<h1>NOTMUCH(1)</h1>
<h2>NAME</h2>
<pre>
notmuch - thread-based email index, search, and tagging
</pre>
<h2>SYNOPSIS</h2>
<pre>
<b>notmuch</b> [option ...] <b>command</b> [arg ...]
</pre>
<h2>DESCRIPTION</h2>
<pre>
Notmuch is a command-line based program for indexing, searching, read‐
ing, and tagging large collections of email messages.
This page describes how to get started using notmuch from the command
line, and gives a brief overview of the commands available. For more
information on e.g. <b>notmuch</b> <b>show</b> consult the <a href='../notmuch-show-1/'>notmuch-show</a>(1) man page,
also accessible via <b>notmuch</b> <b>help</b> <b>show</b>
The quickest way to get started with Notmuch is to simply invoke the
<b>notmuch</b> command with no arguments, which will interactively guide you
through the process of indexing your mail.
</pre>
<h2>NOTE</h2>
<pre>
While the command-line program <b>notmuch</b> provides powerful functionality,
it does not provide the most convenient interface for that functional‐
ity. More sophisticated interfaces are expected to be built on top of
either the command-line interface, or more likely, on top of the not‐
much library interface. See <u>https://notmuchmail.org</u> for more about al‐
ternate interfaces to notmuch. The emacs-based interface to notmuch
(available under <b>emacs/</b> in the Notmuch source distribution) is probably
the most widely used at this time.
</pre>
<h2>OPTIONS</h2>
<pre>
Supported global options for <b>notmuch</b> include
<b>--help</b> <b>[command-name]</b>
Print a synopsis of available commands and exit. With an op‐
tional command name, show the man page for that subcommand.
<b>--version</b>
Print the installed version of notmuch, and exit.
<b>--config=FILE</b>
Specify the configuration file to use. This overrides any con‐
figuration file specified by <u>NOTMUCH</u>_<u>CONFIG</u>. The empty string is
a permitted and sometimes useful value of <u>FILE</u>, which tells <b>not-</b>
<b>much</b> to use only configuration metadata from the database.
<b>--uuid=HEX</b>
Enforce that the database UUID (a unique identifier which per‐
sists until e.g. the database is compacted) is HEX; exit with an
error if it is not. This is useful to detect rollover in modifi‐
cation counts on messages. You can find this UUID using e.g.
<b>notmuch</b> <b>count</b> <b>--lastmod</b>
All global options except <b>--config</b> can also be specified after the com‐
mand. For example, <b>notmuch</b> <b>subcommand</b> <b>--uuid=HEX</b> is equivalent to <b>not-</b>
<b>much</b> <b>--uuid=HEX</b> <b>subcommand</b>.
</pre>
<h2>COMMANDS</h2>
<h3> SETUP</h3>
<pre>
The <b>notmuch</b> <b>setup</b> command is used to configure Notmuch for first use,
(or to reconfigure it later).
The setup command will prompt for your full name, your primary email
address, any alternate email addresses you use, and the directory con‐
taining your email archives. Your answers will be written to a configu‐
ration file in <u>NOTMUCH</u>_<u>CONFIG</u> (if set) or ${HOME}/.notmuch-config .
This configuration file will be created with descriptive comments, mak‐
ing it easy to edit by hand later to change the configuration. Or you
can run <b>notmuch</b> <b>setup</b> again to change the configuration.
The mail directory you specify can contain any number of sub-directo‐
ries and should primarily contain only files with individual email mes‐
sages (eg. maildir or mh archives are perfect). If there are other,
non-email files (such as indexes maintained by other email programs)
then notmuch will do its best to detect those and ignore them.
Mail storage that uses mbox format, (where one mbox file contains many
messages), will not work with notmuch. If that's how your mail is cur‐
rently stored, it is recommended you first convert it to maildir format
with a utility such as <b>mb2md</b>(1) before running <b>notmuch</b> <b>setup</b>.
Invoking <b>notmuch</b> with no command argument will run <b>setup</b> if the setup
command has not previously been completed.
</pre>
<h3> OTHER COMMANDS</h3>
<pre>
Several of the notmuch commands accept search terms with a common syn‐
tax. See <a href='../notmuch-search-terms-7/'>notmuch-search-terms</a>(7) for more details on the supported syn‐
tax.
The <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>notmuch-search</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-show-1/'>notmuch-show</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-address-1/'>notmuch-address</a>(1) and <a href='../notmuch-count-1/'>not‐</a>
<a href='../notmuch-count-1/'>much-count</a>(1) commands are used to query the email database.
The <a href='../notmuch-reply-1/'>notmuch-reply</a>(1) command is useful for preparing a template for an
email reply.
The <a href='../notmuch-tag-1/'>notmuch-tag</a>(1) command is the only command available for manipulat‐
ing database contents.
The <a href='../notmuch-dump-1/'>notmuch-dump</a>(1) and <a href='../notmuch-restore-1/'>notmuch-restore</a>(1) commands can be used to cre‐
ate a textual dump of email tags for backup purposes, and to restore
from that dump.
The <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1) command can be used to get or set settings in the
notmuch configuration file.
</pre>
<h3> CUSTOM COMMANDS</h3>
<pre>
If the given command is not known to notmuch, notmuch tries to execute
the external <b>notmuch-<subcommand></b> in <b>PATH</b> instead. This allows users to
have their own notmuch related tools to be run via the notmuch command.
By design, this does not allow notmuch's own commands to be overridden
using external commands.
</pre>
<h3> OPTION SYNTAX</h3>
<pre>
All options accepting an argument can be used with '=' or ':' as a sep‐
arator. Except for boolean options (which would be ambiguous), a space
can also be used as a separator. The following are all equivalent:
notmuch --config=alt-config config get user.name
notmuch --config:alt-config config get user.name
notmuch --config alt-config config get user.name
</pre>
<h2>ENVIRONMENT</h2>
<pre>
The following environment variables can be used to control the behavior
of notmuch.
<b>NOTMUCH</b>_<b>CONFIG</b>
Specifies the location of the notmuch configuration file. See
<a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1) for details.
<b>NOTMUCH</b>_<b>DATABASE</b>
Specifies the location of the notmuch database. See <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-con‐</a>
<a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>fig</a>(1) for details.
<b>NOTMUCH</b>_<b>PROFILE</b>
Selects among notmuch configurations. See <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1) for
details.
<b>NOTMUCH</b>_<b>TALLOC</b>_<b>REPORT</b>
Location to write a talloc memory usage report. See <b>talloc</b>_<b>en-</b>
<b>able</b>_<b>leak</b>_<b>report</b>_<b>full</b> in <b>talloc</b>(3) for more information.
<b>NOTMUCH</b>_<b>DEBUG</b>_<b>QUERY</b>
If set to a non-empty value, the notmuch library will print (to
stderr) Xapian queries it constructs.
</pre>
<h2>SEE ALSO</h2>
<pre>
<a href='../notmuch-address-1/'>notmuch-address</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-compact-1/'>notmuch-compact</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-config-1/'>notmuch-config</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-count-1/'>not‐</a>
<a href='../notmuch-count-1/'>much-count</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-dump-1/'>notmuch-dump</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-hooks-5/'>notmuch-hooks</a>(5), <a href='../notmuch-insert-1/'>notmuch-insert</a>(1),
<a href='../notmuch-new-1/'>notmuch-new</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-properties-7/'>notmuch-properties</a>(7), <a href='../notmuch-reindex-1/'>notmuch-reindex</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-reply-1/'>notmuch-re‐</a>
<a href='../notmuch-reply-1/'>ply</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-restore-1/'>notmuch-restore</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-search-1/'>notmuch-search</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-search-terms-7/'>notmuch-search-terms</a>(7),
<a href='../notmuch-show-1/'>notmuch-show</a>(1), <a href='../notmuch-tag-1/'>notmuch-tag</a>(1)
The notmuch website: <b>https://notmuchmail.org</b>
</pre>
<h2>CONTACT</h2>
<pre>
Feel free to send questions, comments, or kudos to the notmuch mailing
list <<u>notmuch@notmuchmail.org</u>> . Subscription is not required before
posting, but is available from the notmuchmail.org website.
Real-time interaction with the Notmuch community is available via IRC
(server: irc.libera.chat, channel: #notmuch).
</pre>
<h2>AUTHOR</h2>
<pre>
Carl Worth and many others
</pre>
<h2>COPYRIGHT</h2>
<pre>
2009-2022, Carl Worth and many others
</pre>
<h2>0.35</h2>
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