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

0.26                                              Mar 01, 2018                             NOTMUCH-PROPERTIES(7)