--log-stderr, -s write logging information to standard error instead of to <mu-home-directory>/mu-find.log , which is the default.
--log-append, -a append to the log file instead of overwriting it for every run, which is the default.
--debug, -d add a lot of logging for debugging purposes
--output=text gives a textual display of the messages found; you can use the --format option to influence the way this is done.
--output=links generates a maildir with symbolic links to the messages founds. These can then be easily read with a maildir capable mail client, such as mutt(1). NB: The MUTT-INTEGRATION section of this manpage has some convenience macros for mutt integration.
By default, the maildir that is created is mu-found-<n> , where n is the lowest two-digit hexademical number [00..ff] for which there does not already exist a directory. Alternatively, you can use the --linkdir=<dir> option to generate the maildir with a specific name/path. The maildir should not exist yet.
--output=sql instead of searching for any messages, show the SQL query corresponding with the search criteria (search criteria are discussed later in this manpage). This can be useful for testing. For example,
$ mu-find --output=sql s:foo f:barwould give us:
SELECT m.recipients, m.cc, m.sender, m.subject, m.msg_id,
NULL AS dummy2, m.flags, m.mdate, m.msize, m.mpath,
m.priority, m.tstamp, m.id
FROM message m
WHERE m.subject LIKE '%foo%'
AND m.sender LIKE '%bar%'
ORDER BY m.mdate DESC;
--output=aggregate show some aggregate information (statistics) about the matching messages, such as the top-5 oldest, newest, biggest messages in the set, and the most frequent sender, recipients. this is only marginally useful, as most of the results give us just the database IDs of the messages/contact found; however, these IDS's can be used to for further processing.
Also, included is the number of messages that match, and the average size. Example output:
$ mu-find --output=aggregate test query statistics ================ number of messages : 90 newest messages (msgids) : 1392 509 501 498 490 oldest messages (msgids) : 346 49 51 52 109 biggest messages (msgids) : 842 1120 1053 683 346 avg message size (bytes) : 199834 most popular senders (cids) : 548 456 56 644 181 most popular recipients (cids) : 463 554 2 667 668
--format=, -t <format> sets the way textual output is formatted. The format is a string consisting of letters corresponding to message fields. Any character not known is displayed as-is. For example, --text-format=d,f|s would display the date of message, a ','character, the sender (From:) of the message, a pipe-character and finally the subject of the message:
1972-14-12 12:23,Someone|a star is born
2008-08-13 17:30,foo@bar.cx|get rich quick
...
The fields corresponding to certain letters are the same as the ones in search
expressions (scroll down for the list).
Note: database fields are not escaped with respect to format characters such as ',', so be careful when using this generate comma-separated files and the like. Also be careful to use alphabet letters are separators, as future versions of mu-find might add more fields.
If you do not specify any format, the default of d,f,s is chosen, or, show the 'date', 'from' and 'subject' fields, separated by commas.
Non-printable characters are displayed as '.'.
--sortfields, -S <sortfields>
and
--sortdir, -D a[scending]|d[escending]
set the way the found messages are sorted. The sortfields parameter sets the fields to sort by, one letter per field (s=subject, d=date and so on, see the section on search expressions to get the full list).
sortdir determines whether we sort ascending or descending.
Example (note: search expressions like 's:hello' are discussed in the next section):
$ mu-find --sortfields=fz --sortdir=a s:hello
would sort messages ascending, with a subject containing 'hello' by sender, then by size.
The default is to sort descending by date. However,if any sortfield is explicitly specified, the default sort order is ascending.
s: subject f: from (sender) t: to (recipient) c: cc: (carbon-copy recipient) m: message id p: message priority P: path to the message d: date z: size F: flags And two special types: x: xapian search B: bookmarks
Option x: for 'xapian search' searches the contents of messages, while the other options search for a certain property ('metadata') of the message. Xapian searching is discussed after the other options.
Option B: refers to bookmarks. You can define 'bookmarks' (shortcuts) for search expression. Bookmarks are discussed later in this document.
s: subject f: from (sender) t: to (recipient) c: Cc: (carbon-copy recipient) m: message id p: message priority P: path to the message
For example, the search expression: s:rain matches all messages which have 'rain' in their subject (s:) (including training, brain, terrain etc.)
f: matches all messages sent by (From:), as well as all messages by. Search expressions can be combined - we can say f:bob 's:new york' to get all message from Bob about New York (search expressions with spaces need quotes).
Sometimes, we might want to match messages that don't contain as certain word in some property. To get all mails that do not contain 'banana' in their subject we can use the ^ prefix: s:^banana
And sometimes we might want to match a word exactly ie, we don't want a property to contain the search string, but we want it to be exactly equal. For that we can use the '=': s:=hello to match exactly that string (e.g., it won't match 'Hello World').
Please note that '=' and '^' only work for textual fields, and '^' only for textual fields and flags.
d: date z: size
Another useful interval type is the message date. Dates can be specified in many different ways, and may have different meanings based on your locale. The recommended format therefore is YYYYMMDD, although other formats may work as well - provided the dates do not contain '-'-characters.
To get all mails in January 2005, we can write: d:20050101-20050131 and we can use the same interval notation as for the message size and write d:20080801- to get all mails received since August 2008, and d:-20033112 to get all mails from 2003 and before.
Single dates (such as d:20080202 ) are interpreted as an interval from the beginning of that day until the end of the day.
mu-find also recognizes a number followed by 'd', 'w', 'f', 'm', 'y' to mean some number of resp. days, weeks, fortnights, months or years ago since the present. Thus, d:3d- matches all messages from the last three days, while d:2y-1m matches all messages that are between 2 years and one month old.
Note that months are assumed to be 30 days, and years 365 days.
Note, messages that do not explicitly specify their importance are assumed to
be of normal priority.
You can search message by the following file flags: new ('N'), replied ('R'), flagged ('F'), passed ('P'), seen ('S'), or combinations thereof. For example, to get all new messages: F:N or the get all flagged message you replied to: F:RF New ('N') messages don't have any other flags, the other flags can be combined.
Then, there are content flags: has-attachment ('a'), signed ('s') and encrypted ('x'). For example, you could search for all signed messages with an attachment with: F:as
You can also search for the absence of a flag, by prefixing the flag with '^' character. So for example, to get all encrypted messages without attachments, you can use: F:x^a
The syntax is very similar to what WWW search engines offer. For example, to get all the messages about either apples or bananas, the search expression would be:
x:apples OR bananas (and note that on the command-line you would need to quote that as: mu-find 'x:apples OR bananas' )
That would get all messages with either apples or bananas in the content -- that is, the message body, the subject field and the sender and recipient fields. More complex queries are possible, say, x:apple NEAR pear OR NOT (orange XOR coconut)
Xapian searches can be combined with other search options, so to get all message from Alice (alice@example.com) regarding unicorns, use: f:alice@example.com x:unicorns
NOTE: only up to 1000 documents are returned, and if you combine Xapian search with other search options, the result will be a subset of that. In other words, if you search query contains an 'x:' option, the max number of results is 1000.
[important] expr=p:H t:me@example.com f:boss@example.com [recentdrink] expr=d:1w- x:'wine OR beer OR whisky OR gin OR vodka'
You can then write search queries with the B: prefix, e.g. mu-find -B:important d:1m-
You can combine bookmarks with other search expressions; however, bookmarks cannot contain other bookmark expressions. This might change in the future.
[mu] debug=false [mu-info] format=f,d
Note that command line arguments take precedence over the configuration file.
macro index <F8> "<shell-escape>rm -rf ~/.mumatch; mu-find -o l -l ~/.mumatch " "mu-find" macro index <F9> "<change-folder-readonly>~/.mumatch\n" "display mu-find results"
Now, <F8> will perform a search, and <F9> will change to the folder with the results.