NAME

       notmuch - thread-based email index, search, and tagging

SYNOPSIS

       notmuch [option ...] command [arg ...]

DESCRIPTION

       Notmuch  is  a command-line based program for indexing, searching, reading, and tagging large collections
       of email messages.

       This page describes how to get started using notmuch from the command line, and gives a brief overview of
       the commands available. For more information on e.g. notmuch show consult the notmuch-show(1)  man  page,
       also accessible via notmuch help show

       The  quickest  way to get started with Notmuch is to simply invoke the notmuch command with no arguments,
       which will interactively guide you through the process of indexing your mail.

NOTE

       While the command-line program notmuch provides powerful functionality, it  does  not  provide  the  most
       convenient  interface  for  that functionality. More sophisticated interfaces are expected to be built on
       top of either the command-line interface, or more likely, on top of the notmuch  library  interface.  See
       https://notmuchmail.org  for  more  about  alternate  interfaces to notmuch. The emacs-based interface to
       notmuch (available under emacs/ in the Notmuch source distribution) is probably the most widely  used  at
       this time.

OPTIONS

       Supported global options for notmuch include

       --help [command-name]
              Print  a synopsis of available commands and exit. With an optional command name, show the man page
              for that subcommand.

       --version
              Print the installed version of notmuch, and exit.

       --config=FILE
              Specify the configuration file  to  use.  This  overrides  any  configuration  file  specified  by
              NOTMUCH_CONFIG.  The  empty  string is a permitted and sometimes useful value of FILE, which tells
              notmuch to use only configuration metadata from the database.

       --uuid=HEX
              Enforce that the database UUID (a unique identifier which persists  until  e.g.  the  database  is
              compacted)  is  HEX;  exit  with  an  error  if  it  is  not. This is useful to detect rollover in
              modification counts on messages. You can find this UUID using e.g. notmuch count --lastmod

       All global options except --config can  also  be  specified  after  the  command.  For  example,  notmuch
       subcommand --uuid=HEX is equivalent to notmuch --uuid=HEX subcommand.

COMMANDS

   SETUP
       The notmuch setup command is used to configure Notmuch for first use, (or to reconfigure it later).

       The  setup  command  will  prompt  for  your  full  name, your primary email address, any alternate email
       addresses you use, and the directory containing your email archives. Your answers will be  written  to  a
       configuration  file  in NOTMUCH_CONFIG (if set) or ${HOME}/.notmuch-config . This configuration file will
       be created with descriptive comments, making it easy to edit by hand later to change  the  configuration.
       Or you can run notmuch setup again to change the configuration.

       The  mail  directory  you  specify can contain any number of sub-directories and should primarily contain
       only files with individual email messages (eg. maildir or mh archives are perfect). If there  are  other,
       non-email  files  (such  as  indexes maintained by other email programs) then notmuch will do its best to
       detect those and ignore them.

       Mail storage that uses mbox format, (where one mbox file contains many  messages),  will  not  work  with
       notmuch.  If  that's how your mail is currently stored, it is recommended you first convert it to maildir
       format with a utility such as mb2md(1) before running notmuch setup.

       Invoking notmuch with no command argument will run setup if the setup command  has  not  previously  been
       completed.

   OTHER COMMANDS
       Several of the notmuch commands accept search terms with a common syntax. See notmuch-search-terms(7) for
       more details on the supported syntax.

       The  notmuch-search(1),  notmuch-show(1),  notmuch-address(1)  and  notmuch-count(1) commands are used to
       query the email database.

       The notmuch-reply(1) command is useful for preparing a template for an email reply.

       The notmuch-tag(1) command is the only command available for manipulating database contents.

       The notmuch-dump(1) and notmuch-restore(1) commands can be used to create a textual dump  of  email  tags
       for backup purposes, and to restore from that dump.

       The notmuch-config(1) command can be used to get or set settings in the notmuch configuration file.

   CUSTOM COMMANDS
       If  the given command is not known to notmuch, notmuch tries to execute the external notmuch-<subcommand>
       in PATH instead. This allows users to have their own notmuch related tools to  be  run  via  the  notmuch
       command. By design, this does not allow notmuch's own commands to be overridden using external commands.

   OPTION SYNTAX
       All  options accepting an argument can be used with '=' or ':' as a separator. Except for boolean options
       (which would be ambiguous), a space can also be used as a separator. The following are all equivalent:

          notmuch --config=alt-config config get user.name
          notmuch --config:alt-config config get user.name
          notmuch --config alt-config config get user.name

ENVIRONMENT

       The following environment variables can be used to control the behavior of notmuch.

       NOTMUCH_CONFIG
              Specifies the location of the notmuch configuration file. See notmuch-config(1) for details.

       NOTMUCH_DATABASE
              Specifies the location of the notmuch database. See notmuch-config(1) for details.

       NOTMUCH_PROFILE
              Selects among notmuch configurations. See notmuch-config(1) for details.

       NOTMUCH_TALLOC_REPORT
              Location to write a talloc memory usage report. See  talloc_enable_leak_report_full  in  talloc(3)
              for more information.

       NOTMUCH_DEBUG_QUERY
              If  set  to  a  non-empty  value,  the  notmuch  library  will print (to stderr) Xapian queries it
              constructs.

SEE ALSO

       notmuch-address(1),    notmuch-compact(1),    notmuch-config(1),    notmuch-count(1),    notmuch-dump(1),
       notmuch-hooks(5),    notmuch-insert(1),    notmuch-new(1),   notmuch-properties(7),   notmuch-reindex(1),
       notmuch-reply(1),  notmuch-restore(1),   notmuch-search(1),   notmuch-search-terms(7),   notmuch-show(1),
       notmuch-tag(1)

       The notmuch website: https://notmuchmail.org

CONTACT

       Feel  free  to send questions, comments, or kudos to the notmuch mailing list <notmuch@notmuchmail.org> .
       Subscription is not required before posting, but is available from the notmuchmail.org website.

       Real-time interaction with the Notmuch community is available via IRC (server: irc.libera.chat,  channel:
       #notmuch).

AUTHOR

       Carl Worth and many others

COPYRIGHT

       2009-2022, Carl Worth and many others

0.35                                              Mar 29, 2022                                        NOTMUCH(1)