.TH MU-FIND 1 "29 April 2022" "User Manuals" .SH NAME mu_find \- find e-mail messages in the \fBmu\fR database. .SH SYNOPSIS .B mu find [options] .SH DESCRIPTION \fBmu find\fR is the \fBmu\fR command for searching e-mail message that were stored earlier using \fBmu index\fR(1). .SH SEARCHING MAIL \fBmu find\fR starts a search for messages in the database that match some search pattern. The search patterns are described in detail in .BR mu-query (7). . For example: .nf $ mu find subject:snow and date:2009.. .fi would find all messages in 2009 with 'snow' in the subject field, e.g: .nf 2009-03-05 17:57:33 EET Lucia running in the snow 2009-03-05 18:38:24 EET Marius Re: running in the snow .fi Note, this the default, plain-text output, which is the default, so you don't have to use \fB--format=plain\fR. For other types of output (such as symlinks, XML or s-expressions), see the discussion in the \fBOPTIONS\fR-section below about \fB--format\fR. The search pattern is taken as a command-line parameter. If the search parameter consists of multiple parts (as in the example) they are treated as if there were a logical \fBand\fR between them. For details on the possible queries, see .BR mu-query (7). .SH OPTIONS Note, some of the important options are described in the \fBmu\fR(1) man-page and not here, as they apply to multiple mu-commands. The \fBfind\fR-command has various options that influence the way \fBmu\fR displays the results. If you don't specify anything, the defaults are \fI\-\-fields="d f s"\fR, \fI\-\-sortfield=date\fR and \fI\-\-reverse\fR. .TP \fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-fields\fR=\fI\fR specifies a string that determines which fields are shown in the output. This string consists of a number of characters (such as 's' for subject or 'f' for from), which will replace with the actual field in the output. Fields that are not known will be output as-is, allowing for some simple formatting. For example: .nf $ mu find subject:snow --fields "d f s" .fi would list the date, subject and sender of all messages with 'snow' in the their subject. The table of replacement characters is superset of the list mentions for search parameters, such as: .nf t \fBt\fRo: recipient d Sent \fBd\fRate of the message f Message sender (\fBf\fRrom:) g Message flags (fla\fBg\fRs) l Full path to the message (\fBl\fRocation) s Message \fBs\fRubject i Message-\fBi\fRd m \fBm\fRaildir .fi For the complete, up-to-date list, see: .BR mu-fields(1) The message flags are described in \fBmu-query\fR(7). As an example, a message which is 'seen', has an attachment and is signed would have 'asz' as its corresponding output string, while an encrypted new message would have 'nx'. .TP \fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-sortfield\fR \fR=\fI\fR and \fB\-z\fR, \fB\-\-reverse\fR specifies the field to sort the search results by, and the direction (i.e., 'reverse' means that the sort should be reverted - Z-A). Examples include: .nf cc,c Cc (carbon-copy) recipient(s) date,d Message sent date from,f Message sender maildir,m Maildir msgid,i Message id prio,p Nessage priority subject,s Message subject to,t To:-recipient(s) .fi For the complete list use can use the \fBmu fields\fR command; see: .BR mu-fields(1) Thus, for example, to sort messages by date, you could specify: .nf $ mu find fahrrad --fields "d f s" --sortfield=date --reverse .fi Note, if you specify a sortfield, by default, messages are sorted in reverse (descending) order (e.g., from lowest to highest). This is usually a good choice, but for dates it may be more useful to sort in the opposite direction. .TP \fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-maxnum=\fR If > 0, display maximally that number of entries. If not specified, all matching entries are displayed. .TP \fB\-\-summary-len=\fR If > 0, use that number of lines of the message to provide a summary. .TP \fB\-\-format\fR=\fIplain|links|xquery|xml|sexp\fR output results in the specified format. The default is \fBplain\fR, i.e normal output with one line per message. \fBlinks\fR outputs the results as a maildir with symbolic links to the found messages. This enables easy integration with mail-clients (see below for more information). \fBxml\fR formats the search results as XML. \fBsexp\fR formats the search results as an s-expression as used in Lisp programming environments. \fBxquery\fR shows the Xapian query corresponding to your search terms. This is meant for for debugging purposes. .TP \fB\-\-linksdir\fR \fR=\fI\fR and \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-clearlinks\fR output the results as a maildir with symbolic links to the found messages. This enables easy integration with mail-clients (see below for more information). \fBmu\fR will create the maildir if it does not exist yet. If you specify \fB\-\-clearlinks\fR, all existing symlinks will be cleared from the target directories; this allows for re-use of the same maildir. However, this option will delete any symlink it finds, so be careful. .nf $ mu find grolsch --format=links --linksdir=~/Maildir/search --clearlinks .fi will store links to found messages in \fI~/Maildir/search\fR. If the directory does not exist yet, it will be created. Note: when \fBmu\fR creates a Maildir for these links, it automatically inserts a \fI.noindex\fR file, to exclude the directory from \fBmu index\fR. .TP \fB\-\-after=\fR\fI\fR only show messages whose message files were last modified (\fBmtime\fR) after \fI\fR. \fI\fR is a UNIX \fBtime_t\fR value, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 (in UTC). From the command line, you can use the \fBdate\fR command to get this value. For example, only consider messages modified (or created) in the last 5 minutes, you could specify .nf --after=`date +%s --date='5 min ago'` .fi This is assuming the GNU \fBdate\fR command. .TP \fB\-\-exec\fR=\fI\fR the \fB\-\-exec\fR command causes the \fIcommand\fR to be executed on each matched message; for example, to see the raw text of all messages matching 'milkshake', you could use: .nf $ mu find milkshake --exec='less' .fi which is roughly equivalent to: .nf $ mu find milkshake --fields="l" | xargs less .fi .TP \fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-bookmark\fR=\fI\fR use a bookmarked search query. Using this option, a query from your bookmark file will be prepended to other search queries. See \fBmu-bookmarks\fR(1) for the details of the bookmarks file. .TP \fB\-\-skip\-dups\fR,\fB-u\fR whenever there are multiple messages with the same name, only show the first one. This is useful if you have copies of the same message, which is a common occurrence when using e.g. Gmail together with \fBofflineimap\fR. .TP \fB\-\-include\-related\fR,\fB-r\fR also include messages being referred to by the matched messages -- i.e.. include messages that are part of the same message thread as some matched messages. This is useful if you want Gmail-style 'conversations'. Note, finding these related messages make searches slower. .TP \fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-threads\fR show messages in a 'threaded' format -- that is, with indentation and arrows showing the conversation threads in the list of matching messages. When using this, sorting is chronological (by date), based on the newest message in a thread. Messages in the threaded list are indented based on the depth in the discussion, and are prefix with a kind of arrow with thread-related information about the message, as in the following table: .nf | | normal | orphan | duplicate | |-------------+--------+--------+-----------| | first child | `-> | `*> | `=> | | other | |-> | |*> | |=> | .fi Here, an 'orphan' is a message without a parent message (in the list of matches), and a duplicate is a message whose message-id was already seen before; not this may not really be the same message, if the message-id was copied. The algorithm used for determining the threads is based on Jamie Zawinksi's description: .BR http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html .SS Integrating mu find with mail clients .TP \fBmutt\fR For \fBmutt\fR you can use the following in your \fImuttrc\fR; pressing the F8 key will start a search, and F9 will take you to the results. .nf # mutt macros for mu macro index "mu find --clearlinks --format=links --linksdir=~/Maildir/search " \\ "mu find" macro index "~/Maildir/search" \\ "mu find results" .fi .TP \fBWanderlust\fR \fBSam B\fR suggested the following on the \fBmu\fR-mailing list. First add the following to your Wanderlust configuration file: .nf (require 'elmo-search) (elmo-search-register-engine 'mu 'local-file :prog "/usr/local/bin/mu" ;; or wherever you've installed it :args '("find" pattern "--fields" "l") :charset 'utf-8) (setq elmo-search-default-engine 'mu) ;; for when you type "g" in folder or summary. (setq wl-default-spec "[") .fi Now, you can search using the \fBg\fR key binding; you can also create permanent virtual folders when the messages matching some expression by adding something like the following to your \fIfolders\fR file. .nf VFolders { [date:today..now]!mu "Today" [size:1m..100m]!mu "Big" [flag:unread]!mu "Unread" } .fi After restarting Wanderlust, the virtual folders should appear. .SH RETURN VALUE \fBmu find\fR returns 0 upon successful completion; if the search was performed, there needs to be a least one match. Anything else leads to a non-zero return value, for example: .nf | code | meaning | |------+--------------------------------| | 0 | ok | | 1 | general error | | 4 | no matches (for 'mu find') | .fi .SH ENCODING \fBmu find\fR output is encoded according the locale for \fI--format=plain\fR (the default), and UTF-8 for all other formats (\fIsexp\fR, \fIxml\fR). .SH BUGS Please report bugs if you find them: .BR https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues If you have specific messages which are not matched correctly, please attach them (appropriately censored if needed). .SH AUTHOR Dirk-Jan C. Binnema .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR mu (1), .BR mu-index (1), .BR mu-query (7) .BR mu-fields (1)