NAME

       notmuch-properties - notmuch message property conventions and documentation

SYNOPSIS

       notmuch count property:<key>=<value>

       notmuch search property:<key>=<value>

       notmuch show property:<key>=<value>

       notmuch reindex property:<key>=<value>

       notmuch tag +<tag> property:<key>=<value>

       notmuch dump --include=properties

       notmuch restore --include=properties

DESCRIPTION

       Several  notmuch commands can search for, modify, add or remove properties associated with
       specific messages.  Properties are key/value pairs, and a message can have more  than  one
       key/value pair for the same key.

       While  users can select based on a specific property in their search terms with the prefix
       property:, the notmuch command-line interface does not provide  mechanisms  for  modifying
       properties directly to the user.

       Instead, message properties are expected to be set and used programmatically, according to
       logic in notmuch itself, or in extensions to it.

       Extensions to notmuch which make use of properties are encouraged to report  the  specific
       properties  used  to  the upstream notmuch project, as a way of avoiding collisions in the
       property namespace.

CONVENTIONS

       Any property with a key that starts with "index." will be removed  (and  possibly  re-set)
       upon reindexing (see notmuch-reindex(1)).

MESSAGE PROPERTIES

       The  following  properties  are  set  by  notmuch  internally  in the course of its normal
       activity.

       index.decryption
          If a message contains encrypted content, and notmuch  tries  to  decrypt  that  content
          during  indexing,  it will add the property index.decryption=success when the cleartext
          was successfully indexed.  If notmuch attempts to decrypt any part of a message  during
          indexing   and   that   decryption   attempt   fails,   it   will   add   the  property
          index.decryption=failure to the message.

          Note that it's possible for a single message to have both index.decryption=success  and
          index.decryption=failure.   Consider  an encrypted e-mail message that contains another
          encrypted e-mail message as an attachment -- if the outer message can be decrypted, but
          the attached part cannot, then both properties will be set on the message as a whole.

          If  notmuch  never  tried to decrypt an encrypted message during indexing (which is the
          default, see index.decrypt in notmuch-config(1)), then this property will not be set on
          that message.

       session-key
          When  notmuch-show(1)  or nomtuch-reply encounters a message with an encrypted part, if
          notmuch finds a session-key property associated with the  message,  it  will  try  that
          stashed session key for decryption.

          If  you  do  not want to use any stashed session keys that might be present, you should
          pass those programs --decrypt=false.

          Using a stashed session key with  "notmuch  show"  will  speed  up  rendering  of  long
          encrypted  threads.   It also allows the user to destroy the secret part of any expired
          encryption-capable subkey while still being able to  read  any  retained  messages  for
          which  they  have  stashed the session key.  This enables truly deletable e-mail, since
          (once the session key and asymmetric subkey are both destroyed) there are no keys  left
          that  can  be  used to decrypt any copy of the original message previously stored by an
          adversary.

          However, access to the stashed session  key  for  an  encrypted  message  permits  full
          byte-for-byte  reconstruction  of  the  cleartext  message.  This includes attachments,
          cryptographic signatures, and other material that  cannot  be  reconstructed  from  the
          index alone.

          See  index.decrypt  in  notmuch-config(1)  for  more details about how to set notmuch's
          policy on when to store session keys.

          The session key should be in the ASCII text form produced by GnuPG.  For OpenPGP,  that
          consists  of  a decimal representation of the hash algorithm used (identified by number
          from RFC 4880, e.g. 9 means AES-256) followed by a colon,  followed  by  a  hexadecimal
          representation  of  the  algorithm-specific  key.  For example, an AES-128 key might be
          stashed in a notmuch property as: session-key=7:14B16AF65536C28AF209828DFE34C9E0.

SEE ALSO

       notmuch(1),   notmuch-config(1),   notmuch-dump(1),   notmuch-insert(1),   notmuch-new(1),
       notmuch-reindex(1),       notmuch-reply(1),      notmuch-restore(1),      notmuch-show(1),
       *notmuch-search-terms(7)

AUTHOR

       Carl Worth and many others

COPYRIGHT

       2009-2018, Carl Worth and many others