tags vs. show

tags vs. show

[Paul Tarvydas]

I'm having a problem with "notmuch show" producing too many results.

Can somebody tell me how to "notmuch show" only emails that a specific tag?


Specifics (linux mint, emacs 24.3.1):

I run this tagging query at the command line:

 > notmuch tag +xyz -- '(to:xyz@me.com or from:xyz@me.com or cc:xyz@me.com)'

In emacs, notmuch-hello, I search

   tag:xyz

and I get a buffer of emails that I expect.

Then, I run on the command line:

 > notmuch show --format=mbox "tag:xyz" >xyz-all.txt

the resulting xyz-all.txt contains many other emails (e.g. spam from 
linkedin, etc).


In the end, I want to create a new gmail account containing only the 
above tagged emails.  I will upload it with:

 > python imap_upload.py --gmail --box inbox --error Friends.err --user 
xyz --password xyz xyz-all.txt

I did this several years ago and see, from my scripts, that I had the 
same problem.  I worked around it by clearing tags, then creating an 
exclusion tag and tagging everything with that and, etc. ...  I would 
prefer to know how to do this exactly, this time.


Thanks in advance for any advice!

pt

Re: tags vs. show

[David Bremner]

Paul Tarvydas <paultarvydas@gmail.com> writes:

> Specifics (linux mint, emacs 24.3.1):

What version of notmuch?

> I run this tagging query at the command line:
>
>  > notmuch tag +xyz -- '(to:xyz@me.com or from:xyz@me.com or
>  > cc:xyz@me.com)'
fwiw, cc: is not a valid search prefix, but I don't think that's
your problem, since that would only effect your tagging step.
[snip]
> Then, I run on the command line:
>
>  > notmuch show --format=mbox "tag:xyz" >xyz-all.txt
>

I tried a couple of tests here, and I could not duplicate your problem
with notmuch 0.20.2. For me, only messages with the tag show up.

You might want to try the following to debug:

- compare "notmuch count tag:xyz" with the number of messages recognized
  by e.g. mutt in the mbox.

- if those two are the same, find one of the message you think should
  not have the tag, and look at it by message-id.

- if the two are not the same, find a message in the mbox that you think
  should not be there, and double check the tags and headers.
  Note that

       The to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any
       recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc).

  to quote notmuch-search-terms(7). One possibility is the existence
  of Bcc headers in some of your messages.

d