1NOTMUCH-SHOW(1) notmuch NOTMUCH-SHOW(1)
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6 notmuch-show - show messages matching the given search terms
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9 notmuch show [option ...] <search-term> ...
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12 Shows all messages matching the search terms.
13 See notmuch-search-terms(7) for details of the supported syntax for
15 <search-terms>.
16 The messages will be grouped and sorted based on the threading (all
18 replies to a particular message will appear immediately after that mes‐
19 sage in date order). The output is not indented by default, but depth
20 tags are printed so that proper indentation can be performed by a
21 post-processor (such as the emacs interface to notmuch).
22 Supported options for show include
24 --entire-thread=(true|false)
26 If true, notmuch show outputs all messages in the thread of any
27 message matching the search terms; if false, it outputs only the
28 matching messages. For --format=json and --format=sexp this de‐
29 faults to true. For other formats, this defaults to false.
30 --format=(text|json|sexp|mbox|raw)
32 text (default for messages)
34 The default plain-text format has all text-content MIME
35 parts decoded. Various components in the output, (mes‐
36 sage, header, body, attachment, and MIME part), will be
37 delimited by easily-parsed markers. Each marker consists
38 of a Control-L character (ASCII decimal 12), the name of
39 the marker, and then either an opening or closing brace,
40 ('{' or '}'), to either open or close the component. For
41 a multipart MIME message, these parts will be nested.
42 json The output is formatted with Javascript Object Notation
44 (JSON). This format is more robust than the text format
45 for automated processing. The nested structure of multi‐
46 part MIME messages is reflected in nested JSON output. By
47 default JSON output includes all messages in a matching
48 thread; that is, by default, --format=json sets --en‐
49 tire-thread. The caller can disable this behaviour by
50 setting --entire-thread=false. The JSON output is always
51 encoded as UTF-8 and any message content included in the
52 output will be charset-converted to UTF-8.
53 sexp The output is formatted as the Lisp s-expression (sexp)
55 equivalent of the JSON format above. Objects are format‐
56 ted as property lists whose keys are keywords (symbols
57 preceded by a colon). True is formatted as t and both
58 false and null are formatted as nil. As for JSON, the
59 s-expression output is always encoded as UTF-8.
60 mbox All matching messages are output in the traditional, Unix
62 mbox format with each message being prefixed by a line
63 beginning with "From " and a blank line separating each
64 message. Lines in the message content beginning with
65 "From " (preceded by zero or more '>' characters) have an
66 additional '>' character added. This reversible escaping
67 is termed "mboxrd" format and described in detail here:
68 http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html
69 raw (default if --part is given)
71 Write the raw bytes of the given MIME part of a message
72 to standard out. For this format, it is an error to spec‐
73 ify a query that matches more than one message.
74 If the specified part is a leaf part, this outputs the
76 body of the part after performing content transfer decod‐
77 ing (but no charset conversion). This is suitable for
78 saving attachments, for example.
79 For a multipart or message part, the output includes the
81 part headers as well as the body (including all child
82 parts). No decoding is performed because multipart and
83 message parts cannot have non-trivial content transfer
84 encoding. Consumers of this may need to implement MIME
85 decoding and similar functions.
86 --format-version=N
88 Use the specified structured output format version. This is in‐
89 tended for programs that invoke notmuch(1) internally. If omit‐
90 ted, the latest supported version will be used.
91 --part=N
93 Output the single decoded MIME part N of a single message. The
94 search terms must match only a single message. Message parts are
95 numbered in a depth-first walk of the message MIME structure,
96 and are identified in the 'json', 'sexp' or 'text' output for‐
97 mats.
98 Note that even a message with no MIME structure or a single body
100 part still has two MIME parts: part 0 is the whole message
101 (headers and body) and part 1 is just the body.
102 --verify
104 Compute and report the validity of any MIME cryptographic signa‐
105 tures found in the selected content (e.g., "multipart/signed"
106 parts). Status of the signature will be reported (currently only
107 supported with --format=json and --format=sexp), and the multi‐
108 part/signed part will be replaced by the signed data.
109 --decrypt=(false|auto|true|stash)
111 If true, decrypt any MIME encrypted parts found in the selected
112 content (e.g., "multipart/encrypted" parts). Status of the de‐
113 cryption will be reported (currently only supported with --for‐
114 mat=json and --format=sexp) and on successful decryption the
115 multipart/encrypted part will be replaced by the decrypted con‐
116 tent.
117 stash behaves like true, but upon successful decryption it will
119 also stash the message's session key in the database, and index
120 the cleartext of the message, enabling automatic decryption in
121 the future.
122 If auto, and a session key is already known for the message,
124 then it will be decrypted, but notmuch will not try to access
125 the user's keys.
126 Use false to avoid even automatic decryption.
128 Non-automatic decryption (stash or true, in the absence of a
130 stashed session key) expects a functioning gpg-agent(1) to pro‐
131 vide any needed credentials. Without one, the decryption will
132 fail.
133 Note: setting either true or stash here implies --verify.
135 Here is a table that summarizes each of these policies:
137 ┌──────────────┬───────┬──────┬──────┬───────┐
139 │ │ false │ auto │ true │ stash │
140 ├──────────────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼───────┤
141 │Show cleart‐ │ │ X │ X │ X │
142 │ext if ses‐ │ │ │ │ │
143 │sion key is │ │ │ │ │
144 │already known │ │ │ │ │
145 ├──────────────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼───────┤
146 │Use secret │ │ │ X │ X │
147 │keys to show │ │ │ │ │
148 │cleartext │ │ │ │ │
149 ├──────────────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼───────┤
150 │Stash any │ │ │ │ X │
151 │newly recov‐ │ │ │ │ │
152 │ered session │ │ │ │ │
153 │keys, rein‐ │ │ │ │ │
154 │dexing mes‐ │ │ │ │ │
155 │sage if found │ │ │ │ │
156 └──────────────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴───────┘
157 Note: --decrypt=stash requires write access to the database.
159 Otherwise, notmuch show operates entirely in read-only mode.
160 Default: auto
162 --exclude=(true|false)
164 Specify whether to omit threads only matching search.ex‐
165 clude_tags from the search results (the default) or not. In ei‐
166 ther case the excluded message will be marked with the exclude
167 flag (except when output=mbox when there is nowhere to put the
168 flag).
169 If --entire-thread is specified then complete threads are re‐
171 turned regardless (with the excluded flag being set when appro‐
172 priate) but threads that only match in an excluded message are
173 not returned when --exclude=true.
174 The default is --exclude=true.
176 --body=(true|false)
178 If true (the default) notmuch show includes the bodies of the
179 messages in the output; if false, bodies are omitted.
180 --body=false is only implemented for the text, json and sexp
181 formats and it is incompatible with --part > 0.
182 This is useful if the caller only needs the headers as body-less
184 output is much faster and substantially smaller.
185 --include-html
187 Include "text/html" parts as part of the output (currently only
188 supported with --format=text, --format=json and --format=sexp).
189 By default, unless --part=N is used to select a specific part or
190 --include-html is used to include all "text/html" parts, no part
191 with content type "text/html" is included in the output.
192 A common use of notmuch show is to display a single thread of email
194 messages. For this, use a search term of "thread:<thread-id>" as can be
195 seen in the first column of output from the notmuch search command.
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198 This command supports the following special exit status codes
199 20 The requested format version is too old.
201 21 The requested format version is too new.
203
205 notmuch(1), notmuch-config(1), notmuch-count(1), notmuch-dump(1), not‐
206 much-hooks(5), notmuch-insert(1), notmuch-new(1), notmuch-reply(1),
207 notmuch-restore(1), notmuch-search(1), notmuch-search-terms(7), not‐
208 much-tag(1)
209
211 Carl Worth and many others
212
214 2009-2021, Carl Worth and many others
2150.32.1 May 17, 2021 NOTMUCH-SHOW(1)