NAME

       notmuch-dump - creates a plain-text dump of the tags of each message

SYNOPSIS

       notmuch  dump  [--gzip]  [--format=(batch-tag|sup)]  [--output=<file>] [--] [<search-term>
       ...]

DESCRIPTION

       Dump tags for messages matching the given search terms.

       Output is to the given filename, if any, or to stdout.

       These tags are the only data in the notmuch database that  can't  be  recreated  from  the
       messages  themselves.  The  output of notmuch dump is therefore the only critical thing to
       backup (and much more friendly to incremental backup than the native database files.)

       See notmuch-search-terms for details of the supported syntax for <search-terms>.  With  no
       search  terms,  a  dump  of  all messages in the database will be generated. A -- argument
       instructs notmuch that the remaining arguments are search terms.

       Supported options for dump include

       --gzip Compress the output in a format compatible with gzip(1).

       --format=(sup|batch-tag)
              Notmuch restore supports two plain text dump formats, both with one message-id  per
              line, followed by a list of tags.

              batch-tag
                     The  default  batch-tag  dump  format  is  intended  to  more robust against
                     malformed  message-ids  and  tags  containing  whitespace  or   non-ascii(7)
                     characters. Each line has the form:

                        +<*encoded-tag*\ > +<*encoded-tag*\ > ... -- id:<*quoted-message-id*\ >

                     Tags  are  hex-encoded  by  replacing  every  byte  not  matching  the regex
                     [A-Za-z0-9@=.,_+-] with %nn where nn is the  two  digit  hex  encoding.  The
                     message ID is a valid Xapian query, quoted using Xapian boolean term quoting
                     rules: if the ID contains whitespace or a  close  paren  or  starts  with  a
                     double  quote, it must be enclosed in double quotes and double quotes inside
                     the ID must be doubled. The astute reader will notice this is a special case
                     of  the  batch input format for notmuch-tag; note that the single message-id
                     query is mandatory for notmuch-restore.

              sup    The sup dump file format is specifically chosen to be  compatible  with  the
                     format  of files produced by sup-dump(1). So if you've previously been using
                     sup for mail, then the notmuch-restore command provides you a way to  import
                     all  of your tags (or labels as sup calls them). Each line has the following
                     form:

                        <*message-id*\ > **(** <*tag*\ > ... **)**

                     with zero or more tags  are  separated  by  spaces.  Note  that  (malformed)
                     message-ids  may  contain arbitrary non-null characters. Note also that tags
                     with spaces will not be correctly restored with this format.

       --include=(config|properties|tags)
              Control what kind of metadata is included in the output.

              config Output configuration data stored in the database. Each line starts with  "#@
                     ", followed by a space separated key-value pair.  Both key and value are hex
                     encoded if needed.

              properties
                     Output per-message (key,value) metadata.   Each  line  starts  with  "#=  ",
                     followed  by  a  message  id, and a space separated list of key=value pairs.
                     Ids, keys and values are hex encoded if needed.  See notmuch-properties  for
                     more details.

              tags   Output  per-message  boolean  metadata,  namely  tags.  See format above for
                     description of the output.

              The default is to include all available types of data.  The option can be specified
              multiple  times to select some subset. As of version 3 of the dump format, there is
              a header line of the following form:

                 #notmuch-dump <*format*>:<*version*> <*included*>

              where <included> is a comma separated list of the above options.

       --output=<filename>
              Write output to given file instead of stdout.

SEE ALSO

       notmuch,  notmuch-config,  notmuch-count,  notmuch-hooks,   notmuch-insert,   notmuch-new,
       notmuch-properties,  notmuch-reply, notmuch-restore, notmuch-search, notmuch-search-terms,
       notmuch-show, notmuch-tag

AUTHOR

       Carl Worth and many others

COPYRIGHT

       2009-2023, Carl Worth and many others