Emacs - Notmuch

The basic configuration can be performed by either

• an interactive guidance which can be provoked by

notmuch setup

• or a manually composed ~/.notmuch-config as follows

[database]
# Mail storage in maildir format
path=/MAIL/REPO

[user]
name=NAME
primary_email=EMAILADDRESS

[new]
tags=unread;inbox;
ignore=

[search]
exclude_tags=deleted;spam;

[maildir]
synchronize_flags=true

[crypto]
gpg_path=gpg

Add following content to the configuration of Emacs.

  (require 'notmuch)
  (setq user-full-name "NAME"
        user-mail-address "EMAILADDRESS")

  (setq mail-user-agent 'message-user-agent
        message-kill-buffer-on-exit t
        mm-text-html-renderer 'w3m)

  (setq notmuch-search-oldest-first nil
        notmuch-show-all-multipart/alternative-parts nil
        mail-interactive t
        notmuch-always-prompt-for-sender nil
        notmuch-show-indent-messages-width 3)

  (setq mail-specify-envelope-from t
        message-sendmail-envelope-from 'header
        mail-envelope-from 'header)

  (setq message-directory "."
        notmuch-fcc-dirs ".")

  (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
        smtpmail-smtp-server "SMTPSERVER"
        smtpmail-stream-type 'ssl
        smtpmail-smtp-service PORT)

  (setq notmuch-saved-searches '((:name "inbox"
                                        :query "tag:inbox"
                                        :count-query "tag:inbox and tag:unread"
                                        :sort-order newest-first)

Additionally, notmuch supports hooks which are essentially scripts in /MAIL/REPO/.notmuch/hooks whereby users can specify and customize the behaviors of notmuch. Currently, following scripts and hooks are available.

pre-new

Hook/script provoked before command notmuch new, which is usually used to fetch mails.

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/offlineimap -c /PATH/TO/OFFLINEIMAPRC -a ACCOUNT

or

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/getmail --new --getmaildir=/PATH/TO/GETMAILRC --rcfile=GETMAILRC

post-new

Hook/script provoked after command notmuch new, which is usually used to tag the newly imported mails.

#!/bin/sh
notmuch tag -inbox +ML -- to:MAILLIST@EXAMPLE.COM
notmuch tag -inbox +SOMEONE -- from:SOMEONE@EXAMPLE.COM
/usr/bin/notmuch search --output=files tag:deleted OR tag:spam | xargs -r rm

post-insert

Hook/script called after command notmuch insert, which is provoked after mails are delivered, imported into database and labelled with initial tags.

#!/bin/sh
notmuch tag -inbox -unread +sent -- from:MYEMAILADDRESS
/usr/bin/notmuch search --output=files tag:deleted OR tag:spam | xargs -r rm

• Add new intended task by crontab -e with following content

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/notmuch new

where the first line is for periodical fetching mail every 3 minutes and the second line to remove the mails deleted (tagged by deleted) at every boot.

• Enable and start the service cronie.

systemctl enable cronie.service
systemctl start cronie.service

By default, notmuch cannot separate Chinese correctly, Japanese, or Korean words due to the non-space separator. A workaround is to set a environment variable as follows.

export XAPIAN_CJK_NGRAM=1