Searching on arbitrary message headers

[eric casteleijn <thisfred@gmail.com>]

Hi list,

after a tip from a colleague I've installed notmuch over the weekend, 
and I'm impressed with its speed and flexibility to the point that I'd 
really like to switch to using it exclusively.

To be able to do that there is one thing I need that I haven't figured 
out how to do yet, or indeed if it's possible at all currently: Is there 
a way to search in arbitrary headers? From initial experimentation, it 
seems not: I can search in headers that are explicitly indexed, such as 
subject:, to: and from:, or in the body text, but it does not seem that 
the raw message is indexed, and I've not found a way to add additional 
indexes.

My specific use case is that I get a lot of automated mail from 
launchpad, which uses headers like 'X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale' to 
indicate why a particular message is being delivered to me. Thunderbird 
allows me to filter on arbitrary headers, which means I can divert 
messages that are unlikely to need my attention so that they don't hit 
my inbox.

I realize that indexing the raw message is probably not a good idea, 
since for instance the routing of a particular message is unlikely to be 
of interest, but I was wondering if there is a way to specify additional 
headers to be indexed by notmuch, or if not, if others would find this a 
worthwhile addition?

-- 
eric casteleijn
https://code.launchpad.net/~thisfred
http://thisfred.posterous.com/