8 **notmuch** **count** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
10 **notmuch** **dump** [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--] [--output=<*file*>] [--] [<*search-term*> ...]
12 **notmuch** **search** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
14 **notmuch** **show** [option ...] <*search-term*> ...
16 **notmuch** **tag** +<*tag*> ... -<*tag*> [--] <*search-term*> ...
21 Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.
23 The search terms can consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases)
24 which will match all messages that contain all of the given
25 terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or
28 As a special case, a search string consisting of exactly a single
29 asterisk ("\*") will match all messages.
31 In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force
32 terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where <brackets>
33 indicate user-supplied values):
35 - from:<name-or-address>
37 - to:<name-or-address>
39 - subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
45 - tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)
51 - folder:<maildir-folder>
53 - path:<directory-path> or path:<directory-path>/**
55 - date:<since>..<until>
57 - lastmod:<initial-revision>..<final-revision>
59 The **from:** prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender
62 The **to:** prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any
63 recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
65 Any term prefixed with **subject:** will match only text from the
66 subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is supported
67 by including quotation marks around the phrase, immediately following
70 The **attachment:** prefix can be used to search for specific filenames
71 (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.
73 The **mimetype:** prefix will be used to match text from the
74 content-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified by the
77 For **tag:** and **is:** valid tag values include **inbox** and
78 **unread** by default for new messages added by **notmuch new** as well
79 as any other tag values added manually with **notmuch tag**.
81 For **id:**, message ID values are the literal contents of the
82 Message-ID: header of email messages, but without the '<', '>'
85 The **thread:** prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are
86 generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email messages).
87 These thread ID values can be seen in the first column of output from
90 The **path:** prefix searches for email messages that are in
91 particular directories within the mail store. The directory must be
92 specified relative to the top-level maildir (and without the leading
93 slash). By default, **path:** matches messages in the specified
94 directory only. The "/\*\*" suffix can be used to match messages in
95 the specified directory and all its subdirectories recursively.
96 **path:""** matches messages in the root of the mail store and,
97 likewise, **path:\*\*** matches all messages.
99 The **folder:** prefix searches for email messages by maildir or MH
100 folder. For MH-style folders, this is equivalent to **path:**. For
101 maildir, this includes messages in the "new" and "cur"
102 subdirectories. The exact syntax for maildir folders depends on your
103 mail configuration. For maildir++, **folder:""** matches the inbox
104 folder (which is the root in maildir++), other folder names always
105 start with ".", and nested folders are separated by "."s, such as
106 **folder:.classes.topology**. For "file system" maildir, the inbox is
107 typically **folder:INBOX** and nested folders are separated by
108 slashes, such as **folder:classes/topology**.
110 Both **path:** and **folder:** will find a message if *any* copy of
111 that message is in the specific directory/folder.
113 The **date:** prefix can be used to restrict the results to only
114 messages within a particular time range (based on the Date: header) with
117 date:<since>..<until>
119 See **DATE AND TIME SEARCH** below for details on the range expression,
120 and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time expressions.
122 The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax of:
124 <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
126 Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds since
127 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
129 The **lastmod:** prefix can be used to restrict the result by the
130 database revision number of when messages were last modified (tags
131 were added/removed or filenames changed). This is usually used in
132 conjunction with the **--uuid** argument to **notmuch search**
133 to find messages that have changed since an earlier query.
138 In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
139 Boolean operators (**and**, **or**, **not**, and **xor**). Each term
140 in the query will be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no
141 explicit operator is provided (except that terms with a common prefix
142 will be implicitly combined with OR). The shorthand '-<term>' can be
143 used for 'not <term>' but unfortunately this does not work at the
144 start of an expression. Parentheses can also be used to control the
145 combination of the Boolean operators, but will have to be protected
146 from interpretation by the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks
147 around any parenthesized expression).
149 In addition to the standard boolean operators, Xapian provides several
150 operators specific to text searching.
154 notmuch search term1 NEAR term2
156 will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2. The
157 threshold can be set like this:
161 notmuch search term1 NEAR/2 term2
167 notmuch search term1 ADJ term2
169 will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2, but in the
170 same order as in the query. The threshold can be set the same as with
175 notmuch search term1 ADJ/7 term2
181 **Stemming** in notmuch means that these searches
185 notmuch search detailed
186 notmuch search details
187 notmuch search detail
189 will all return identical results, because Xapian first "reduces" the
190 term to the common stem (here 'detail') and then performs the search.
192 There are two ways to turn this off: a search for a capitalized word
193 will be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for "John" and not
194 get results for "Johnson"; phrase searches are also unstemmed (see
195 below for details). Stemming is currently only supported for
196 English. Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
201 It is possible to use a trailing '\*' as a wildcard. A search for
202 'wildc\*' will match 'wildcard', 'wildcat', etc.
205 Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes
206 ----------------------------------
208 Xapian (and hence notmuch) prefixes are either **boolean**, supporting
209 exact matches like "tag:inbox" or **probabilistic**, supporting a more flexible **term** based searching. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as follows.
211 +------------------+-----------------------+
212 |Boolean |Probabilistic |
213 +------------------+-----------------------+
214 | **tag:** **id:** | **from:** **to:** |
215 |**thread:** |**subject:** |
216 |**folder:** |**attachment:** |
217 |**path:** |**mimetype:** |
219 +------------------+-----------------------+
224 In general Xapian distinguishes between lists of terms and
225 **phrases**. Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you
226 probably need to protect those from your shell) and insist that those
227 unstemmed words occur in that order. One useful, but initially
228 surprising feature is that the following are equivalant ways to write
236 Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with
237 probabilisitic prefixes such as **to:**, **from:**, and **subject:**. In particular
247 subject:pizza and subject:free
249 Both of these will match a subject "Free Delicious Pizza" while
260 notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of expressing
261 dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in relative
262 terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined ("1
263 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can be combined with
264 relative terms to further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of the
265 syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
270 date:<since>..<until>
272 The above expression restricts the results to only messages from <since>
273 to <until>, based on the Date: header.
275 <since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
276 In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it could describe
277 (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken as the latest time it
278 could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly, date:january..february
279 matches from the beginning of January to the end of February.
281 date:<expr>..! can be used as a shorthand for date:<expr>..<expr>. The
282 expansion takes place before interpretation, and thus, for example,
283 date:monday..! matches from the beginning of Monday until the end of
284 Monday. (Note that entering date:<expr> without "..", for example
285 date:yesterday, won't work, as it's not interpreted as a range
286 expression at all. Again, use date:yesterday..!)
288 Currently, we do not support spaces in range expressions. You can
289 replace the spaces with '\_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases)
290 leave the spaces out altogether. Examples in this man page use spaces
293 Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's possible
294 to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start or
295 end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on
296 open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.
298 Relative date and time
299 ----------------------
302 (years\|months\|weeks\|days\|hours\|hrs\|minutes\|mins\|seconds\|secs)
305 All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
307 Units can be abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous
308 single m being m for minutes and M for months.
310 Number can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred.
311 Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this" (e.g., "last
312 week" or "this month").
314 When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date and time
315 specification will be relative from the specified absolute date and
318 Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
320 Supported absolute time formats
321 -------------------------------
323 - H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am\|a.m.\|pm\|p.m.)]
325 - H[H] (am\|a.m.\|pm\|p.m.)
335 - Examples: 17:05, 5pm
337 Supported absolute date formats
338 -------------------------------
352 - D[D][(st\|nd\|rd\|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]
354 - Mon[thname] D[D][(st\|nd\|rd\|th)] [YYYY]
358 Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
360 Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
362 Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
371 Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
376 **notmuch(1)**, **notmuch-config(1)**, **notmuch-count(1)**,
377 **notmuch-dump(1)**, **notmuch-hooks(5)**, **notmuch-insert(1)**,
378 **notmuch-new(1)**, **notmuch-reply(1)**, **notmuch-restore(1)**,
379 **notmuch-search(1)**, **notmuch-show(1)**, **notmuch-tag(1)**