NAME¶
notmuch-search-terms - syntax for notmuch queries
SYNOPSIS¶
notmuch count [option ...] <
search-term> ...
notmuch dump [--format=(batch-tag|sup)] [--]
[--output=<
file>] [--] [<
search-term> ...]
notmuch search [option ...] <
search-term> ...
notmuch show [option ...] <
search-term> ...
notmuch tag +<
tag> ... -<
tag> [--]
<
search-term> ...
DESCRIPTION¶
Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms.
The search terms can consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases) which will
match all messages that contain all of the given terms/phrases in the body,
the subject, or any of the sender or recipient headers.
As a special case, a search string consisting of exactly a single asterisk
("*") will match all messages.
In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force terms to
match against specific portions of an email, (where <brackets> indicate
user-supplied values):
- •
- from:<name-or-address>
- •
- to:<name-or-address>
- •
- subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>
- •
- attachment:<word>
- •
- tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)
- •
- id:<message-id>
- •
- thread:<thread-id>
- •
- folder:<maildir-folder>
- •
- path:<directory-path> or
path:<directory-path>/**
- •
- date:<since>..<until>
The
from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of an
email message.
The
to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any recipient
of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).
Any term prefixed with
subject: will match only text from the subject of
an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is supported by including
quotation marks around the phrase, immediately following
subject:.
The
attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or
extensions) of attachments to email messages.
For
tag: and
is: valid tag values include
inbox and
unread by default for new messages added by
notmuch new as well
as any other tag values added manually with
notmuch tag.
For
id:, message ID values are the literal contents of the Message-ID:
header of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters.
The
thread: prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are
generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email messages). These
thread ID values can be seen in the first column of output from
notmuch
search
The
path: prefix searches for email messages that are in particular
directories within the mail store. The directory must be specified relative to
the top-level maildir (and without the leading slash). By default,
path: matches messages in the specified directory only. The
"/**" suffix can be used to match messages in the specified
directory and all its subdirectories recursively.
path:""
matches messages in the root of the mail store and, likewise,
path:**
matches all messages.
The
folder: prefix searches for email messages by maildir or MH folder.
For MH-style folders, this is equivalent to
path:. For maildir, this
includes messages in the "new" and "cur" subdirectories.
The exact syntax for maildir folders depends on your mail configuration. For
maildir++,
folder:"" matches the inbox folder (which is the
root in maildir++), other folder names always start with ".", and
nested folders are separated by "."s, such as
folder:.classes.topology. For "file system" maildir, the
inbox is typically
folder:INBOX and nested folders are separated by
slashes, such as
folder:classes/topology.
Both
path: and
folder: will find a message if
any copy of
that message is in the specific directory/folder.
The
date: prefix can be used to restrict the results to only messages
within a particular time range (based on the Date: header) with a range syntax
of:
date:<since>..<until>
See
DATE AND TIME SEARCH below for details on the range expression, and
supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time
expressions.
The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax of:
<initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>
Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds since 1970-01-01
00:00:00 UTC.
In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with Boolean
operators (
and,
or,
not , etc.). Each term in the query
will be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no explicit operator is
provided, (except that terms with a common prefix will be implicitly combined
with OR until we get Xapian defect #402 fixed).
Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the Boolean
operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by the shell,
(such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized expression).
DATE AND TIME SEARCH¶
notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of expressing dates
and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and in relative
terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be combined
("1 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can be combined with
relative terms to further adjust it. A non-exhaustive description of the
syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is given below.
The range expression¶
date:<since>..<until>
The above expression restricts the results to only messages from <since>
to <until>, based on the Date: header.
<since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as
"yesterday". In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest
time it could describe (the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken
as the latest time it could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly,
date:january..february matches from the beginning of January to the end of
February.
Currently, we do not support spaces in range expressions. You can replace the
spaces with '_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases) leave the spaces
out altogether. Examples in this man page use spaces for clarity.
Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's possible to
specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the start or
end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on open
ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.
Entering date:expr without ".." (for example date:yesterday) won't
work, as it's not interpreted as a range expression at all. You can achieve
the expected result by duplicating the expr both sides of ".." (for
example date:yesterday..yesterday).
Relative date and time¶
[N|number] (years|months|weeks|days|hours|hrs|minutes|mins|seconds|secs) [...]
All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated.
Units can be abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous single m
being m for minutes and M for months.
Number can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred. Additionally,
the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this" (e.g.,
"last week" or "this month").
When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date and time
specification will be relative from the specified absolute date and time.
Examples: 5M2d, two weeks
- •
- H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)]
- •
- H[H] (am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)
- •
- HHMMSS
- •
- now
- •
- noon
- •
- midnight
- •
- Examples: 17:05, 5pm
- •
- YYYY-MM[-DD]
- •
- DD-MM[-[YY]YY]
- •
- MM-YYYY
- •
- M[M]/D[D][/[YY]YY]
- •
- M[M]/YYYY
- •
- D[D].M[M][.[YY]YY]
- •
- D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY]
- •
- Mon[thname] D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] [YYYY]
- •
- Wee[kday]
Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters.
Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3
Time zones¶
- •
- (+|-)HH:MM
- •
- (+|-)HH[MM]
Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET.
SEE ALSO¶
notmuch(1),
notmuch-config(1),
notmuch-count(1),
notmuch-dump(1),
notmuch-hooks(5),
notmuch-insert(1),
notmuch-new(1),
notmuch-reply(1),
notmuch-restore(1),
notmuch-search(1),
notmuch-show(1),
notmuch-tag(1)
AUTHOR¶
Carl Worth and many others
COPYRIGHT¶
2014, Carl Worth and many others