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 The **from:** prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender
60 The **to:** prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any
61 recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
63 Any term prefixed with **subject:** will match only text from the
64 subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is supported
65 by including quotation marks around the phrase, immediately following
68 The **attachment:** prefix can be used to search for specific filenames
69 (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.
71 The **mimetype:** prefix will be used to match text from the
72 content-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified by the
75 For **tag:** and **is:** valid tag values include **inbox** and
76 **unread** by default for new messages added by **notmuch new** as well
77 as any other tag values added manually with **notmuch tag**.
79 For **id:**, message ID values are the literal contents of the
80 Message-ID: header of email messages, but without the '<', '>'
83 The **thread:** prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are
84 generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email messages).
85 These thread ID values can be seen in the first column of output from
88 The **path:** prefix searches for email messages that are in
89 particular directories within the mail store. The directory must be
90 specified relative to the top-level maildir (and without the leading
91 slash). By default, **path:** matches messages in the specified
92 directory only. The "/\*\*" suffix can be used to match messages in
93 the specified directory and all its subdirectories recursively.
94 **path:""** matches messages in the root of the mail store and,
95 likewise, **path:\*\*** matches all messages.
97 The **folder:** prefix searches for email messages by maildir or MH
98 folder. For MH-style folders, this is equivalent to **path:**. For
99 maildir, this includes messages in the "new" and "cur"
100 subdirectories. The exact syntax for maildir folders depends on your
101 mail configuration. For maildir++, **folder:""** matches the inbox
102 folder (which is the root in maildir++), other folder names always
103 start with ".", and nested folders are separated by "."s, such as
104 **folder:.classes.topology**. For "file system" maildir, the inbox is
105 typically **folder:INBOX** and nested folders are separated by
106 slashes, such as **folder:classes/topology**.
108 Both **path:** and **folder:** will find a message if *any* copy of
109 that message is in the specific directory/folder.
111 The **date:** prefix can be used to restrict the results to only
112 messages within a particular time range (based on the Date: header) with
115 date:<since>..<until>
117 See **DATE AND TIME SEARCH** below for details on the range expression,
118 and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time expressions.
120 The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax of:
122 <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
124 Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds since
125 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
127 In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
128 Boolean operators ( **and**, **or**, **not** , etc.). Each term in the
129 query will be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no explicit
130 operator is provided, (except that terms with a common prefix will be
131 implicitly combined with OR until we get Xapian defect #402 fixed).
133 Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the Boolean
134 operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by the
135 shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized
141 **Stemming** in notmuch means that these searches
145 notmuch search detailed
146 notmuch search details
147 notmuch search detail
149 will all return identical results, because Xapian first "reduces" the
150 term to the common stem (here 'detail') and then performs the search.
152 There are two ways to turn this off: a search for a capitalized word
153 will be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for "John" and not
154 get results for "Johnson"; phrase searches are also unstemmed (see
155 below for details). Stemming is currently only supported for
156 English. Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
161 It is possible to use a trailing '\*' as a wildcard. A search for
162 'wildc\*' will match 'wildcard', 'wildcat', etc.
165 Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes
166 ----------------------------------
168 Xapian (and hence notmuch) prefixes are either **boolean**, supporting
169 exact matches like "tag:inbox" or **probabilistic**, supporting a most flexible **term** based searching. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as follows.
171 +------------------+-----------------------+
172 |Boolean |Probabilistic |
173 +------------------+-----------------------+
174 | **tag:** **id:** | **from:** **to:** |
175 |**thread:** |**subject:** |
176 |**folder:** |**attachment** |
179 +------------------+-----------------------+
184 In general Xapian distinguishes between lists of terms and
185 **phrases**. Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you
186 probably need to protect those from your shell) and insist that those
187 unstemmed words occur in that order. One useful, but initially
188 surprising feature is that the following are equivalant ways to write
196 Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with
197 probabilisitic prefixes such as **to:**, **from:**, and **subject:**. In particular
207 subject:pizza and subject:free
209 Both of these will match a subject "Free Delicious Pizza" while
220 notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of expressing
221 dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in relative
222 terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined ("1
223 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can be combined with
224 relative terms to further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of the
225 syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
230 date:<since>..<until>
232 The above expression restricts the results to only messages from <since>
233 to <until>, based on the Date: header.
235 <since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
236 In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it could describe
237 (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken as the latest time it
238 could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly, date:january..february
239 matches from the beginning of January to the end of February.
241 Currently, we do not support spaces in range expressions. You can
242 replace the spaces with '\_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases)
243 leave the spaces out altogether. Examples in this man page use spaces
246 Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's possible
247 to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start or
248 end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on
249 open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.
251 Entering date:expr without ".." (for example date:yesterday) won't work,
252 as it's not interpreted as a range expression at all. You can achieve
253 the expected result by duplicating the expr both sides of ".." (for
254 example date:yesterday..yesterday).
256 Relative date and time
257 ----------------------
260 (years\|months\|weeks\|days\|hours\|hrs\|minutes\|mins\|seconds\|secs)
263 All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
265 Units can be abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous
266 single m being m for minutes and M for months.
268 Number can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred.
269 Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this" (e.g., "last
270 week" or "this month").
272 When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date and time
273 specification will be relative from the specified absolute date and
276 Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
278 Supported absolute time formats
279 -------------------------------
281 - H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am\|a.m.\|pm\|p.m.)]
283 - H[H] (am\|a.m.\|pm\|p.m.)
293 - Examples: 17:05, 5pm
295 Supported absolute date formats
296 -------------------------------
310 - D[D][(st\|nd\|rd\|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]
312 - Mon[thname] D[D][(st\|nd\|rd\|th)] [YYYY]
316 Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
318 Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
320 Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
329 Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
334 **notmuch(1)**, **notmuch-config(1)**, **notmuch-count(1)**,
335 **notmuch-dump(1)**, **notmuch-hooks(5)**, **notmuch-insert(1)**,
336 **notmuch-new(1)**, **notmuch-reply(1)**, **notmuch-restore(1)**,
337 **notmuch-search(1)**, **notmuch-show(1)**, **notmuch-tag(1)**
projects / notmuch / blob