mixed solutions is that users can benefit from notmuch features (such - as full-text search and thread reconstruction) without *having to* change - MUA. - - A popular geek MUA is [the Mutt e-mail client](http://www.mutt.org); - integrating notmuch with Mutt is fairly straightforward. An - [**how to use Notmuch with Mutt**](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/) - has been written by Stefano Zacchiroli, together with some glue code. Check - out the - [howto](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/) - for more information. - - (Note by the howto author: I've linked the howto from this wiki rather - than splicing it in, in order to avoid duplication of information. If you - think it would be better to have it here, feel free to copy the text - here. The howto is - [available](http://git.upsilon.cc/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=zack-homepage.git;a=history;f=blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt.mdwn) - in markdown syntax from the Git repository of my homepage.) - -* **Automatically retagging the database (e.g., when upgrading versions)** - - Certain versions of notmuch include new automatic tags (for example, between - 0.3 and 0.10, automatic tagging of signed and encrypted messages was added). - However, for users running with databases created in older versions of - notmuch, these tags are missing in pre-existing messages and need to be - added. One way to do this is as follows: - - $ notmuch dump ~/out.nm - $ mv ~/Mail/.notmuch ~/.notmuch.bak - $ notmuch new - $ notmuch tag -inbox -unread '*' - $ notmuch restore --accumulate ~/out.nm - - At this point, one should run a sanity check on the tags, and if everything - has merged correctly, the ~/.notmuch.bak directory is expendable, as is - ~/out.nm. - -* **Dealing with mbox and other formats** - - notmuch by itself is unable to handle non-maildir mail archives. One tool - to solve this is called mb2md. Assuming an mbox in ~/test.mbox and ones - mail archives to be in ~/Mail, an invocation would look like - - $ mb2md -s ~/test.mbox -d ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname - - Note that specifying the paths for -s and -d is necessary. This will create - a new maildir in ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname from the mbox at ~/test.mbox. - - Often the formats are more convoluted, however. Many lists provide an - almost-but-not-quite-mbox format that mailman produces, as can be seen, for - example, [here](http://lists.xapian.org/pipermail/xapian-devel/). These - files can be converted with some degree of success to mbox using the script - found - [here](http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/converting-mailman-gzipd-text-archive-files-to-proper-mbox-files), - and from mbox to maildir as above. - - However, many of these lists also have a gmane version, which, where it - exists, achieves far better results than dealing with the messy mailman - output. Using the instructions from [Gmane's - site](http://gmane.org/export.php), we can download an mbox file, which we - can then convert to maildir using mb2md or other utility. +[[!toc levels=2]] + +## **Debian squeeze packages outdated** + +The notmuch package(s) in Debian squeeze are very old (version 0.3). +It's better to start off with an up to date version from +[backports](http://backports-master.debian.org/). + +## **Receive mail** + +Notmuch does not fetch mail for you. For that, you need to use an +external mail syncing utility. Some recommended utilities are listed +below. + +Notmuch requires that every individual message be in it's own file. +The well-supported [maildir](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html) or +"mh"-style storage formats are compatible with notmuch. Basically any +setup in which each mail is in a file of its own will work. The older +mbox mail store formats is not supported, but fortunately it is very +easy to [[convert mbox to maildir|howto/#mbox]] . The following +utilities support these formats: + +* [offlineimap](http://offlineimap.org/) - + quite useful and widely tested, it also offers a handy hook that + will come in useful a bit later in our setup. Also supports + "presynchook" and "postsynchook" command that will get run + whenever you sync. Point _postsynchook_ to a script that gets run + on every sync and that will do the automatic updating and tagging + of your notmuch database. + +* [mbsync](http://isync.sourceforge.net/) + +* [getmail](http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/) + +* [fetchmail](http://fetchmail.berlios.de/) + +See the [[initial_tagging]] page for more info on initial tagging of +messages. + +## **Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags** + +notmuch has the ability to synchronize maildir flags and respective tags in both +directions. For more information on maildir flags see the [maildir +page](http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html), and for the respective tags see your +notmuch configuration file. This feature is enabled by default, but if you don't +need it, it is simple to disable it with the 'notmuch config' command: + + $ notmuch config set maildir.synchronize_flags false + +The maildir flags may, in turn, be synchronized with IMAP flags by another tool, +such as offlineimap. + +For safety reasons, and because +[[notmuch does not support delete operations|deleting]], notmuch does +not sync the "trashed" flag. For discussion on this topic please +refer to the mailing list. + +## **Use notmuch from python** + +Notmuch includes python bindings to the notmuch shared library. Please +refer to the nice and extensive +[notmuch python API documentation](http://notmuch.readthedocs.org/). + +The bindings are very simple to use. As an example, given you have +the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH +environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory), +this snippet will produce a list of mails matching the given +expression: + + >>> import notmuch + >>> db = notmuch.Database() + >>> query = db.create_query('tag:inbox AND NOT tag:killed') + >>> list(query.search_messages()) # doctest:+ELLIPSIS + [...] + +## **Using notmuch with Mutt** + +See [[notmuch-mutt]]. + +## **Automatically retagging the database (e.g., when upgrading versions)** + +Certain versions of notmuch include new automatic tags (for example, between +0.3 and 0.10, automatic tagging of signed and encrypted messages was added). +However, for users running with databases created in older versions of +notmuch, these tags are missing in pre-existing messages and need to be +added. One way to do this is as follows: + + $ notmuch dump --output=~/out.nm + $ mv ~/Mail/.notmuch ~/.notmuch.bak + $ notmuch new + $ notmuch tag -inbox -unread '*' + $ notmuch restore --accumulate --input=~/out.nm + +At this point, one should run a sanity check on the tags, and if everything +has merged correctly, the ~/.notmuch.bak directory is expendable, as is +~/out.nm. + +## **Dealing with mbox and other formats** + +notmuch by itself is unable to handle non-maildir mail archives. One tool +to solve this is called mb2md. Assuming an mbox in ~/test.mbox and ones +mail archives to be in ~/Mail, an invocation would look like + + $ mb2md -s ~/test.mbox -d ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname + +Note that specifying the paths for -s and -d is necessary. This will create +a new maildir in ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname from the mbox at ~/test.mbox. + +Often the formats are more convoluted, however. Many lists provide an +almost-but-not-quite-mbox format that mailman produces, as can be seen, for +example, [here](http://lists.xapian.org/pipermail/xapian-devel/). These +files can be converted with some degree of success to mbox using the script +found +[here](http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/converting-mailman-gzipd-text-archive-files-to-proper-mbox-files), +and from mbox to maildir as above. + +However, many of these lists also have a gmane version, which, where it +exists, achieves far better results than dealing with the messy mailman +output. Using the instructions from [Gmane's +site](http://gmane.org/export.php), we can download an mbox file, which we +can then convert to maildir using mb2md or other utility. + +## **Take advantage of tags that are special to notmuch** + +See [[tags special to notmuch|special-tags]].