1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
3 Notmuch is a great mail indexing tool that can also be used *in conjunction*
4 with existing Mail User Agents (MUA) instead of replacing them. The advantage of
5 such mixed solutions is that users can benefit from notmuch features (such as
6 full-text search and thread reconstruction) without *having to* change MUA.
8 A popular geek MUA is [the Mutt e-mail client](http://www.mutt.org); integrating
9 notmuch with Mutt is not seamless, but fairly straightforward. There are two
10 principal possibilities, either using a patched mutt that handles internally
11 notmuch, or use a sets of scripts/handler within mutt to achieve something close.
13 # Using Notmuch with mutt-kz
17 git clone https://github.com/karelzak/mutt-kz.git
19 ./configure && make && make install
24 set nm_default_uri="notmuch:///PATH/TO/MY/Maildir" # path to the maildir
25 set virtual_spoolfile=yes # enable virtual folders
26 set sendmail="/PATH/TO/bin/nm_sendmail" # enables parsing of outgoing mail
28 "INBOX" "notmuch://?query=tag:INBOX and NOT tag:archive"\
29 "Unread" "notmuch://?query=tag:unread"\
30 "Starred" "notmuch://?query=tag:*"\
31 "Sent" "notmuch://?query=tag:sent" # sets up queries for virtual folders
33 macro index \\\\ "<vfolder-from-query>" # looks up a hand made query
34 macro index A "<modify-labels>+archive -unread -inbox\\n" # tag as Archived
35 macro index I "<modify-labels>-inbox -unread\\n" # removed from inbox
36 macro index S "<modify-labels-then-hide>-inbox -unread +junk\\n" # tag as Junk mail
37 macro index + "<modify-labels>+*\\n<sync-mailbox>" # tag as starred
38 macro index - "<modify-labels>-*\\n<sync-mailbox>" # tag as unstarred
40 set sidebar_width = 20
41 set sidebar_visible = yes # set to "no" to disable sidebar view at startup
42 color sidebar_new yellow default
44 bind index <left> sidebar-prev # got to previous folder in sidebar
45 bind index <right> sidebar-next # got to next folder in sidebar
46 bind index <space> sidebar-open # open selected folder from sidebar
48 macro index ,@) "<enter-command> set sidebar_visible=no; macro index ~ ,@( 'Toggle sidebar'<Enter>"
49 macro index ,@( "<enter-command> set sidebar_visible=yes; macro index ~ ,@) 'Toggle sidebar'<Enter>"
50 macro index ~ ,@( 'Toggle sidebar' # toggle the sidebar
54 when you open `mutt` you get the INBOX opened. There you can crawl through your
55 mails, and tag them as appropriate, either manually using the " ` " command, or using
56 the bindings defined in configuration (such as A/I/S/+/-).
58 * Mail tagging on sending
60 You may have noticed in `mutt-kz`'s configuration that I set the `sendmail` variable
61 of mutt to a `nm_sendmail` script. This is for tagging outgoing mail each time I send
62 a mail. Here is the content of the script (which may be used directly in mutt's
63 variable, I did not try).
65 Source of nm_sendmail:
68 tee >(notmuch-deliver -t sent -f Sent) | sendmail $*
70 ## Mail filtering/tagging
72 For mail tagging on arrival, I prefer to use a simple procmail delivery along with
73 notmuch-delivery (which can be compiled in the `contrib/` directory of notmuch's sources).
75 Of course, you could use formail or maildrop, instead of procmail, but it is flexible
76 enough for my needs, and here is an example of configuration that can be useful:
78 PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
80 # ensure each mail is unique
82 | formail -D 8192 msgid.cache
84 # update addressbook with current mail
86 | /usr/local/bin/notmuch_abook update
91 # manage dynamic tagging, using the ' + ' token in mail addresses
92 # e.g.: user+TAG@fqdn.tld will generate the tag TAG
94 * ^TO\/user\+[a-z0-9]+@fqdn\.tld
95 * MATCH ?? ^user\+\/[a-z0-9]+
100 # match all mails from mailing-lists, don't let them go to inbox, but tag them with ml
104 TAGS="${TAGS} -t ml -r inbox"
107 # tag all mails coming from mutt-kz mailing list
109 * .*mutt-kz\.lists\.fedoraproject\.org.*
110 | notmuch-deliver $TAGS -t mutt -t notmuch
112 # tag all mails coming from notmuch mailing list
114 * .*notmuch\.notmuchmail\.org.*
115 | notmuch-deliver $TAGS -t notmuch
117 # Mark all spams as junk mail
119 * ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
120 | notmuch-deliver -t junk
124 | notmuch-deliver -t junk
126 ### All unmatched mails
129 | notmuch-deliver -v $TAGS
131 ## Addressbook management and vim
133 There are some emacs tips over [here](http://notmuchmail.org/emacstips/#index15h2) that
134 explains how to configure emacs with an addressbook, but the few solutions were not fast enough
135 for me. And I never could test the vala-based code. So I updated the notmuch_addresses code to
136 use a cache to be able to make better matches and still be lightning fast.
138 And finally, I needed to have a way to autocomplete my recipients' addresses
139 automagically from within `vim`. So that's why I created the `notmuch_abook` code.
140 You can either install it as a plugin in vim, using vundle:
142 Vundle 'guyzmo/notmuch-abook'
144 Or if you're not using vim (which is objectively the best editor ever), you may
145 want to use it as standalone:
147 % pip install notmuch_abook
149 To configure the address book, append to `~/.notmuch-config` the following:
151 % cat > ~/.notmuch-config << EOF
154 path=/home/YOURUSERNAME/.notmuch-abook.db
159 where YOURUSERNAME is your home directory. Then, you can sync the addressbook cache
160 by running. It will create the database file specified in configuration, and go through
161 all notmuch's indexed mails to get all addresses headers and cache them. It takes around
162 20 seconds on my 10000 mails index:
164 % notmuch_abook create
166 And you can query for addresses using the lookup command, which will match the beginning
167 of each word in the name and address, as follows:
169 % notmuch_abook lookup Foo
170 Foobar Bar <bar@bar.com>
171 Bar Foobar <bar@bar.com>
172 Bar Bar <foobar@bar.com>
173 Bar Bar <bar@foobar.com>
174 Bar Bar <bar@bar.foo>
176 If you're using vim, when you edit a mail having a filetype set to mail, you will be
177 able to open a completion menu when you do <C-x><C-u> at every address header.
179 # Using Notmuch with bare Mutt, the old fashioned way
182 [notmuch-mutt](http://git.notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch/tree/HEAD:/contrib/notmuch-mutt),
183 which will create a "virtual" maildir folder with search results whenever a
184 search is made. The upside is that you can search all your folders
185 simultanously; the downside is that your modifications in the results listing
186 do not carry over, also having to switch folders comes with some more
190 [how to use Notmuch with Mutt](http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt/)
191 has been written by Stefano Zacchiroli.
193 <small>(Note by the howto author: I've linked the howto from this wiki rather
194 than splicing it in, in order to avoid duplication of information. If you
195 think it would be better to have it here, feel free to copy the text
197 [available](http://git.upsilon.cc/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=zack-homepage.git;a=history;f=blog/posts/2011/01/how_to_use_Notmuch_with_Mutt.mdwn)
198 in markdown syntax from the Git repository of my homepage.)</small>
200 * Using a simple macro that will emulate the "limit" mutt functionality
203 See the [alternative notmuch integration](http://log.or.cz/?p=228)
204 blog post for instructions and details,
205 or simply put these two macros to your muttrc:
207 # 'L' performs a notmuch query, showing only the results
208 macro index L "<enter-command>unset wait_key<enter><shell-escape>read -p 'notmuch query: ' x; echo \$x >~/.cache/mutt_terms<enter><limit>~i \"\`notmuch search --output=messages \$(cat ~/.cache/mutt_terms) | head -n 600 | perl -le '@a=<>;chomp@a;s/\^id:// for@a;$,=\"|\";print@a'\`\"<enter>" "show only messages matching a notmuch pattern"
209 # 'a' shows all messages again (supersedes default <alias> binding)
210 macro index a "<limit>all\n" "show all messages (undo limit)"
212 The upside (if you are used to working in the context of a single folder) is
213 that this really does use the limit functionality of mutt and you are still in
214 your original folder. The downside is that this approach has scaling problems
215 and works well only for reasonably specific queries.