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NAME

       mu_find - find e-mail messages in the mu database.

SYNOPSIS

       mu find [options] <search expression>

DESCRIPTION

       mu  find  is the mu command for searching e-mail message that were stored earlier using mu
       index(1).

SEARCHING MAIL

       mu find starts a search for messages in the database that match some search  pattern.  The
       search patterns are described in detail in mu-query(7).

       For example:

          $ mu find subject:snow and date:2017..

       would find all messages in 2017 with 'snow' in the subject field, e.g:

         2009-03-05 17:57:33 EET Lucia  <lucia@example.com> running in the snow
         2009-03-05 18:38:24 EET Marius <marius@foobar.com> Re: running in the snow

       Note,  this the default, plain-text output, which is the default, so you don't have to use
       --format=plain. For other types of output (such as symlinks, XML  or  s-expressions),  see
       the discussion in the OPTIONS-section below about --format.

       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  and
       between them.

       For details on the possible queries, see mu-query(7).

OPTIONS

       Note,  some  of the important options are described in the mu(1) man-page and not here, as
       they apply to multiple mu-commands.

       The find-command has various options that influence the way mu displays  the  results.  If
       you  don't  specify  anything,  the  defaults  are  --fields="d f s", --sortfield=date and
       --reverse.

       -f, --fields=<fields>
              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:

                $ mu find subject:snow --fields "d f s"

              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; the complete list:

                   t       to: recipient
                   c       cc: (carbon-copy) recipient
                   h       Bcc: (blind carbon-copy, hidden) recipient
                   d       Sent date of the message
                   f       Message sender (from:)
                   g       Message flags (flags)
                   l       Full path to the message (location)
                   p       Message priority (high, normal, low)
                   s       Message subject
                   i       Message-id
                   m       maildir
                   v       Mailing-list Id

              The  message  flags are described in mu-query(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'.

       -s, --sortfield =<field> and -z,
              --reverse  specifies  the  field  to  sort the search results by, and the direction
              (i.e., 'reverse' means that the sort should  be  reverted  -  Z-A).  The  following
              fields are supported:

                   cc,c            Cc (carbon-copy) recipient(s)
                   bcc,h           Bcc (blind-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)
                   list,v          Mailing-list id

              Thus, for example, to sort messages by date, you could specify:

                $ mu find fahrrad --fields "d f s" --sortfield=date --reverse

              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.

       -n, --maxnum=<number>
              If  >  0, display maximally that number of entries.  If not specified, all matching
              entries are displayed.

       --summary-len=<number>
              If > 0, use that number of lines of the message to provide a summary.

       --format=plain|links|xquery|xml|sexp
              output results in the specified format.

              The default is plain, i.e normal output with one line per message.

              links 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).

              xml formats the search results as XML.

              sexp  formats  the  search  results  as an s-expression as used in Lisp programming
              environments.

              xquery shows the Xapian query corresponding to your search terms. This is meant for
              for debugging purposes.

       --linksdir =<dir> and -c, --clearlinks
              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).  mu
              will create the maildir if it does not exist yet.

              If  you specify --clearlinks, 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.

                $ mu find grolsch --format=links --linksdir=~/Maildir/search --clearlinks

              will  store  links to found messages in ~/Maildir/search. If the directory does not
              exist yet, it will be created.

              Note: when mu creates a  Maildir  for  these  links,  it  automatically  inserts  a
              .noindex file, to exclude the directory from mu index.

       --after=<timestamp> only show messages whose message files were
              last  modified  (mtime)  after <timestamp>. <timestamp> is a UNIX time_t value, the
              number of seconds since 1970-01-01 (in UTC).

              From the command line, you can use the date command to get this value. For example,
              only  consider  messages  modified  (or  created)  in the last 5 minutes, you could
              specify
                --after=`date +%s --date='5 min ago'`
              This is assuming the GNU date command.

       --exec=<command>
              the --exec command causes the command to be executed on each matched  message;  for
              example, to see the raw text of all messages matching 'milkshake', you could use:
                $ mu find milkshake --exec='less'
              which is roughly equivalent to:
                $ mu find milkshake --fields="l" | xargs less

       -b, --bookmark=<bookmark>
              use  a  bookmarked search query. Using this option, a query from your bookmark file
              will be prepended to other search queries. See mu-bookmarks(1) for the  details  of
              the bookmarks file.

       --skip-dups,-u 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
              offlineimap.

       --include-related,-r 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.

       -t, --threads 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:

              |             | normal | orphan | duplicate |
              |-------------+--------+--------+-----------|
              | first child | `->    | `*>    | `=>       |
              | other       | |->    | |*>    | |=>       |

              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: http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html

   Integrating mu find with mail clients
       mutt

              For mutt you can use the following in your muttrc; pressing the F8 key will start a
              search, and F9 will take you to the results.

              # mutt macros for mu
              macro index <F8> "<shell-escape>mu find --clearlinks --format=links --linksdir=~/Maildir/search " \
                                       "mu find"
              macro index <F9> "<change-folder-readonly>~/Maildir/search" \
                                       "mu find results"

       Wanderlust

              Sam  B  suggested  the following on the mu-mailing list. First add the following to
              your Wanderlust configuration file:

              (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 "[")

              Now, you can search using the g key binding; you can also create permanent  virtual
              folders  when  the  messages  matching some expression by adding something like the
              following to your folders file.

              VFolders {
                [date:today..now]!mu  "Today"

                [size:1m..100m]!mu    "Big"

                [flag:unread]!mu      "Unread"
              }

              After restarting Wanderlust, the virtual folders should appear.

              Wanderlust (old)

              Another way to integrate mu and  wanderlust  is  shown  below;  the  aforementioned
              method  is recommended, but if that does not work for some reason, the below can be
              an alternative.

              (defvar mu-wl-mu-program     "/usr/local/bin/mu")
              (defvar mu-wl-search-folder  "search")

              (defun mu-wl-search ()
                "search for messages with `mu', and jump to the results"
                 (let* ((muexpr (read-string "Find messages matching: "))
                     (sfldr  (concat elmo-maildir-folder-path "/"
                            mu-wl-search-folder))
                     (cmdline (concat mu-wl-mu-program " find "
                              "--clearlinks --format=links --linksdir='" sfldr "' "
                             muexpr))
                     (rv (shell-command cmdline)))
                  (cond
                    ((= rv 0)  (message "Query succeeded"))
                    ((= rv 2)  (message "No matches found"))
                    (t (message "Error running query")))
                (= rv 0)))

              (defun mu-wl-search-and-goto ()
                "search and jump to the folder with the results"
                (interactive)
                (when (mu-wl-search)
                  (wl-summary-goto-folder-subr
                    (concat "." mu-wl-search-folder)
                    'force-update nil nil t)
                  (wl-summary-sort-by-date)))

              ;; querying both in summary and folder
              (define-key wl-summary-mode-map (kbd "Q") ;; => query
                '(lambda()(interactive)(mu-wl-search-and-goto)))
              (define-key wl-folder-mode-map (kbd "Q") ;; => query
                '(lambda()(interactive)(mu-wl-search-and-goto)))

RETURN VALUE

       mu find 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:

       | code | meaning                        |
       |------+--------------------------------|
       |    0 | ok                             |
       |    1 | general error                  |
       |    2 | no matches (for 'mu find')     |
       |    4 | database is corrupted          |

ENCODING

       mu find output is encoded according the locale for --format=plain (the default), and UTF-8
       for all other formats (sexp, xml).

BUGS

       Please report bugs  if  you  find  them:  https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues  If  you  have
       specific  messages  which  are  not  matched  correctly, please attach them (appropriately
       censored if needed).

AUTHOR

       Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>

SEE ALSO

       mu(1), mu-index(1), mu-query(7)