============
notmuch-show
============

SYNOPSIS
========

**notmuch** **show** [*option* ...] <*search-term*> ...

DESCRIPTION
===========

Shows all messages matching the search terms.

See **notmuch-search-terms(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 **show** include

``--entire-thread=(true|false)``
    If true, **notmuch show** outputs all messages in the thread of
    any message matching the search terms; if false, it outputs only
    the matching messages. For ``--format=json`` and ``--format=sexp``
    this defaults to true. For other formats, this defaults to false.

``--format=(text|json|sexp|mbox|raw)``
    **text** (default for messages)
        The default plain-text format has all text-content MIME parts
        decoded. Various components in the output, (**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.

    **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, ``--format=json`` sets ``--entire-thread``. The
        caller can disable this behaviour by setting
        ``--entire-thread=false``.  The JSON output is always encoded
        as UTF-8 and any message content included in the output will
        be charset-converted to UTF-8.

    **sexp**
        The output is formatted as the Lisp s-expression (sexp)
        equivalent of the JSON format above. Objects are formatted as
        property lists whose keys are keywords (symbols preceded by a
        colon). True is formatted as ``t`` and both false and null are
        formatted as ``nil``. As for JSON, the s-expression output is
        always encoded as UTF-8.

    **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:

            http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html

    **raw** (default if ``--part`` is given)
        Write the raw bytes of the given MIME part of a message to
        standard out. For this format, it is an error to specify a
        query that matches more than one message.

        If the specified part is a leaf part, this outputs the body of
        the part after performing content transfer decoding (but no
        charset conversion). This is suitable for saving attachments,
        for example.

        For a multipart or message part, the output includes the part
        headers as well as the body (including all child parts). No
        decoding is performed because multipart and message parts
        cannot have non-trivial content transfer encoding. Consumers
        of this may need to implement MIME decoding and similar
        functions.

``--format-version=N``
    Use the specified structured output format version. This is
    intended for programs that invoke **notmuch(1)** internally. If
    omitted, the latest supported version will be used.

``--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', 'sexp' or 'text' output formats.

    Note that even a message with no MIME structure or a single body
    part still has two MIME parts: part 0 is the whole message
    (headers and body) and part 1 is just the body.

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

``--decrypt=(false|auto|true|stash)``
    If ``true``, decrypt any MIME encrypted parts found in the
    selected content (e.g., "multipart/encrypted" parts). Status of
    the decryption will be reported (currently only supported
    with ``--format=json`` and ``--format=sexp``) and on successful
    decryption the multipart/encrypted part will be replaced by
    the decrypted content.

    ``stash`` behaves like ``true``, but upon successful decryption it
    will also stash the message's session key in the database, and
    index the cleartext of the message, enabling automatic decryption
    in the future.

    If ``auto``, and a session key is already known for the
    message, then it will be decrypted, but notmuch will not try
    to access the user's keys.

    Use ``false`` to avoid even automatic decryption.

    Non-automatic decryption (``stash`` or ``true``, in the absence of
    a stashed session key) expects a functioning **gpg-agent(1)** to
    provide any needed credentials. Without one, the decryption will
    fail.

    Note: setting either ``true`` or ``stash`` here implies
    ``--verify``.

    Here is a table that summarizes each of these policies:

    +------------------------+-------+------+------+-------+
    |                        | false | auto | true | stash |
    +========================+=======+======+======+=======+
    | Show cleartext if      |       |  X   |  X   |   X   |
    | session key is         |       |      |      |       |
    | already known          |       |      |      |       |
    +------------------------+-------+------+------+-------+
    | Use secret keys to     |       |      |  X   |   X   |
    | show cleartext         |       |      |      |       |
    +------------------------+-------+------+------+-------+
    | Stash any newly        |       |      |      |   X   |
    | recovered session keys,|       |      |      |       |
    | reindexing message if  |       |      |      |       |
    | found                  |       |      |      |       |
    +------------------------+-------+------+------+-------+

    Note: ``--decrypt=stash`` requires write access to the database.
    Otherwise, ``notmuch show`` operates entirely in read-only mode.

    Default: ``auto``

``--exclude=(true|false)``
    Specify whether to omit threads only matching search.exclude\_tags
    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 ``--exclude=true.``

    The default is ``--exclude=true.``

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

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

``--include-html``
    Include "text/html" parts as part of the output (currently
    only supported with ``--format=text``, ``--format=json`` and
    ``--format=sexp``). By default, unless ``--part=N`` is used to
    select a specific part or ``--include-html`` is used to include all
    "text/html" parts, no part with content type "text/html" is included
    in the output.

A common use of **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 **notmuch search** command.

EXIT STATUS
===========

This command supports the following special exit status codes

``20``
    The requested format version is too old.

``21``
    The requested format version is too new.

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-search-terms(7)**,
**notmuch-tag(1)**