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+[[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
+# 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 not seamless, but fairly straightforward. There are two
+principal possibilities, each with its own ups and downs:
+
+* Using
+  [notmuch-mutt](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/tree/HEAD:/contrib/notmuch-mutt),
+  which will create a "virtual" maildir folder with search results whenever a
+  search is made. The upside is that you can search all your folders
+  simultanously; the downside is that your modifications in the results listing
+  do not carry over, also having to switch folders comes with some more
+  annoyances.
+
+  A
+  [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.
+
+  <small>(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.)</small>
+
+* Using a simple macro that will emulate the "limit" mutt functionality
+  using notmuch.
+
+  See the [alternative notmuch integration](http://log.or.cz/?p=228)
+  blog post for instructions and details,
+  or simply put these two macros to your muttrc:
+
+        # 'L' performs a notmuch query, showing only the results
+        macro index L "<enter-command>unset wait_key<enter><shell-escape>read -p 'notmuch query: ' x; echo \$x >~/.cache/mutt_terms<enter><limit>~i \"\`notmuch search --output=messages \$(cat ~/.cache/mutt_terms) | head -n 600 | perl -le '@a=<>;chomp@a;s/\^id:// for@a;$,=\"|\";print@a'\`\"<enter>" "show only messages matching a notmuch pattern"
+        # 'a' shows all messages again (supersedes default <alias> binding)
+        macro index a "<limit>all\n" "show all messages (undo limit)"
+
+  The upside (if you are used to working in the context of a single folder) is
+  that this really does use the limit functionality of mutt and you are still in
+  your original folder.  The downside is that this approach has scaling problems
+  and works well only for reasonably specific queries.
+