=head1 Name

notmuch - thread-based email index, search, and tagging

=head1 Synopsis

B<notmuch> [I<option> ...] I<command> [I<arg> ...]

=head1 Description

Notmuch is a command-line based program for indexing, searching,
reading, and tagging large collections of email messages.

This page describes how to get started using notmuch from the command
line, and gives a brief overview of the commands available. For more
information on e.g. B<notmuch> B<show> consult the L<notmuch-show(1)> man page,
also accessible via B<notmuch> B<help> B<show>

The quickest way to get started with Notmuch is to simply invoke the
B<notmuch> command with no arguments, which will interactively guide you
through the process of indexing your mail.

=head1 Note

While the command-line program B<notmuch> provides powerful functionality,
it does not provide the most convenient interface for that
functionality. More sophisticated interfaces are expected to be built
on top of either the command-line interface, or more likely, on top of
the notmuch library interface. See http://notmuchmail.org for more
about alternate interfaces to notmuch. The emacs-based interface to
notmuch (available under B<emacs/> in the Notmuch source distribution) is
probably the most widely used at this time.

=head1 Options

Supported global options for B<notmuch> include

=over 5

=item B<--help>

=back

Print a synopsis of available commands and exit.

=over 5

=item B<--version>

=back

Print the installed version of notmuch, and exit.

=over 5

=item B<--config=FILE>

=back

Specify the configuration file to use. This overrides any
configuration file specified by ${NOTMUCH_CONFIG}.

=head1 Commands

B<SETUP>
The B<notmuch> B<setup> command is used to configure Notmuch for first use,
(or to reconfigure it later).

The setup command will prompt for your full name, your primary email
address, any alternate email addresses you use, and the directory
containing your email archives. Your answers will be written to a
configuration file in ${NOTMUCH_CONFIG} (if set) or ${HOME}/.notmuch-
config . This configuration file will be created with descriptive
comments, making it easy to edit by hand later to change the
configuration. Or you can run B<notmuch> B<setup> again to change the
configuration.

The mail directory you specify can contain any number of sub-
directories and should primarily contain only files with individual
email messages (eg. maildir or mh archives are perfect). If there are
other, non-email files (such as indexes maintained by other email
programs) then notmuch will do its best to detect those and ignore
them.

Mail storage that uses mbox format, (where one mbox file contains many
messages), will not work with notmuch. If that's how your mail is
currently stored, it is recommended you first convert it to maildir
format with a utility such as mb2md before running B<notmuch> B<setup> B<.>

Invoking B<notmuch> with no command argument will run B<setup> if the setup
command has not previously been completed.

B<OTHER> B<COMMANDS>
Several of the notmuch commands accept search terms with a common
syntax. See L<notmuch-search-terms(7)> for more details on the supported
syntax.

The B<search>, B<show> and B<count> commands are used to query the email
database.

The B<reply> command is useful for preparing a template for an email
reply.

The B<tag> command is the only command available for manipulating database
contents.

The B<dump> and B<restore> commands can be used to create a textual dump of
email tags for backup purposes, and to restore from that dump.

The B<config> command can be used to get or set settings int the notmuch
configuration file.

=head1 Environment

The following environment variables can be used to control the behavior
of notmuch.

=over 5

=item B<NOTMUCH_CONFIG>

Specifies the location of the notmuch configuration file.
Notmuch will use ${HOME}/.notmuch-config if this variable is not
set.

=item B<NOTMUCH_TALLOC_REPORT>

Location to write a talloc memory usage report. See
B<talloc_enable_leak_report_full> in L<talloc(3)> for more
information.

=back

=head1 See Also

L<notmuch-config(1)>, L<notmuch-count(1)>, L<notmuch-dump(1)>, L<notmuch-hooks(5)>,
L<notmuch-new(1)>, L<notmuch-reply(1)>, L<notmuch-restore(1)>, L<notmuchsearch(1)>,
L<notmuch-search-terms(7)>, L<notmuch-show(1)>, L<notmuch-tag(1)>

The notmuch website: B<http://notmuchmail.org>

=head1 Contact

Feel free to send questions, comments, or kudos to the notmuch mailing
list <notmuch@notmuchmail.org> . Subscription is not required before
posting, but is available from the notmuchmail.org website.

Real-time interaction with the Notmuch community is available via IRC
(server: irc.freenode.net, channel: #notmuch).