1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 #Tips and Tricks for using notmuch with Emacs
4 The main Notmuch message reading client is **notmuch.el**, which is an
5 [emacs](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) major mode, and is
6 included in the notmuch package.
10 To use the Notmuch emacs mode, first add the following line to your
15 Then, either run "emacs -f notmuch", or execute the command "M-x
16 notmuch" from within a running emacs.
18 ## Navigating & reading mails
20 When first starting notmuch in emacs, you will be presented with the
21 notmuch "hello" page. From here you can do searches, see lists of
22 recent searches, saved searches, message tags, help information, etc.
24 Executing a search will open a new buffer in notmuch-search-mode
25 displaying the search results. Each line in the search results
26 represents a message thread. Hitting the '?' key will show help for
29 In general, the 'q' will kill the current notmuch buffer and return
30 you to the previous buffer (sort of like a 'pop').
32 In search mode, navigating to a thread and hitting return will then
33 open a new buffer in notmuch-show-mode, which will show the actual
34 message contents of the thread.
38 In any notmuch mode, you can start a new message by hitting the 'm'
39 key. To reply to a message or thread, just hit the 'r' key.
41 When composing new messages, you will be entered in emacs's
42 "message-mode", which is a powerful mode for composing and sending
43 messages. When in message move, you can type "C-c ?" for help.
45 If you would like to use address autocompletion, see the [address
46 completion howto](#address_completion)" below.
48 When you are ready to send a message, type "C-c C-c". By default
49 message mode will use your sendmail command to send mail, so make sure
50 that works. One annoying standard configuration of message mode is
51 that it will hide the sent mail in your emacs frame stack, but it will
52 not close it. If you type several mails in an emacs session they will
53 accumulate and make switching between buffers more annoying. You can
54 avoid that behavior by adding `(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)`
55 in your .emacs file which will really close the mail window after
60 Using the `M-x mml-attach-file` command, you can attach any file to be
61 send with your mail. By default this command is bound to the menu item
62 `Attachments--Attach File` with the key binding `C-c C-a`. The
63 variable `mml-dnd-attach-options` (M-x
64 customize-variable<RET>`mml-dnd-attach-options`) can be set to allow
65 the prompting for various attachment options (such as
66 inline/attachement) if you want to do that.
68 For those who prefer graphics, you can also simply drag and drop files
69 from a file manager into a mail composition window to have it attached
70 (assuming you are using emacs with X support). At least in Ubuntu it
71 works by dragging from the file manager without any modifications.
75 <h2 id="advanced_tips">Advanced tips and tweaks</h2>
77 * <span id="custom_keybinding">**Add a keybinding to add/remove/toggle a tag.**</span>
79 Here's an example of how to add a key binding to notmuch-show-mode
80 to toggle a "deleted" tag:
82 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "d"
84 "toggle deleted tag for message"
86 (if (member "deleted" (notmuch-show-get-tags))
87 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "deleted")
88 (notmuch-show-add-tag "deleted"))))
90 You can do the same for threads in notmuch-search-mode by just
91 replacing "show" with "search" in the called functions. This
92 definition makes use of a lambda function, but you could just as
93 easily defined a separate function first:
95 (defun notmuch-show-toggle-deleted-tag()
96 "toggle deleted tag for message"
98 (if (member "deleted" (notmuch-show-get-tags))
99 (notmuch-show-remove-tag "deleted")
100 (notmuch-show-add-tag "deleted")))
101 (define-key notmuch-show-mode-map "d" 'notmuch-show-toggle-deleted-tag)
103 * <span id="fcc">**How to do FCC/BCC...**</span>
105 Any notmuch reply will automatically include your primary email
106 address in a BCC so that any messages you send will (eventually) end
107 up in your mail store as well. But this doesn't do anything for
108 messages that you compose that are not replies.
110 Another method is to save the file in a folder of your local
111 Maildir, usually called FCC (file carbon copy). You can achieve this
112 by setting the variables `message-directory` (which defines a base
113 directory) and `notmuch-fcc-dirs` which defines the subdirectory
114 relative to message-directory in which to save the mail. Enter a
115 directory (without the maildir /cur ending which will be appended
116 automatically). To customize both variables at the same time, use
119 M-x customize-apropos<RET>\(notmuch-fcc-dirs\)\|\(message-directory\)
121 This method will even allow you to select different outboxes
122 depending on your selected from address, if you need that
123 functionality. Please see the documentation on the variable in the
124 customization window for how to do so.
126 * <span id="customize_notmuch_folder">**How to customize notmuch-folders**</span>
128 There's a "notmuch-folder" command available in the emacs client
129 that displays a list of "folders" and the number of messages in
130 each. Each folder is simply a named search specification. To
131 configure this mode, edit your ${HOME}/.emacs file and include text
132 something like the following:
134 (setq notmuch-folders '(("inbox" . "tag:inbox")
135 ("unread" . "tag:inbox AND tag:unread")
136 ("notmuch" . "tag:inbox AND to:notmuchmail.org")))
138 Of course, you can have any number of folders, each configured
139 with any supported search terms (see "notmuch help search-terms").
141 Personally, I find it fairly useful to add "not tag:delete" to those
142 views as I use that tag to mark messages as deleted and it
143 automatically removes them from my standard views. Use whatever
144 seems most useful to you.
146 * **Viewing HTML messages with an external viewer**
148 The emacs client can often display an HTML message inline, but it
149 sometimes fails for one reason or another, (or is perhaps inadequate
150 if you really need to see the graphical presentation of the HTML
153 In this case, it can be useful to display the message in an external
154 viewer, such as a web browser. Here's a little script that Keith
155 Packard wrote, which he calls view-html:
160 cat "$@" > "$dir"/msg
161 if munpack -C "$dir" -t < "$dir"/msg 2>&1 | grep 'Did not find'; then
162 sed -n '/[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]/,$p' "$dir"/msg > $dir/part1.html
165 for i in "$dir"/part*; do
166 if grep -q -i -e '<html>' -e 'text/html' "$i"; then
173 Save that script somewhere in your ${PATH}, make it executable, and
174 change the invocation of iceweasel to any other HTML viewer if
175 necessary. Then within the emacs client, press "|" to pipe the
176 current message, then type "view-html".
178 Keith mentions the following caveat, "Note that if iceweasel isn't
179 already running, it seems to shut down when the script exits. I
182 * **msmtp, message mode and multiple accounts**
184 As an alternative to running a mail server such as sendmail or
185 postfix just to send email, it is possible to use
186 [msmtp](http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/). This small application will
187 look like /usr/bin/sendmail to a MUA such as emacs message mode, but
188 will just forward the email to an external SMTP server. It's fairly
189 easy to set up and it support several account for using different
190 SMTP servers. The msmtp pages have several examples.
192 A typical scenario is that you want to use the company SMTP server
193 for email coming from your company email address, and your personal
194 server for personal email. If msmtp is passed the envelope address
195 on the command line (the -f/--from option) it will automatically
196 pick the matching account. The only trick here seems to be getting
197 emacs to actually pass the envelope from. There are a number of
198 overlapping configuration variables that control this, and it's a
199 little confusion, but setting these three works for me:
201 - mail-specify-envelope-from: t
203 - message-sendmail-envelope-from: header
205 - mail-envelope-from: header
207 With that in place, you need a .msmtprc with the accounts configured
208 for the domains you want to send out using specific SMTP servers and
209 the rest will go to the default account.
211 * <span id="address_completion">**how to get email address completion**</span>
213 There are currently two solutions to this:
215 * [bbdb](http://bbdb.sourceforge.net) is a contact database for
216 emacs that works quite nicely together with message mode,
217 including address autocompletion.
219 * You can also use the notmuch database as a mail address book
220 itself. To do this you need a command line tool that outputs
221 likely address candidates based on a search string. There are currently two available:
223 * The python tool notmuch_address.py ('git clone http://jkr.acm.jhu.edu/git/notmuch_addresses.git`)
224 (slower, but no compilation required so good for testing the
228 [addrlookup](http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch) (faster, but
229 needs compiling). This is how you compile the (3rd party) tool
230 "addrlookup" to give you address completion:
232 - you need the addrlookup binary, first of all. Grab
233 http://github.com/spaetz/vala-notmuch/raw/static-sources/src/addrlookup.c
234 and build it with `cc -o addrlookup addrlookup.c ``pkg-config
235 --cflags --libs gobject-2.0`` -lnotmuch`. That should give you
236 the binary that you can test already.
238 - EUDC is integrated into emacs and can be used for tab completion
239 of email addresses. The code I use is here
240 http://gist.github.com/359425. It was announce in [this
241 mail](http://mid.gmane.org/87fx3uflkx.fsf@jhu.edu)
242 (id:87fx3uflkx.fsf@jhu.edu) which contains links to the git
243 repositories which contain the files.
245 * <span id="sign_messages_gpg">**how to sign/encrypt my messages with
248 You can manually sign your messages with gpg by invoking `M-x
249 mml-secure-sign-pgpmime` (or `M-x
250 mml-secure-encrypt-pgpmime`). These functions are available via the
251 convenient (*cough cough*) keybindings `C-c C-m s p` and `C-c C-m c
252 p` by default. To sign my outgoing mail by default, I use this hook
255 ;;sign messages by default
256 (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'mml-secure-sign-pgpmime)
258 This inserts the blurb `<#part sign=pgpmime>` into the beginning of
259 my mail text body and will be converted into a pgp signature when
260 sending (so I can just manually delete that line if I do not want a