1NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7) notmuch NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)
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6 notmuch-search-terms - syntax for notmuch queries
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9 notmuch count [option ...] <search-term> ...
10 notmuch dump [--gzip] [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--output=<file>] [--]
12 [<search-term> ...]
13 notmuch reindex [option ...] <search-term> ...
15 notmuch search [option ...] <search-term> ...
17 notmuch show [option ...] <search-term> ...
19 notmuch tag +<tag> ... -<tag> [--] <search-term> ...
21
23 Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.
24 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 As a special case, a search string consisting of exactly a single
31 asterisk ("*") will match all messages.
32 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 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 notmuch search 'from:"/bob@.*[.]example[.]com/"'
44 from:<name-or-address> or from:/<regex>/
46 The from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the
47 sender of an email message.
48 to:<name-or-address>
50 The to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any
51 recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
52 subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase> or subject:/<regex>/
54 Any term prefixed with subject: will match only text from the
55 subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is
56 supported by including quotation marks around the phrase, imme‐
57 diately following subject:.
58 attachment:<word>
60 The attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific file‐
61 names (or extensions) of attachments to email messages.
62 mimetype:<word>
64 The mimetype: prefix will be used to match text from the con‐
65 tent-types of MIME parts within email messages (as specified by
66 the sender).
67 tag:<tag> or tag:/<regex>/ or is:<tag> or is:/<regex>/
69 For tag: and is: valid tag values include inbox and unread by
70 default for new messages added by notmuch new as well as any
71 other tag values added manually with notmuch tag.
72 id:<message-id> or mid:<message-id> or mid:/<regex>/
74 For id: and mid:, message ID values are the literal contents of
75 the Message-ID: header of email messages, but without the '<',
76 '>' delimiters.
77 thread:<thread-id>
79 The thread: prefix can be used with the thread ID values that
80 are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email
81 messages). These thread ID values can be seen in the first col‐
82 umn of output from notmuch search
83 thread:{<notmuch query>}
85 If notmuch is built with Xapian Field Processors (see below),
86 threads may be searched for indirectly by providing an arbitrary
87 notmuch query in {}. For example, the following returns threads
88 containing a message from mallory and one (not necessarily the
89 same message) with Subject containing the word "crypto".
90 % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory}" and thread:"{subject:crypto}"'
92 The performance of such queries can vary wildly. To understand
94 this, the user should think of the query thread:{<something>} as
95 expanding to all of the thread IDs which match <something>; not‐
96 much then performs a second search using the expanded query.
97 path:<directory-path> or path:<directory-path>/** or path:/<regex>/
99 The path: prefix searches for email messages that are in partic‐
100 ular directories within the mail store. The directory must be
101 specified relative to the top-level maildir (and without the
102 leading slash). By default, path: matches messages in the speci‐
103 fied directory only. The "/**" suffix can be used to match mes‐
104 sages in the specified directory and all its subdirectories
105 recursively. path:"" matches messages in the root of the mail
106 store and, likewise, path:** matches all messages.
107 path: will find a message if any copy of that message is in the
109 specific directory.
110 folder:<maildir-folder> or folder:/<regex>/
112 The folder: prefix searches for email messages by maildir or MH
113 folder. For MH-style folders, this is equivalent to path:. For
114 maildir, this includes messages in the "new" and "cur" subdirec‐
115 tories. The exact syntax for maildir folders depends on your
116 mail configuration. For maildir++, folder:"" matches the inbox
117 folder (which is the root in maildir++), other folder names
118 always start with ".", and nested folders are separated by "."s,
119 such as folder:.classes.topology. For "file system" maildir, the
120 inbox is typically folder:INBOX and nested folders are separated
121 by slashes, such as folder:classes/topology.
122 folder: will find a message if any copy of that message is in
124 the specific folder.
125 date:<since>..<until> or date:<date>
127 The date: prefix can be used to restrict the results to only
128 messages within a particular time range (based on the Date:
129 header).
130 See DATE AND TIME SEARCH below for details on the range expres‐
132 sion, and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time
133 expressions.
134 The time range can also be specified using timestamps without
136 including the date prefix using a syntax of:
137 <initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
139 Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds
141 since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. Specifying a time range this way
142 is considered legacy and predates the date prefix.
143 lastmod:<initial-revision>..<final-revision>
145 The lastmod: prefix can be used to restrict the result by the
146 database revision number of when messages were last modified
147 (tags were added/removed or filenames changed). This is usually
148 used in conjunction with the --uuid argument to notmuch search
149 to find messages that have changed since an earlier query.
150 query:<name>
152 The query: prefix allows queries to refer to previously saved
153 queries added with notmuch-config(1). Named queries are only
154 available if notmuch is built with Xapian Field Processors (see
155 below).
156 property:<key>=<value>
158 The property: prefix searches for messages with a particular
159 <key>=<value> property pair. Properties are used internally by
160 notmuch (and extensions) to add metadata to messages. A given
161 key can be present on a given message with several different
162 values. See notmuch-properties(7) for more details.
163 Operators
165 In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with
166 Boolean operators (and, or, not, and xor). Each term in the query will
167 be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no explicit operator is
168 provided (except that terms with a common prefix will be implicitly
169 combined with OR). The shorthand '-<term>' can be used for 'not
170 <term>' but unfortunately this does not work at the start of an expres‐
171 sion. Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the
172 Boolean operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by
173 the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized
174 expression).
175 In addition to the standard boolean operators, Xapian provides several
177 operators specific to text searching.
178 notmuch search term1 NEAR term2
180 will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2. The
182 threshold can be set like this:
183 notmuch search term1 NEAR/2 term2
185 The search
187 notmuch search term1 ADJ term2
189 will return results where term1 is within 10 words of term2, but in the
191 same order as in the query. The threshold can be set the same as with
192 NEAR:
193 notmuch search term1 ADJ/7 term2
195 Stemming
197 Stemming in notmuch means that these searches
198 notmuch search detailed
200 notmuch search details
201 notmuch search detail
202 will all return identical results, because Xapian first "reduces" the
204 term to the common stem (here 'detail') and then performs the search.
205 There are two ways to turn this off: a search for a capitalized word
207 will be performed unstemmed, so that one can search for "John" and not
208 get results for "Johnson"; phrase searches are also unstemmed (see
209 below for details). Stemming is currently only supported for English.
210 Searches for words in other languages will be performed unstemmed.
211 Wildcards
213 It is possible to use a trailing '*' as a wildcard. A search for
214 'wildc*' will match 'wildcard', 'wildcat', etc.
215 Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes
217 Xapian (and hence notmuch) prefixes are either boolean, supporting
218 exact matches like "tag:inbox" or probabilistic, supporting a more
219 flexible term based searching. Certain special prefixes are processed
220 by notmuch in a way not strictly fitting either of Xapian's built in
221 styles. The prefixes currently supported by notmuch are as follows.
222 Boolean
224 tag:, id:, thread:, folder:, path:, property:
225 Probabilistic
227 to:, attachment:, mimetype:
228 Special
230 from:, query:, subject:
231 Terms and phrases
233 In general Xapian distinguishes between lists of terms and phrases.
234 Phrases are indicated by double quotes (but beware you probably need to
235 protect those from your shell) and insist that those unstemmed words
236 occur in that order. One useful, but initially surprising feature is
237 that the following are equivalent ways to write the same phrase.
238 · "a list of words"
240 · a-list-of-words
242 · a/list/of/words
244 · a.list.of.words
246 Both parenthesised lists of terms and quoted phrases are ok with proba‐
248 bilistic prefixes such as to:, from:, and subject:. In particular
249 subject:(pizza free)
251 is equivalent to
253 subject:pizza and subject:free
255 Both of these will match a subject "Free Delicious Pizza" while
257 subject:"pizza free"
259 will not.
261 Quoting
263 Double quotes are also used by the notmuch query parser to protect
264 boolean terms, regular expressions, or subqueries containing spaces or
265 other special characters, e.g.
266 tag:"a tag"
268 folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"
270 thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}"
272 As with phrases, you need to protect the double quotes from the shell
274 e.g.
275 % notmuch search 'folder:"/^.*/(Junk|Spam)$/"'
277 % notmuch search 'thread:"{from:mallory and date:2009}" and thread:{to:mallory}'
278
280 notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of express‐
281 ing dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in rela‐
282 tive terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined
283 ("1 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can be combined with
284 relative terms to further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of
285 the syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
286 The range expression
288 date:<since>..<until>
289 The above expression restricts the results to only messages from
291 <since> to <until>, based on the Date: header.
292 <since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
294 In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it could describe
295 (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken as the latest time it
296 could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly, date:january..febru‐
297 ary matches from the beginning of January to the end of February.
298 If specifying a time range using timestamps in conjunction with the
300 date prefix, each timestamp must be preceded by @ (ASCII hex 40). As
301 above, each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds
302 since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. For example:
303 date:@<initial-timestamp>..@<final-timestamp>
304 date:<expr>..! can be used as a shorthand for date:<expr>..<expr>. The
306 expansion takes place before interpretation, and thus, for example,
307 date:monday..! matches from the beginning of Monday until the end of
308 Monday. With Xapian Field Processor support (see below), non-range
309 date queries such as date:yesterday will work, but otherwise will give
310 unexpected results; if in doubt use date:yesterday..!
311 Currently, we do not support spaces in range expressions. You can
313 replace the spaces with '_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases)
314 leave the spaces out altogether. Examples in this man page use spaces
315 for clarity.
316 Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's possi‐
318 ble to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start
319 or end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on
320 open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.
321 Relative date and time
323 [N|number] (years|months|weeks|days|hours|hrs|minutes|mins|sec‐
324 onds|secs) [...]
325 All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
327 Units can be abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous
329 single m being m for minutes and M for months.
330 Number can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred.
332 Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this" (e.g., "last
333 week" or "this month").
334 When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date and time
336 specification will be relative from the specified absolute date and
337 time.
338 Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
340 Supported absolute time formats
342 · H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)]
343 · H[H] (am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)
345 · HHMMSS
347 · now
349 · noon
351 · midnight
353 · Examples: 17:05, 5pm
355 Supported absolute date formats
357 · YYYY-MM[-DD]
358 · DD-MM[-[YY]YY]
360 · MM-YYYY
362 · M[M]/D[D][/[YY]YY]
364 · M[M]/YYYY
366 · D[D].M[M][.[YY]YY]
368 · D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]
370 · Mon[thname] D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] [YYYY]
372 · Wee[kday]
374 Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
376 Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
378 Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
380 Time zones
382 · (+|-)HH:MM
383 · (+|-)HH[MM]
385 Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
387
389 Certain optional features of the notmuch query processor rely on the
390 presence of the Xapian field processor API. You can determine if your
391 notmuch was built against a sufficiently recent version of Xapian by
392 running
393 % notmuch config get built_with.field_processor
395 Currently the following features require field processor support:
397 · non-range date queries, e.g. "date:today"
399 · named queries e.g. "query:my_special_query"
401 · regular expression searches, e.g. "subject:/^\[SPAM\]/"
403 · thread subqueries, e.g. "thread:{from:bob}"
405
407 notmuch(1), notmuch-config(1), notmuch-count(1), notmuch-dump(1), not‐
408 much-hooks(5), notmuch-insert(1), notmuch-new(1), notmuch-reindex(1),
409 notmuch-properties(1), *notmuch-reply(1), notmuch-restore(1), not‐
410 much-search(1), *notmuch-show(1), notmuch-tag(1)
411
413 Carl Worth and many others
414
416 2009-2019, Carl Worth and many others
4170.28.4 May 06, 2019 NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS(7)