.TH MU 1 "February 2020" "User Manuals" .SH NAME mu \- a set of tools to deal with Maildirs and message files, in particular to index and search e-mail messages. .SH SYNOPSIS In alphabetical order: .B mu [options] general mu command. .B mu add add specific messages to the database. See .BR mu-add(1) .B mu cfind [options] [] find contacts. See .BR mu-cfind(1) .B mu extract [options] [] [] extract attachments and other MIME-parts. See .BR mu-extract(1) .B mu find [options] find messages. See .BR mu-find(1) .B mu help [command] get help for some command. See .BR mu-help(1) .B mu index [options] (re)index the messages in a Maildir. See .BR mu-index(1) .B mu info [options] show information about the mu database .BR mu-info(1) .B mu init [options] initialize the mu database .BR mu-init(1) .B mu mkdir [options] [] create a new Maildir. See .BR mu-mkdir(1) .B mu remove [options] remove specific messages from the database. See .BR mu-remove(1) .B mu script [options] run a mu (Guile) script. See .BR mu-script(1) .B mu server [options] start a server process (for \fBmu4e\fR-internal use). See .BR mu-server(1) .B mu view [] view a specific message. See .BR mu-view(1) .SH DESCRIPTION \fBmu\fR is a set of tools for dealing with Maildirs and the e-mail messages in them. \fBmu\fR's main purpose is to enable searching of e-mail messages. It does so by periodically scanning a Maildir directory tree and analyzing the e-mail messages found (this is called 'indexing'). The results of this analysis are stored in a database, which can then be queried. In addition to indexing and searching, \fBmu\fR also offers functionality for viewing messages, extracting attachments and creating maildirs, and searching and exporting contact information. \fBmu\fR can be used from the command line or can be integrated with various e-mail clients. This manpage gives a general overview of the available commands (\fBindex\fR, \fBfind\fR, etc.); each \fBmu\fR command has its own man-page as well. .SH COLORS Some \fBmu\fR sub-commands support colorized output, and do so by default. If you don't want colors, you can use \fI--nocolor\fR. Currently, \fBmu find\fR, \fBmu view\fR, \fBmu cfind\fR and \fBmu extract\fR support colors. .SH ENCODING \fBmu\fR's output is in the current locale, with the exceptions of the output specifically meant for output to UTF8-encoded files. In practice, this means that the output of commands \fBindex\fR, \fBview\fR, \fBextract\fR is always encoded according to the current locale. The same is true for \fBfind\fR and \fBcfind\fR, with some exceptions, where the output is always UTF-8, regardless of the locale. For \fBcfind\fR the exception is \fI--format=bbdb\fR. This is hard-coded to UTF-8, and as such specified in the output-file, so emacs/bbdb can handle it correctly without guessing. For \fBfind\fR the output is encoded according the locale for \fI--format=plain\fR (the default), and UTF-8 for all other formats (\fIjson\fR, \fIsexp\fR, \fIxml\fR). .SH DATABASE AND FILE Commands \fBmu index\fR and \fBfind\fR and \fBcfind\fR work with the database, while the other ones work on individual mail files. Hence, running \fBview\fR, \fBmkdir\fR and \fBextract\fR does not require the mu database. The various commands are discussed in more detail in their own separate man-pages; here the general options are discussed. .SH OPTIONS \fBmu\fR offers several general options that apply to all commands, including \fBmu\fR without any command. .TP \fB\-\-muhome\fR use an alternative directory to store and read the database, write the logs, etc. By default, \fBmu\fR uses XDG Base Directory Specification (e.g. on Linux by default \fI~/.cache/mu\fR, \fI~/.config/mu\fR). Earlier versions of \fBmu\fR defaulted to \fI~/.mu\fR, which now requires \fI\-\-muhome=~/.mu\fR. .TP \fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-debug\fR makes \fBmu\fR generate extra debug information, useful for debugging the program itself. By default, debug information goes to the log file, \fI~/.cache/mu/mu.log\fR. It can safely be deleted when \fBmu\fR is not running. When running with \fB--debug\fR option, the log file can grow rather quickly. See the note on logging below. .TP \fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR causes \fBmu\fR not to output informational messages and progress information to standard output, but only to the log file. Error messages will still be sent to standard error. Note that \fBmu index\fR is \fBmuch\fR faster with \fB\-\-quiet\fR, so it is recommended you use this option when using \fBmu\fR from scripts etc. .TP \fB\-\-log-stderr\fR causes \fBmu\fR to \fBnot\fR output log messages to standard error, in addition to sending them to the log file. .TP \fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR prints \fBmu\fR version and copyright information. .TP \fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR lists the various command line options. .SH ERROR CODES The various mu subcommands typically exit with 0 (zero) upon success, and non-zero when some error occurred. .SH BUGS Please report bugs if you find them: .BR https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues .SH AUTHOR Dirk-Jan C. Binnema .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR mu-index (1), mu-find (1), mu-cfind (1), mu-mkdir (1), mu-view (1), .BR mu-extract (1), mu-easy (1), mu-bookmarks (5), mu-query (7) .BR https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html