8 **notmuch** **show** [*option* ...] <*search-term*> ...
13 Shows all messages matching the search terms.
15 See **notmuch-search-terms(7)** for details of the supported syntax for
18 The messages will be grouped and sorted based on the threading (all
19 replies to a particular message will appear immediately after that
20 message in date order). The output is not indented by default, but depth
21 tags are printed so that proper indentation can be performed by a
22 post-processor (such as the emacs interface to notmuch).
24 Supported options for **show** include
26 ``--entire-thread=(true|false)``
27 If true, **notmuch show** outputs all messages in the thread of
28 any message matching the search terms; if false, it outputs only
29 the matching messages. For ``--format=json`` and
30 ``--format=sexp`` this defaults to true. For other formats, this
33 ``--format=(text|json|sexp|mbox|raw)``
35 **text** (default for messages)
36 The default plain-text format has all text-content MIME
37 parts decoded. Various components in the output,
38 (**message**, **header**, **body**, **attachment**, and MIME
39 **part**), will be delimited by easily-parsed markers. Each
40 marker consists of a Control-L character (ASCII decimal 12),
41 the name of the marker, and then either an opening or
42 closing brace, ('{' or '}'), to either open or close the
43 component. For a multipart MIME message, these parts will be
47 The output is formatted with Javascript Object Notation
48 (JSON). This format is more robust than the text format for
49 automated processing. The nested structure of multipart MIME
50 messages is reflected in nested JSON output. By default JSON
51 output includes all messages in a matching thread; that is,
53 ``--format=json`` sets ``--entire-thread``. The caller can
54 disable this behaviour by setting ``--entire-thread=false``.
55 The JSON output is always encoded as UTF-8 and any message
56 content included in the output will be charset-converted to
60 The output is formatted as the Lisp s-expression (sexp)
61 equivalent of the JSON format above. Objects are formatted
62 as property lists whose keys are keywords (symbols preceded
63 by a colon). True is formatted as ``t`` and both false and
64 null are formatted as ``nil``. As for JSON, the s-expression
65 output is always encoded as UTF-8.
68 All matching messages are output in the traditional, Unix
69 mbox format with each message being prefixed by a line
70 beginning with "From " and a blank line separating each
71 message. Lines in the message content beginning with "From "
72 (preceded by zero or more '>' characters) have an additional
73 '>' character added. This reversible escaping is termed
74 "mboxrd" format and described in detail here:
76 http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html
78 **raw** (default if --part is given)
79 Write the raw bytes of the given MIME part of a message to
80 standard out. For this format, it is an error to specify a
81 query that matches more than one message.
83 If the specified part is a leaf part, this outputs the
84 body of the part after performing content transfer
85 decoding (but no charset conversion). This is suitable for
86 saving attachments, for example.
88 For a multipart or message part, the output includes the
89 part headers as well as the body (including all child
90 parts). No decoding is performed because multipart and
91 message parts cannot have non-trivial content transfer
92 encoding. Consumers of this may need to implement MIME
93 decoding and similar functions.
95 ``--format-version=N``
96 Use the specified structured output format version. This is
97 intended for programs that invoke **notmuch(1)** internally. If
98 omitted, the latest supported version will be used.
101 Output the single decoded MIME part N of a single message. The
102 search terms must match only a single message. Message parts are
103 numbered in a depth-first walk of the message MIME structure,
104 and are identified in the 'json', 'sexp' or 'text' output
107 Note that even a message with no MIME structure or a single
108 body part still has two MIME parts: part 0 is the whole
109 message (headers and body) and part 1 is just the body.
112 Compute and report the validity of any MIME cryptographic
113 signatures found in the selected content (ie. "multipart/signed"
114 parts). Status of the signature will be reported (currently only
115 supported with --format=json and --format=sexp), and the
116 multipart/signed part will be replaced by the signed data.
119 Decrypt any MIME encrypted parts found in the selected content
120 (ie. "multipart/encrypted" parts). Status of the decryption will
121 be reported (currently only supported with --format=json and
122 --format=sexp) and on successful decryption the
123 multipart/encrypted part will be replaced by the decrypted
126 Decryption expects a functioning **gpg-agent(1)** to provide any
127 needed credentials. Without one, the decryption will fail.
131 ``--exclude=(true|false)``
132 Specify whether to omit threads only matching
133 search.tag\_exclude from the search results (the default) or
134 not. In either case the excluded message will be marked with the
135 exclude flag (except when output=mbox when there is nowhere to
138 If --entire-thread is specified then complete threads are
139 returned regardless (with the excluded flag being set when
140 appropriate) but threads that only match in an excluded message
141 are not returned when ``--exclude=true.``
143 The default is ``--exclude=true.``
145 ``--body=(true|false)``
146 If true (the default) **notmuch show** includes the bodies of
147 the messages in the output; if false, bodies are omitted.
148 ``--body=false`` is only implemented for the json and sexp
149 formats and it is incompatible with ``--part > 0.``
151 This is useful if the caller only needs the headers as body-less
152 output is much faster and substantially smaller.
155 Include "text/html" parts as part of the output (currently only
156 supported with --format=json and --format=sexp). By default,
157 unless ``--part=N`` is used to select a specific part or
158 ``--include-html`` is used to include all "text/html" parts, no
159 part with content type "text/html" is included in the output.
161 A common use of **notmuch show** is to display a single thread of email
162 messages. For this, use a search term of "thread:<thread-id>" as can be
163 seen in the first column of output from the **notmuch search** command.
168 This command supports the following special exit status codes
171 The requested format version is too old.
174 The requested format version is too new.
179 **notmuch(1)**, **notmuch-config(1)**, **notmuch-count(1)**,
180 **notmuch-dump(1)**, **notmuch-hooks(5)**, **notmuch-insert(1)**,
181 **notmuch-new(1)**, **notmuch-reply(1)**, **notmuch-restore(1)**,
182 **notmuch-search(1)**, **notmuch-search-terms(7)**, **notmuch-tag(1)**