1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 # Notmuch -- The mail indexer
6 * "Not much mail" is what Notmuch thinks about your email
7 collection. Even if you receive 12000 messages per month or have on
8 the order of millions of messages that you've been saving for
9 decades. Regardless, Notmuch will be able to quickly search all of
10 it. It's just plain not much mail.
12 * "Not much mail" is also what you should have in your inbox at any
13 time. Notmuch gives you what you need, (tags and fast search), so
14 that you can keep your inbox tamed and focus on what really matters
15 in your life, (which is surely not email).
17 * Notmuch is an answer to <a href="http://sup.rubyforge.org/">Sup</a>.
18 Sup is a very good email program written by William Morgan (and
19 others) and is the direct inspiration for Notmuch. Notmuch began as
20 an effort to rewrite performance-critical pieces of Sup in C rather
21 than ruby. From there, it grew into a separate project. One
22 significant contribution Notmuch makes compared to Sup is the
23 separation of the indexer/searcher from the user interface. (Notmuch
24 provides a library interface so that its indexing/searching/tagging
25 features can be integrated into any email program.)
27 * Notmuch is not much of an email program. It doesn't receive messages
28 (no POP or IMAP suport). It doesn't send messages (no mail composer,
29 no network code at all). And for what it does do (email search) that
30 work is provided by an external library, <a
31 href="http://xapian.org/">Xapian</a>. So if Notmuch provides no user
32 interface and Xapian does all the heavy lifting, then what's left
35 Notmuch is still in the early stages of development, but there are
36 already two user interfaces available for it (one for emacs and one
37 for vim). If you've been looking for a fast, global-search and
38 tag-based email reader to use within your text editor or in a
39 terminal, then Notmuch may be exactly what you've been looking for.
41 Otherwise, if you're a developer of an existing email program and
42 would love a good library interface for fast, global search with
43 support for arbitrary tags, then Notmuch also may be exactly what
44 you've been looking for.
48 So far, there is not much documentation. Eventually, the wiki will
49 contain a reference for users. This is what we have so far:
51 * [General how-tos](/howto)
52 * [Initial Tagging](/initial_tagging)
53 * [Emacstips](/emacstips)
54 * [Remote Usage](/remoteusage)
56 Apart from the wiki, help is available via email. Join the mailing
57 list. Read the archives. Ask questions.
61 Either way, please feel free to jump in. All of the code for Notmuch
63 href="http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html">free
64 software</a> released under the GNU
65 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html">GPL version
66 3</a>. The latest versions
67 can be checked out via git with this command:
69 git clone git://notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
72 href="http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch">Notmuch code history</a>
73 online. And finally, you can <a
74 href="http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch-commits">subscribe
75 to the notmuch-commits list</a> to watch every commit made to notmuch
76 and the notmuchmail.org web site.
78 Patches are most welcome and should be sent to notmuch@notmuchmail.org.
79 Please try to follow the [patch submission guidelines of the Git
80 project](http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git?a=blob;f=Documentation/SubmittingPatches;hb=HEAD)
81 when submitting patches to notmuch. We are currently test-driving a [Patchwork
82 instance](http://patchwork.notmuchmail.org/project/notmuch) to help us keep track
83 of [the patches](http://patchwork.notmuchmail.org/project/notmuch/list).
85 Source code of notmuch releases can be downloaded [here](http://notmuchmail.org/releases/).
87 ## Contact: Email & IRC
89 Comments? Please feel free to email the notmuch mailing list:
90 notmuch@notmuchmail.org (subscription is not required, but you can
91 subscribe to the [notmuch list](http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch) if you would like to). You can also browse the
92 <a href="http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/">online archives</a>
93 of the mailing list, read them as a <a href="http://n3.nabble.com/notmuch-f198994.html">web forum (nabble)</a>, or download a <a href="http://notmuchmail.org/archives/notmuch.mbox">mbox file</a> of the entire mailing-list.
95 The mb2md utility can be used to convert the archives to maildir format which is convenient for reading the archives within notmuch itself.
97 If you prefer real-time chat, there is often someone on the [#notmuch](irc://chat.freenode.net/#notmuch)@irc.freenode.net IRC channel.
99 ## Feature ideas - bin list
101 We have started a <a href="http://notmuchmail.org/feature-requests/">feature requests</a> page on this wiki.
102 No, things you add there won't automatically get implemented - but it's a nice way to collect ideas.
104 ## Emacs Tips and Tricks
106 The best supported interface to notmuch is based on emacs and can be tweaked extensively. We have started to collect some tips and tricks [here](/emacstips).
110 This wiki is maintained using
111 [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info). Instructions on how to edit it can be
112 found [here](/wikiwriteaccess).