Csup supports the following kind of searches:
- In buffer (the text as displayed on your screen, rather than the underlying message)
- Quick Label
- Full (general)
Csup translates its own search query language into the underlying notmuch search query language. You can also mix notmuch search terms with Csup search terms.
Buffer
Simply press the forward slash key / and type your text. This behavior similar to vim
and other console apps you're already used to. Remember that this only searches the text
as displayed on screen, so it's great for partial subject lines and summaries,
but for email searches, you're probably more interested in the other options.
By Label
Press L to do a quick label search. You will then be prompted for a label; hit enter
to bring up scrollable list of all the labels you've ever used, along with some special labels
(Draft, Starred, Sent, Spam, etc.).
Highlight a label and press enter to view all the messages with that label.
By Content
For a general search, press F or \. Now type in your query. You can just type in arbitrary text,
which will be matched on a per-word basis against the bodies of all email in the index,
or you can search against specific fields of your emails
as described below.
Searches containing multiple words are treated as an "OR" search.
If you want to search for a specific phrase, enclose it in double quotes.
In other words: three contiguous words would be treated as three OR contiguous OR words
any message containing any of those items, where "three contiguous words" would
be treated as searching for that exact phrase.
Field Search
Specific message fields can be searched by using label:ruby-talk,
or from:matz@ruby-lang.org. (Fields include: body, from, to, subject, label, and others.)
Attachments
Search for all emails with attachments using has:attachment
(mails with attachments automatically get labelled with the label attachment when indexed).
Specific filetypes can be searched for using has:attachment filetype:pdf.
You can also specify filenames using filename:somefile.txt.
Spaces in filenames require parentheses around the filename: filename:(some file with spaces.txt).
Wildcards
Wildcards are allowed in most searches, but they must be escaped by backslash,
i.e.: subject:\*viagra\*, from:william\*
Negation
Force non-occurrence (negation) by -, e.g.: -body:"hot soup".
Advanced date queries
You can do date queries like before:today, on:today, after:yesterday, after:(2 days ago),
during:february, and so forth. Note that parentheses are required
for multi-word descriptions.
Combinations & Labels
You can combine those all together. For example: label:ruby-talk subject:[ANN] -rails on:today
By default, query terms are combined with AND, i.e. all conditions must be true.
The example above is equivalent to: label:ruby-talk AND subject:[ANN] AND -rails AND on:today
Exception: Query terms within the same field type are combined as OR. subject:apples subject:oranges
will find apples as well as oranges, it is equivalent to subject:apples OR subject:oranges
You can make this explicit by using conjunctions like "AND", "OR", "NOT".
Shortcuts and others
is:spam is translated into tag:Spam, likewise for some other shortcut queries (in, has).
Note that it will be OR'd with other label: queries!
id:123456789@example.com is useful if you have a unique identifier for an email.
Saved searches
You can save a search by pressing the % key in any search results mode.
Then in subsequent searches, you can refer to the saved search by enclosing
its name in {} brackets in the search query. For example, if you previously
saved the search from:joeblow@example.com as fromjb, you can refer
to that search as {fromjb} in subsequent searches.
Even more advanced queries
Play around with the search, and see the Notmuch documentation for details on the underlying search query language.