1MU(FIND) User Manuals MU(FIND)
2
6 mu find - find e-mail messages in the mu database.
7
10 mu find [options] <search expression>
11
14 mu find is the mu command for searching e-mail message that were stored
15 earlier using mu index(1).
16
19 mu find starts a search for messages in the database that match some
20 search pattern. The search patterns are described in detail in mu-
21 query(7).
22 For example:
24 $ mu find subject:snow and date:2009..
26 would find all messages in 2009 with 'snow' in the subject field, e.g:
28 2009-03-05 17:57:33 EET Lucia <lucia@example.com> running in the snow
30 2009-03-05 18:38:24 EET Marius <marius@foobar.com> Re: running in the snow
31 Note, this the default, plain-text output, which is the default, so you
33 don't have to use --format=plain. For other types of output (such as
34 symlinks, XML or s-expressions), see the discussion in the OPTIONS-sec‐
35 tion below about --format.
36 The search pattern is taken as a command-line parameter. If the search
38 parameter consists of multiple parts (as in the example) they are
39 treated as if there were a logical and between them.
40 For details on the possible queries, see mu-query(7).
42
45 Note, some of the important options are described in the mu(1) man-page
46 and not here, as they apply to multiple mu-commands.
47 The find-command has various options that influence the way mu displays
49 the results. If you don't specify anything, the defaults are
50 --fields="d f s", --sortfield=date and --reverse.
51 -f, --fields=<fields>
54 specifies a string that determines which fields are shown in the
55 output. This string consists of a number of characters (such as
56 's' for subject or 'f' for from), which will replace with the
57 actual field in the output. Fields that are not known will be
58 output as-is, allowing for some simple formatting.
59 For example:
61 $ mu find subject:snow --fields "d f s"
63 would list the date, subject and sender of all messages with
65 'snow' in the their subject.
66 The table of replacement characters is superset of the list men‐
68 tions for search parameters, such as:
69 t to: recipient
70 d Sent date of the message
71 f Message sender (from:)
72 g Message flags (flags)
73 l Full path to the message (location)
74 s Message subject
75 i Message-id
76 m maildir
77 For the complete, up-to-date list, see: mu-fields(1)
79 The message flags are described in mu-query(7). As an example, a
81 message which is 'seen', has an attachment and is signed would
82 have 'asz' as its corresponding output string, while an en‐
83 crypted new message would have 'nx'.
84 -s, --sortfield =<field> and -z,
87 --reverse specifies the field to sort the search results by, and
88 the direction (i.e., 'reverse' means that the sort should be re‐
89 verted - Z-A). Examples include:
90 cc,c Cc (carbon-copy) recipient(s)
92 date,d Message sent date
93 from,f Message sender
94 maildir,m Maildir
95 msgid,i Message id
96 prio,p Nessage priority
97 subject,s Message subject
98 to,t To:-recipient(s)
99 For the complete list use can use the mu fields command; see:
101 mu-fields(1)
102 Thus, for example, to sort messages by date, you could specify:
104 $ mu find fahrrad --fields "d f s" --sortfield=date --reverse
106 Note, if you specify a sortfield, by default, messages are
108 sorted in reverse (descending) order (e.g., from lowest to high‐
109 est). This is usually a good choice, but for dates it may be
110 more useful to sort in the opposite direction.
111 -n, --maxnum=<number>
114 If > 0, display maximally that number of entries. If not speci‐
115 fied, all matching entries are displayed.
116 --summary-len=<number>
119 If > 0, use that number of lines of the message to provide a
120 summary.
121 --format=plain|links|xquery|xml|sexp
124 output results in the specified format.
125 The default is plain, i.e normal output with one line per mes‐
127 sage.
128 links outputs the results as a maildir with symbolic links to
130 the found messages. This enables easy integration with mail-
131 clients (see below for more information).
132 xml formats the search results as XML.
134 sexp formats the search results as an s-expression as used in
136 Lisp programming environments.
137 xquery shows the Xapian query corresponding to your search
139 terms. This is meant for for debugging purposes.
140 --linksdir =<dir> and -c, --clearlinks
143 output the results as a maildir with symbolic links to the found
144 messages. This enables easy integration with mail-clients (see
145 below for more information). mu will create the maildir if it
146 does not exist yet.
147 If you specify --clearlinks, all existing symlinks will be
149 cleared from the target directories; this allows for re-use of
150 the same maildir. However, this option will delete any symlink
151 it finds, so be careful.
152 $ mu find grolsch --format=links --linksdir=~/Maildir/search --clearlinks
154 will store links to found messages in ~/Maildir/search. If the
156 directory does not exist yet, it will be created.
157 Note: when mu creates a Maildir for these links, it automati‐
159 cally inserts a .noindex file, to exclude the directory from mu
160 index.
161 --after=<timestamp> only show messages whose message files were
164 last modified (mtime) after <timestamp>. <timestamp> is a UNIX
165 time_t value, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 (in UTC).
166 From the command line, you can use the date command to get this
168 value. For example, only consider messages modified (or created)
169 in the last 5 minutes, you could specify
170 --after=`date +%s --date='5 min ago'`
171 This is assuming the GNU date command.
172 --exec=<command>
176 the --exec command causes the command to be executed on each
177 matched message; for example, to see the raw text of all mes‐
178 sages matching 'milkshake', you could use:
179 $ mu find milkshake --exec='less'
180 which is roughly equivalent to:
181 $ mu find milkshake --fields="l" | xargs less
182 -b, --bookmark=<bookmark>
186 use a bookmarked search query. Using this option, a query from
187 your bookmark file will be prepended to other search queries.
188 See mu-bookmarks(1) for the details of the bookmarks file.
189 --skip-dups,-u whenever there are multiple messages with the
193 same name, only show the first one. This is useful if you have
194 copies of the same message, which is a common occurrence when
195 using e.g. Gmail together with offlineimap.
196 --include-related,-r also include messages being referred to by
199 the matched messages -- i.e.. include messages that are part of
200 the same message thread as some matched messages. This is useful
201 if you want Gmail-style 'conversations'. Note, finding these re‐
202 lated messages make searches slower.
203 -t, --threads show messages in a 'threaded' format --
206 that is, with indentation and arrows showing the conversation
207 threads in the list of matching messages. When using this, sort‐
208 ing is chronological (by date), based on the newest message in a
209 thread.
210 Messages in the threaded list are indented based on the depth in
212 the discussion, and are prefix with a kind of arrow with thread-
213 related information about the message, as in the following ta‐
214 ble:
215 | | normal | orphan | duplicate |
217 |-------------+--------+--------+-----------|
218 | first child | `-> | `*> | `=> |
219 | other | |-> | |*> | |=> |
220 Here, an 'orphan' is a message without a parent message (in the
222 list of matches), and a duplicate is a message whose message-id
223 was already seen before; not this may not really be the same
224 message, if the message-id was copied.
225 The algorithm used for determining the threads is based on Jamie
227 Zawinksi's description: http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html
228 Integrating mu find with mail clients
232 mutt
233 For mutt you can use the following in your muttrc; pressing the
235 F8 key will start a search, and F9 will take you to the results.
236 # mutt macros for mu
238 macro index <F8> "<shell-escape>mu find --clearlinks --format=links --linksdir=~/Maildir/search " \
239 "mu find"
240 macro index <F9> "<change-folder-readonly>~/Maildir/search" \
241 "mu find results"
242 Wanderlust
247 Sam B suggested the following on the mu-mailing list. First add
249 the following to your Wanderlust configuration file:
250 (require 'elmo-search)
252 (elmo-search-register-engine
253 'mu 'local-file
254 :prog "/usr/local/bin/mu" ;; or wherever you've installed it
255 :args '("find" pattern "--fields" "l") :charset 'utf-8)
256 (setq elmo-search-default-engine 'mu)
258 ;; for when you type "g" in folder or summary.
259 (setq wl-default-spec "[")
260 Now, you can search using the g key binding; you can also create
262 permanent virtual folders when the messages matching some ex‐
263 pression by adding something like the following to your folders
264 file.
265 VFolders {
267 [date:today..now]!mu "Today"
268 [size:1m..100m]!mu "Big"
270 [flag:unread]!mu "Unread"
272 }
273 After restarting Wanderlust, the virtual folders should appear.
275
278 mu find returns 0 upon successful completion; if the search was per‐
279 formed, there needs to be a least one match. Anything else leads to a
280 non-zero return value, for example:
281 | code | meaning |
283 |------+--------------------------------|
284 | 0 | ok |
285 | 1 | general error |
286 | 4 | no matches (for 'mu find') |
287
291 mu find output is encoded according the locale for --format=plain (the
292 default), and UTF-8 for all other formats (sexp, xml).
293
297 Please report bugs if you find them: https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues
298 If you have specific messages which are not matched correctly, please
299 attach them (appropriately censored if needed).
300
303 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
304
307 mu(1), mu-index(1), mu-query(7) mu-fields(1)
30829 April 2022 1 MU(FIND)