1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 # Notmuch -- Just an email system
4 If you've been looking for a fast, global-search and tag-based email
5 system to use within your text editor or in a terminal...
7 If you're the kind of person that gets excited about being able to
8 write shell scripts for exploring and manipulating your email...
10 If you're a developer of an existing email program and would love a
11 good library interface for fast, global search with support for
14 If you want the convenience of fast, reliable search of all your
15 email, but don't want to give a 3rd-party access to your email...
17 Then notmuch may be exactly what you've been looking for.
21 ## Why is it named Notmuch?
23 * "Not much mail" is what Notmuch thinks about your email
24 collection. Even if you receive 12000 messages per month or have on
25 the order of millions of messages that you've been saving for
26 decades. Regardless, Notmuch will be able to quickly search all of
27 it. It's just plain not much mail.
29 * "Not much mail" is also what you should have in your inbox at any
30 time. Notmuch gives you what you need, (tags and fast search), so
31 that you can keep your inbox tamed and focus on what really matters
32 in your life, (which is surely not email).
34 * Notmuch is an answer to [Sup](http://sup-heliotrope.github.io/).
35 Sup is a very good email program written by William Morgan (and
36 others) and is the direct inspiration for Notmuch. Notmuch began as
37 an effort to rewrite performance-critical pieces of Sup in C rather
38 than Ruby. From there, it grew into a separate project. One
39 significant contribution Notmuch makes compared to Sup is the
40 separation of the indexer/searcher from the user interface. (Notmuch
41 provides a library interface so that its indexing/searching/tagging
42 features can be integrated into any email program.)
44 * Notmuch is not much of an email program. It doesn't receive messages
45 (no POP or IMAP support). It doesn't send messages (no mail composer,
46 no network code at all). And for what it does do (email search) that
47 work is provided by an external library,
48 [Xapian](http://xapian.org). So if Notmuch provides no user
49 interface and Xapian does all the heavy lifting, then what's left
54 [[Notmuch news|news]] (mostly release notes and changes).
58 To get started with Notmuch, just run "notmuch" at the command line.
59 This command will walk you through initial setup, including specifying
60 the location of your mail store and how to start the initial indexing.
62 For a little more detailed guide, see [[Getting Started with
63 Notmuch|getting-started]].
65 ## Email Clients and Front Ends
67 Notmuch ships with a powerful set of [command-line
68 tools](https://notmuchmail.org/doc/latest/man1/notmuch.html), an
69 [[email client for Emacs|notmuch-emacs]], another [client for
70 vim](https://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/blob/HEAD:/vim/README),
71 and a [[Mutt integration script|notmuch-mutt]].
73 There are also many other [[email clients, frontends and tools|frontends]] based
78 * [Notmuch official documentation (manual pages)](https://notmuchmail.org/doc/latest/)
79 * [[Email clients and frontends|frontends]]
80 * [[General how-tos|howto]]
81 * [[Frequently Asked Questions|faq]]
83 * [[Excluding and deleting messages|excluding]]
84 * [[Initial tagging|Initial_Tagging]]
85 * Tips for using Notmuch with [[Emacs|emacstips]], [[Vim|vimtips]], [[Postfix & Dovecot|postfixdovecottips]] and [[Mutt|mutttips]]
86 * [[Emacs remote usage|remoteusage]]
87 * [[Performance|performance]]
88 * [[References|references]]
89 * [[Notmuch Library Language Bindings|bindings]]
91 Apart from the wiki, help is available via email and on IRC (see
92 below). Join the mailing list. Read the archives. Ask questions.
96 * [[Emacs UI screenshots|screenshots]]
100 [Notmuch source releases](https://notmuchmail.org/releases/) are available as
103 Notmuch is packaged for at least the following operating systems and
106 * [Arch Linux](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?q=notmuch)
107 * [Debian](http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=notmuch)
108 * [Fedora](https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/notmuch)
109 * [FreeBSD](http://www.freshports.org/mail/notmuch)
110 * [Gentoo](http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-mail/notmuch)
111 * [NetBSD](http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/mail/notmuch/README.html)
112 * [openSUSE](https://build.opensuse.org/search?search_text=notmuch)
113 * macOS [Homebrew](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/09baa1c3f5a30f8450d2145d4fd988e4b4d48070/Formula/notmuch.rb), [MacPorts](https://ports.macports.org/port/notmuch), or [pkgsrc](http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/mail/notmuch/README.html).
114 * [Slackware](http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.37/office/notmuch/)
115 * [Ubuntu](http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=notmuch)
117 ## Contact: Email & IRC
119 Comments? Please feel free to email the notmuch mailing list:
120 <mailto:notmuch@notmuchmail.org> (subscription is not required, but you can
121 also subscribe to the
122 [notmuch mailing list](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/list/)). You
124 [online list archives](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/nmweb/) or
125 download an [archive](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/archive/notmuch-list.tar.xz)
126 of the entire mailing-list.
128 The archive unpacks to maildir format which is convenient for reading
129 the archives within notmuch itself.
131 If you prefer real-time chat, there is often someone on the
132 [#notmuch](irc://irc.libera.chat/#notmuch)@irc.libera.chat IRC channel. Don't
133 ask if you can ask a question, just ask, and please wait for an answer, we might
134 not be in your timezone.
136 ## Troubleshooting, Reporting Bugs and Feature Requests
138 Please send bug reports and feature requests to the [Notmuch mailing
139 list](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/list/)
140 <mailto:notmuch@notmuchmail.org>.
142 For hints about troubleshooting and bug reporting see [[bugs]].
144 Please see the [nmbug status page](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/status/) for
145 lists of [known bugs](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/status/#Bugs) and [feature
146 requests](https://nmbug.notmuchmail.org/status/#Wish-list).
148 ## Development and Contributing
150 All of the code for Notmuch is available as [free
151 software](https://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) released
152 under the GNU [GPL version
153 3](https://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html). The latest
154 versions can be checked out via git with this command:
156 git clone https://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
158 You can browse the [Notmuch code history
159 online](https://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch). [The Notmuch OpenHub project
160 page](https://www.openhub.net/p/notmuch) has a nice summary of the codebase and
163 Continuous integration build and test suite status: [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/notmuch/notmuch.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/notmuch/notmuch)
165 Contributions, such as patches, to Notmuch are most welcome. Please refer to the
166 [[guide to contributing|contributing]].
170 This website is a wiki, maintained using [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info). Here
171 are [[instructions on how to edit the wiki|wikiwriteaccess]]. The wiki contents
172 are mostly [[dual licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 and GPLv3+|COPYING]].