.TH NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS 7 2012-08-20 "Notmuch 0.14" .SH NAME notmuch-search-terms \- syntax for notmuch queries .SH SYNOPSIS .B notmuch count .RI [ options... ] .RI < search-term ">..." .B "notmuch dump" .RI "[ <" filename "> ] [--]" .RI "[ <" search-term ">...]" .B notmuch search .RI [ options "...] <" search-term ">..." .B notmuch show .RI "[" options "...] <" search-term ">..." .B notmuch tag .RI "+<" tag> "|\-<" tag "> [...] [\-\-] <" search-term ">..." .SH DESCRIPTION Several notmuch commands accept a common syntax for search terms. The search terms can consist of free-form text (and quoted phrases) which will match all messages that contain all of the given terms/phrases in the body, the subject, or any of the sender or recipient headers. As a special case, a search string consisting of exactly a single asterisk ("*") will match all messages. In addition to free text, the following prefixes can be used to force terms to match against specific portions of an email, (where indicate user-supplied values): from: to: subject: attachment: tag: (or is:) id: thread: folder: date:.. The .B from: prefix is used to match the name or address of the sender of an email message. The .B to: prefix is used to match the names or addresses of any recipient of an email message, (whether To, Cc, or Bcc). Any term prefixed with .B subject: will match only text from the subject of an email. Searching for a phrase in the subject is supported by including quotation marks around the phrase, immediately following .BR subject: . The .B attachment: prefix can be used to search for specific filenames (or extensions) of attachments to email messages. For .BR tag: " and " is: valid tag values include .BR inbox " and " unread by default for new messages added by .B notmuch new as well as any other tag values added manually with .BR "notmuch tag" . For .BR id: , message ID values are the literal contents of the Message\-ID: header of email messages, but without the '<', '>' delimiters. The .B thread: prefix can be used with the thread ID values that are generated internally by notmuch (and do not appear in email messages). These thread ID values can be seen in the first column of output from .B "notmuch search" The .B folder: prefix can be used to search for email message files that are contained within particular directories within the mail store. Only the directory components below the top-level mail database path are available to be searched. The .B date: prefix can be used to restrict the results to only messages within a particular time range (based on the Date: header) with a range syntax of: date:.. See \fBDATE AND TIME SEARCH\fR below for details on the range expression, and supported syntax for and date and time expressions. The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax of: .. Each timestamp is a number representing the number of seconds since 1970\-01\-01 00:00:00 UTC. In addition to individual terms, multiple terms can be combined with Boolean operators ( .BR and ", " or ", " not , etc.). Each term in the query will be implicitly connected by a logical AND if no explicit operator is provided, (except that terms with a common prefix will be implicitly combined with OR until we get Xapian defect #402 fixed). Parentheses can also be used to control the combination of the Boolean operators, but will have to be protected from interpretation by the shell, (such as by putting quotation marks around any parenthesized expression). .SH DATE AND TIME SEARCH This is a non-exhaustive description of the date and time search with some pseudo notation. Most of the constructs can be mixed freely, and in any order, but the same absolute date or time can't be expressed twice. .RS 4 .TP 4 .B The range expression date:.. The above expression restricts the results to only messages from to , based on the Date: header. If or describes time at an accuracy of days or less, the date/time is rounded, towards past for and towards future for , to be inclusive. For example, date:january..february matches from the beginning of January until the end of February. Similarly, date:yesterday..yesterday matches from the beginning of yesterday until the end of yesterday. Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's possible to specify date:.. or date:.. to not limit the start or end time, respectively. Unfortunately, pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an error on open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either. Xapian does not support spaces in range expressions. You can replace the spaces with '_', or (in most cases) '-', or (in some cases) leave the spaces out altogether. Entering date:expr without ".." (for example date:yesterday) won't work, as it's not interpreted as a range expression at all. You can achieve the expected result by duplicating the expr both sides of ".." (for example date:yesterday..yesterday). .RE .RS 4 .TP 4 .B Relative date and time [N|number] (years|months|weeks|days|hours|hrs|minutes|mins|seconds|secs) [...] All refer to past, can be repeated and will be accumulated. Units can be abbreviated to any length, with the otherwise ambiguous single m being m for minutes and M for months. Number multiplier can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen, hundred. As special cases last means one ("last week") and this means zero ("this month"). When combined with absolute date and time, the relative date and time specification will be relative from the specified absolute date and time. Examples: 5M2d, two weeks .RE .RS 4 .TP 4 .B Supported time formats H[H]:MM[:SS] [(am|a.m.|pm|p.m.)] H[H] (am|a.m.|pm|p.m.) HHMMSS now noon midnight Examples: 17:05, 5pm .RE .RS 4 .TP 4 .B Supported date formats YYYY-MM[-DD] DD-MM[-[YY]YY] MM-YYYY M[M]/D[D][/[YY]YY] M[M]/YYYY D[D].M[M][.[YY]YY] D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] Mon[thname] [YYYY] Mon[thname] D[D][(st|nd|rd|th)] [YYYY] Wee[kday] Month names can be abbreviated at three or more characters. Weekday names can be abbreviated at three or more characters. Examples: 2012-07-31, 31-07-2012, 7/31/2012, August 3 .RE .RS 4 .TP 4 .B Time zones (+|-)HH:MM (+|-)HH[MM] Some time zone codes, e.g. UTC, EET. .RE .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-show\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-tag\fR(1)