1NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)             notmuch            NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)
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NAME

6       notmuch-search-terms - syntax for notmuch queries
7

SYNOPSIS

9       notmuch count [option ...] <search-term> ...
10
11       notmuch dump [--gzip] [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--output=<file>] [--]
12       [<search-term> ...]
13
14       notmuch reindex [option ...] <search-term> ...
15
16       notmuch search [option ...] <search-term> ...
17
18       notmuch show [option ...] <search-term> ...
19
20       notmuch tag +<tag> ... -<tag> [--] <search-term> ...
21

DESCRIPTION

23       Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.
24
25       The search terms can consist of free-form  text  (and  quoted  phrases)
26       which   will   match  all  messages  that  contain  all  of  the  given
27       terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or recipi‐
28       ent headers.
29
30       As  a  special  case,  a  search  string consisting of exactly a single
31       asterisk ("*") will match all messages.
32
33   Search prefixes
34       In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used  to  force
35       terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where <brackets>
36       indicate user-supplied values).
37
38       If notmuch is built with Xapian Field Processors (see  below)  some  of
39       the  prefixes  with  <regex>  forms  can  be  also used to restrict the
40       results  to  those  whose  value  matches  a  regular  expression  (see
41       regex(7)) delimited with //, for example:
42
43          notmuch search 'from:"/bob@.*[.]example[.]com/"'
44
45       body:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
46              Match terms in the body of messages.
47
48       from:<name-or-address> or from:/<regex>/
49              The  from:  prefix  is  used to match the name or address of the
50              sender of an email message.
51
52       to:<name-or-address>
53              The to: prefix is used to match the names or  addresses  of  any
54              recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
55
56       subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase> or subject:/<regex>/
57              Any  term  prefixed  with subject: will match only text from the
58              subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in  the  subject  is
59              supported  by including quotation marks around the phrase, imme‐
60              diately following subject:.
61
62       attachment:<word>
63              The attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific  file‐
64              names (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.
65
66       mimetype:<word>
67              The  mimetype:  prefix  will be used to match text from the con‐
68              tent-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified  by
69              the sender).
70
71       tag:<tag> or tag:/<regex>/ or is:<tag> or is:/<regex>/
72              For  tag:  and  is: valid tag values include inbox and unread by
73              default for new messages added by notmuch new  as  well  as  any
74              other tag values added manually with notmuch tag.
75
76       id:<message-id> or mid:<message-id> or mid:/<regex>/
77              For  id: and mid:, message ID values are the literal contents of
78              the Message-ID: header of email messages, but without  the  '<',
79              '>' delimiters.
80
81       thread:<thread-id>
82              The  thread:  prefix  can be used with the thread ID values that
83              are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in  email
84              messages).  These thread ID values can be seen in the first col‐
85              umn of output from notmuch search
86
87       thread:{<notmuch query>}
88              If notmuch is built with Xapian Field  Processors  (see  below),
89              threads may be searched for indirectly by providing an arbitrary
90              notmuch query in {}. For example, the following returns  threads
91              containing  a  message from mallory and one (not necessarily the
92              same message) with Subject containing the word "crypto".
93
94                 % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory}" and thread:"{subject:crypto}"'
95
96              The performance of such queries can vary wildly.  To  understand
97              this, the user should think of the query thread:{<something>} as
98              expanding to all of the thread IDs which match <something>; not‐
99              much then performs a second search using the expanded query.
100
101       path:<directory-path> or path:<directory-path>/** or path:/<regex>/
102              The path: prefix searches for email messages that are in partic‐
103              ular directories within the mail store. The  directory  must  be
104              specified  relative  to  the  top-level maildir (and without the
105              leading slash). By default, path: matches messages in the speci‐
106              fied  directory only. The "/**" suffix can be used to match mes‐
107              sages in the specified  directory  and  all  its  subdirectories
108              recursively.  path:""  matches  messages in the root of the mail
109              store and, likewise, path:** matches all messages.
110
111              path: will find a message if any copy of that message is in  the
112              specific directory.
113
114       folder:<maildir-folder> or folder:/<regex>/
115              The  folder: prefix searches for email messages by maildir or MH
116              folder. For MH-style folders, this is equivalent to  path:.  For
117              maildir, this includes messages in the "new" and "cur" subdirec‐
118              tories. The exact syntax for maildir  folders  depends  on  your
119              mail  configuration.  For maildir++, folder:"" matches the inbox
120              folder (which is the root  in  maildir++),  other  folder  names
121              always start with ".", and nested folders are separated by "."s,
122              such as folder:.classes.topology. For "file system" maildir, the
123              inbox is typically folder:INBOX and nested folders are separated
124              by slashes, such as folder:classes/topology.
125
126              folder: will find a message if any copy of that  message  is  in
127              the specific folder.
128
129       date:<since>..<until> or date:<date>
130              The  date:  prefix  can  be used to restrict the results to only
131              messages within a particular time  range  (based  on  the  Date:
132              header).
133
134              See  DATE AND TIME SEARCH below for details on the range expres‐
135              sion, and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time
136              expressions.
137
138              The  time  range  can also be specified using timestamps without
139              including the date prefix using a syntax of:
140
141              <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
142
143              Each timestamp is a number representing the  number  of  seconds
144              since  1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. Specifying a time range this way
145              is considered legacy and predates the date prefix.
146
147       lastmod:<initial-revision>..<final-revision>
148              The lastmod: prefix can be used to restrict the  result  by  the
149              database  revision  number  of  when messages were last modified
150              (tags were added/removed or filenames changed). This is  usually
151              used  in  conjunction with the --uuid argument to notmuch search
152              to find messages that have changed since an earlier query.
153
154       query:<name>
155              The query: prefix allows queries to refer  to  previously  saved
156              queries  added  with  notmuch-config(1).  Named queries are only
157              available if notmuch is built with Xapian Field Processors  (see
158              below).
159
160       property:<key>=<value>
161              The  property:  prefix  searches  for messages with a particular
162              <key>=<value> property pair. Properties are used  internally  by
163              notmuch  (and  extensions)  to add metadata to messages. A given
164              key can be present on a given  message  with  several  different
165              values.  See notmuch-properties(7) for more details.
166
167       User  defined  prefixes  are  also supported, see notmuch-config(1) for
168       details.
169
170   Operators
171       In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can  be  combined  with
172       Boolean  operators (and, or, not, and xor). Each term in the query will
173       be implicitly connected by a logical AND if  no  explicit  operator  is
174       provided  (except  that  terms  with a common prefix will be implicitly
175       combined with OR).  The  shorthand  '-<term>'  can  be  used  for  'not
176       <term>' but unfortunately this does not work at the start of an expres‐
177       sion.  Parentheses can also be used to control the combination  of  the
178       Boolean operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by
179       the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized
180       expression).
181
182       In  addition to the standard boolean operators, Xapian provides several
183       operators specific to text searching.
184
185          notmuch search term1 NEAR term2
186
187       will return results where term1  is  within  10  words  of  term2.  The
188       threshold can be set like this:
189
190          notmuch search term1 NEAR/2 term2
191
192       The search
193
194          notmuch search term1 ADJ term2
195
196       will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2, but in the
197       same order as in the query. The threshold can be set the same  as  with
198       NEAR:
199
200          notmuch search term1 ADJ/7 term2
201
202   Stemming
203       Stemming in notmuch means that these searches
204
205          notmuch search detailed
206          notmuch search details
207          notmuch search detail
208
209       will  all  return identical results, because Xapian first "reduces" the
210       term to the common stem (here 'detail') and then performs the search.
211
212       There are two ways to turn this off: a search for  a  capitalized  word
213       will  be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for "John" and not
214       get results for "Johnson"; phrase  searches  are  also  unstemmed  (see
215       below  for details).  Stemming is currently only supported for English.
216       Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
217
218   Wildcards
219       It is possible to use a trailing  '*'  as  a  wildcard.  A  search  for
220       'wildc*' will match 'wildcard', 'wildcat', etc.
221
222   Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes
223       Xapian  (and  hence  notmuch)  prefixes  are either boolean, supporting
224       exact matches like "tag:inbox"  or  probabilistic,  supporting  a  more
225       flexible  term  based searching. Certain special prefixes are processed
226       by notmuch in a way not strictly fitting either of  Xapian's  built  in
227       styles. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as follows.
228
229       Boolean
230              tag:, id:, thread:, folder:, path:, property:
231
232       Probabilistic
233              body:, to:, attachment:, mimetype:
234
235       Special
236              from:, query:, subject:
237
238   Terms and phrases
239       In  general  Xapian  distinguishes  between lists of terms and phrases.
240       Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you probably need to
241       protect  those  from  your shell) and insist that those unstemmed words
242       occur in that order. One useful, but initially  surprising  feature  is
243       that the following are equivalent ways to write the same phrase.
244
245       · "a list of words"
246
247       · a-list-of-words
248
249       · a/list/of/words
250
251       · a.list.of.words
252
253       Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with proba‐
254       bilistic prefixes such as to:, from:, and subject:. In particular
255
256          subject:(pizza free)
257
258       is equivalent to
259
260          subject:pizza and subject:free
261
262       Both of these will match a subject "Free Delicious Pizza" while
263
264          subject:"pizza free"
265
266       will not.
267
268   Quoting
269       Double quotes are also used by the  notmuch  query  parser  to  protect
270       boolean  terms, regular expressions, or subqueries containing spaces or
271       other special characters, e.g.
272
273          tag:"a tag"
274
275          folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"
276
277          thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}"
278
279       As with phrases, you need to protect the double quotes from  the  shell
280       e.g.
281
282          % notmuch search 'folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"'
283          % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}" and thread:{to:mallory}'
284
286       notmuch  understands a variety of standard and natural ways of express‐
287       ing dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in rela‐
288       tive  terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined
289       ("1 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can  be  combined  with
290       relative  terms  to  further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of
291       the syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
292
293   The range expression
294       date:<since>..<until>
295
296       The above expression  restricts  the  results  to  only  messages  from
297       <since> to <until>, based on the Date: header.
298
299       <since>  and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
300       In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it  could  describe
301       (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken as the latest time it
302       could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly,  date:january..febru‐
303       ary matches from the beginning of January to the end of February.
304
305       If  specifying  a  time  range using timestamps in conjunction with the
306       date prefix, each timestamp must be preceded by @ (ASCII  hex  40).  As
307       above,  each  timestamp  is a number representing the number of seconds
308       since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. For example:
309          date:@<initial-timestamp>..@<final-timestamp>
310
311       date:<expr>..! can be used as a shorthand for date:<expr>..<expr>.  The
312       expansion  takes  place  before  interpretation, and thus, for example,
313       date:monday..! matches from the beginning of Monday until  the  end  of
314       Monday.   With  Xapian  Field  Processor support (see below), non-range
315       date queries such as date:yesterday will work, but otherwise will  give
316       unexpected results; if in doubt use date:yesterday..!
317
318       Currently,  we  do  not  support  spaces  in range expressions. You can
319       replace the spaces with '_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases)
320       leave  the  spaces out altogether. Examples in this man page use spaces
321       for clarity.
322
323       Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's  possi‐
324       ble  to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start
325       or end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on
326       open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.
327
328   Relative date and time
329       [N|number]         (years|months|weeks|days|hours|hrs|minutes|mins|sec‐
330       onds|secs) [...]
331
332       All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
333
334       Units can be abbreviated to any length, with  the  otherwise  ambiguous
335       single m being m for minutes and M for months.
336
337       Number  can  also  be  written  out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred.
338       Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this" (e.g., "last
339       week" or "this month").
340
341       When  combined  with absolute date and time, the relative date and time
342       specification will be relative from the  specified  absolute  date  and
343       time.
344
345       Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
346
347   Supported absolute time formats
348       · H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)]
349
350       · H[H] (am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)
351
352       · HHMMSS
353
354       · now
355
356       · noon
357
358       · midnight
359
360       · Examples: 17:05, 5pm
361
362   Supported absolute date formats
363       · YYYY-MM[-DD]
364
365       · DD-MM[-[YY]YY]
366
367       · MM-YYYY
368
369       · M[M]/D[D][/[YY]YY]
370
371       · M[M]/YYYY
372
373       · D[D].M[M][.[YY]YY]
374
375       · D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]
376
377       · Mon[thname] D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] [YYYY]
378
379       · Wee[kday]
380
381       Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
382
383       Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
384
385       Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
386
387   Time zones
388       · (+|-)HH:MM
389
390       · (+|-)HH[MM]
391
392       Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
393

XAPIAN FIELD PROCESSORS

395       Certain  optional  features  of the notmuch query processor rely on the
396       presence of the Xapian field processor API. You can determine  if  your
397       notmuch  was  built  against a sufficiently recent version of Xapian by
398       running
399
400          % notmuch config get built_with.field_processor
401
402       Currently the following features require field processor support:
403
404       · non-range date queries, e.g. "date:today"
405
406       · named queries e.g. "query:my_special_query"
407
408       · regular expression searches, e.g. "subject:/^\[SPAM\]/"
409
410       · thread subqueries, e.g. "thread:{from:bob}"
411

SEE ALSO

413       notmuch(1), notmuch-config(1), notmuch-count(1), notmuch-dump(1),  not‐
414       much-hooks(5),  notmuch-insert(1),  notmuch-new(1), notmuch-reindex(1),
415       notmuch-properties(1),  *notmuch-reply(1),   notmuch-restore(1),   not‐
416       much-search(1), *notmuch-show(1), notmuch-tag(1)
417

AUTHOR

419       Carl Worth and many others
420
422       2009-2020, Carl Worth and many others
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4270.29.3                           Jan 29, 2020          NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)
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