1Notmuch - thread-based email index, search and tagging.
2
3Notmuch is a system for indexing, searching, reading, and tagging
4large collections of email messages in maildir or mh format. It uses
5the Xapian library to provide fast, full-text search with a convenient
6search syntax.
7
8Notmuch is free software, released under the GNU General Public
9License version 3 (or later).
10
11Building notmuch
12----------------
13See the INSTALL file for notes on compiling and installing notmuch.
14
15Running notmuch
16---------------
17After installing notmuch, start by running "notmuch setup" which will
18interactively prompt for configuration information such as your name,
19email address, and the directory which contains your mail archive to
20be indexed. You can change any answers later by running "notmuch
21setup" again or by editing the .notmuch-config file in your home
22directory.
23
24With notmuch configured you should next run "notmuch new" which will
25index all of your existing mail. This can take a long time, (several
26hours) if you have a lot of email, (hundreds of thousands of
27files). When new mail is delivered to your mail archive in the future,
28you will want to run "notmuch new" again. These runs will be much
29faster as they will only index new messages.
30
31Finally, you can prove to yourself that things are working by running
32some command-line searches such as "notmuch search
33from:someone@example.com" or "notmuch search subject:topic". See
34"notmuch help search-terms" for more details on the available search
35syntax.
36
37The command-line search output is not expected to be particularly
38friendly for day-to-day usage. Instead, it is expected that you will
39use an email interface that builds on the notmuch command-line tool or
40the libnotmuch library.
41
42Notmuch installs a full-featured email interface for use within
43emacs. To use this, first add the following line to your .emacs file:
44
45	(autoload 'notmuch "notmuch" "Notmuch mail" t)
46
47Then, either run "emacs -f notmuch" or execute the command "M-x
48notmuch" from within a running emacs.
49
50If you're interested in a non-emacs-based interface to notmuch, then
51please join the notmuch community. Various other interfaces are
52already in progress, (an interface within vim, a curses interface,
53graphical interfaces based on evolution, and various web-based
54interfaces). The authors of these interfaces would love further
55testing or contribution. See contact information below.
56
57Contacting users and developers
58-------------------------------
59The website for Notmuch is:
60
61	https://notmuchmail.org
62
63The mailing list address for the notmuch community is:
64
65	notmuch@notmuchmail.org
66
67We welcome any sort of questions, comments, kudos, or code there.
68
69Subscription is not required, (but if you do subscribe you'll avoid
70any delay due to moderation). See the website for subscription
71information.
72
73There is also an IRC channel dedicated to talk about using and
74developing notmuch:
75
76	IRC server:	irc.libera.chat
77	Channel:	#notmuch
78