notmuch/man/man7/notmuch-search-terms.7

.TH NOTMUCH-SEARCH-TERMS 7 2013-12-28 "Notmuch 0.17~rc4"

.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
<brackets> indicate user-supplied values):

	from:<name-or-address>

	to:<name-or-address>

	subject:<word-or-quoted-phrase>

	attachment:<word>

	tag:<tag> (or is:<tag>)

	id:<message-id>

	thread:<thread-id>

	folder:<directory-path>

	date:<since>..<until>

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. If the
same email message has multiple message files associated with it, it's
sufficient for a match that at least one of the files is contained
within a matching directory. 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:<since>..<until>

See \fBDATE AND TIME SEARCH\fR below for details on the range
expression, and supported syntax for <since> and <until> date and time
expressions.

The time range can also be specified using timestamps with a syntax
of:

	<initial-timestamp>..<final-timestamp>

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

notmuch understands a variety of standard and natural ways of
expressing dates and times, both in absolute terms ("2012-10-24") and
in relative terms ("yesterday"). Any number of relative terms can be
combined ("1 hour 25 minutes") and an absolute date/time can be
combined with relative terms to further adjust it. A non-exhaustive
description of the syntax supported for absolute and relative terms is
given below.

.RS 4
.TP 4
.B The range expression

date:<since>..<until>

The above expression restricts the results to only messages from
<since> to <until>, based on the Date: header.

<since> and <until> can describe imprecise times, such as "yesterday".
In this case, <since> is taken as the earliest time it could describe
(the beginning of yesterday) and <until> is taken as the latest time
it could describe (the end of yesterday). Similarly,
date:january..february matches from the beginning of January to the
end of February.

Currently, we do 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. Examples in this man page use
spaces for clarity.

Open-ended ranges are supported (since Xapian 1.2.1), i.e. it's
possible to specify date:..<until> or date:<since>.. to not limit the
start or end time, respectively. Pre-1.2.1 Xapian does not report an
error on open ended ranges, but it does not work as expected either.

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 can also be written out one, two, ..., ten, dozen,
hundred. Additionally, the unit may be preceded by "last" or "this"
(e.g., "last week" or "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 absolute 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 absolute 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-insert\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-new\fR(1),
\fBnotmuch-reply\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-restore\fR(1),
\fBnotmuch-search\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-show\fR(1), \fBnotmuch-tag\fR(1)