diff --git a/src/mu-msg-fields.h b/src/mu-msg-fields.h
index 4025bf34..028a9559 100644
--- a/src/mu-msg-fields.h
+++ b/src/mu-msg-fields.h
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ enum _MuMsgFieldId {
 	MU_MSG_FIELD_ID_TO,
 	MU_MSG_FIELD_ID_MSGID,
 	MU_MSG_FIELD_ID_TIMESTAMP,
+
 	MU_MSG_FIELD_ID_NUM,
 
 	/* fake fields */
diff --git a/src/mu-msg-iter.cc b/src/mu-msg-iter.cc
index b158e716..02d782ea 100644
--- a/src/mu-msg-iter.cc
+++ b/src/mu-msg-iter.cc
@@ -31,8 +31,7 @@ struct _MuMsgIter {
 	Xapian::Enquire		       *_enq;
 	Xapian::MSet                   _matches;
 	Xapian::MSet::const_iterator   _cursor;
-	size_t                         _batchsize;
-	size_t		               _offset;
+	size_t                         _batchsize, _offset;
 	char*                          _str[MU_MSG_FIELD_ID_NUM];
 	bool                           _is_null; 
 };
@@ -212,6 +211,16 @@ mu_msg_iter_get_field_numeric (MuMsgIter *iter, MuMsgFieldId mfid)
 	} MU_XAPIAN_CATCH_BLOCK_RETURN(static_cast<gint64>(-1));
 }
 
+
+unsigned int
+mu_msg_iter_get_index (MuMsgIter *iter)
+{
+	g_return_val_if_fail (iter, (unsigned int)-1);
+
+	return iter->_offset;
+}
+
+
 /* hmmm.... is it impossible to get a 0 docid, or just very improbable? */
 unsigned int
 mu_msg_iter_get_docid (MuMsgIter *iter)
diff --git a/src/mu-msg-iter.h b/src/mu-msg-iter.h
index ace76f0d..7c2d9bb9 100644
--- a/src/mu-msg-iter.h
+++ b/src/mu-msg-iter.h
@@ -87,6 +87,20 @@ MuMsg* mu_msg_iter_get_msg (MuMsgIter *iter, GError **err)
 unsigned int     mu_msg_iter_get_docid         (MuMsgIter *iter);
 
 
+
+/** 
+ * get the index for this iterator (ie. somewhere between [0..n-1],
+ * with being the number of matches, and increasing 1 for each
+ * iter_next)
+ * 
+ * @param iter a valid MuMsgIter 
+ * 
+ * @return the index or (unsigned int)-1 in case of error
+
+ */
+unsigned int      mu_msg_iter_get_index        (MuMsgIter *iter);
+
+
 /**
  * get the full path of the message file
  *