.TH NOTMUCH-SHOW 1 2012-06-01 "Notmuch 0.13.2"
.SH NAME
notmuch-show \- show messages matching the given search terms
.SH SYNOPSIS

.B notmuch show
.RI "[" options "...] <" search-term ">..."

.SH DESCRIPTION

Shows all messages matching the search terms.

See \fBnotmuch-search-terms\fR(7)
for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.

The messages will be grouped and sorted based on the threading (all
replies to a particular message will appear immediately after that
message in date order). The output is not indented by default, but
depth tags are printed so that proper indentation can be performed by
a post-processor (such as the emacs interface to notmuch).

Supported options for
.B show
include
.RS 4
.TP 4
.B \-\-entire\-thread=(true|false)

If true,
.B notmuch show
outputs all messages in the thread of any message matching the search
terms; if false, it outputs only the matching messages. For
.B --format=json
this defaults to true.  For other formats, this defaults to false.
.RE

.RS 4
.TP 4
.B \-\-format=(text|json|mbox|raw)

.RS 4
.TP 4
.BR text " (default for messages)"

The default plain-text format has all text-content MIME parts
decoded. Various components in the output,
.RB ( message ", " header ", " body ", " attachment ", and MIME " part ),
will be delimited by easily-parsed markers. Each marker consists of a
Control-L character (ASCII decimal 12), the name of the marker, and
then either an opening or closing brace, ('{' or '}'), to either open
or close the component. For a multipart MIME message, these parts will
be nested.
.RE
.RS 4
.TP 4
.B json

The output is formatted with Javascript Object Notation (JSON). This
format is more robust than the text format for automated
processing. The nested structure of multipart MIME messages is
reflected in nested JSON output. By default JSON output includes all
messages in a matching thread; that is, by default,
.B \-\-format=json
sets
.B "\-\-entire\-thread"
The caller can disable this behaviour by setting
.B \-\-entire\-thread=false

.RE
.RS 4
.TP 4
.B mbox

All matching messages are output in the traditional, Unix mbox format
with each message being prefixed by a line beginning with "From " and
a blank line separating each message. Lines in the message content
beginning with "From " (preceded by zero or more '>' characters) have
an additional '>' character added. This reversible escaping
is termed "mboxrd" format and described in detail here:

.nf
.nh
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html
.hy
.fi
.
.RE
.RS 4
.TP 4
.BR raw " (default for a single part, see \-\-part)"

For a message or an attached message part, the original, raw content
of the email message is output. Consumers of this format should expect
to implement MIME decoding and similar functions.

For a single part (\-\-part) the raw part content is output after
performing any necessary MIME decoding.  Note that messages with a
simple body still have two parts: part 0 is the whole message and part
1 is the body.

For a multipart part, the part headers and body (including all child
parts) is output.

The raw format must only be used with search terms matching single
message.
.RE
.RE

.RS 4
.TP 4
.B \-\-part=N

Output the single decoded MIME part N of a single message.  The search
terms must match only a single message.  Message parts are numbered in
a depth-first walk of the message MIME structure, and are identified
in the 'json' or 'text' output formats.
.RE

.RS 4
.TP 4
.B \-\-verify

Compute and report the validity of any MIME cryptographic signatures
found in the selected content (ie. "multipart/signed" parts). Status
of the signature will be reported (currently only supported with
--format=json), and the multipart/signed part will be replaced by the
signed data.
.RE

.RS 4
.TP 4
.B \-\-decrypt

Decrypt any MIME encrypted parts found in the selected content
(ie. "multipart/encrypted" parts). Status of the decryption will be
reported (currently only supported with --format=json) and the
multipart/encrypted part will be replaced by the decrypted
content.  Implies --verify.
.RE

.RS 4
.TP 4
.BR \-\-exclude=(true|false)

Specify whether to omit threads only matching search.tag_exclude from
the search results (the default) or not. In either case the excluded
message will be marked with the exclude flag (except when output=mbox
when there is nowhere to put the flag).

If --entire-thread is specified then complete threads are returned
regardless (with the excluded flag being set when appropriate) but
threads that only match in an excluded message are not returned when
.B --exclude=true.

The default is
.B --exclude=true.

.RE

.RS 4
.TP 4
.B \-\-body=(true|false)

If true (the default)
.B notmuch show
includes the bodies of the messages in the output; if false,
bodies are omitted.
.B --body=false
is only implemented for the json format and it is incompatible with
.B --part > 0.

This is useful if the caller only needs the headers as body-less
output is much faster and substantially smaller.
.RE

A common use of
.B notmuch show
is to display a single thread of email messages. For this, use a
search term of "thread:<thread-id>" as can be seen in the first
column of output from the
.B notmuch search
command.

.SH SEE ALSO

\fBnotmuch\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-config\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-count\fR(1),
\fBnotmuch-dump\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-hooks\fR(5), \fBnotmuch-new\fR(1),
\fBnotmuch-reply\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-restore\fR(1),
\fBnotmuch-search\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-search-terms\fR(7),
\fBnotmuch-tag\fR(1)