man: generate manpages from .org files
Generate the manpages from org-documents which makes it a bit easier to keep them update to date since I find org-syntax easier than troff, and we can use include files.
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Dirk-Jan C. Binnema
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man/mu-easy.5.org
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.TH MU-EASY 1 "February 2020" "User Manuals"
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.SH NAME
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mu easy \- a quick introduction to mu
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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\fBmu\fR is a set of tools for dealing with e-mail messages in Maildirs. There
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are many options, which are all described in the man pages for the various
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sub-commands. This man pages jumps over all of the details and gives examples of
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some common use cases. If the use cases described here do not precisely do what
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you want, please check the more extensive information in the man page about the
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sub-command you are using -- for example, the \fBmu-index\fR(1) or
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\fBmu-find\fR(1) man pages.
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\fBNOTE\fR: the \fBindex\fR command (and therefore, the ones that depend on
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that, such as \fBfind\fR), require that you store your mail in the
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Maildir-format. If you don't do so, you can still use the other commands, but
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you won't be able to index/search your mail.
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By default, \fBmu\fR uses colorized output when it thinks your terminal is
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capable of doing so. If you don't like color, you can use the \fB--nocolor\fR
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command-line option, or set either the \fBMU_NOCOLOR\fR or the \fBNO_COLOR\fR
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environment variable to non-empty.
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.SH SETTING THINGS UP
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The first time you run the mu commands, you need to initialize it. This is done
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with the \fBinit\fR command.
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.nf
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\fB$ mu init\fR
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.fi
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This uses the defaults (see \fBmu-init(1)\fR for details on how to change that).
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.SH INDEXING YOUR E-MAIL
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Before you can search e-mails, you'll first need to index them:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu index\fR
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.fi
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The process can take a few minutes, depending on the amount of mail
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you have, the speed of your computer, hard drive etc. Usually,
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indexing should be able to reach a speed of a few hundred messages per
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second.
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\fBmu index\fR guesses the top-level Maildir to do its job; if it guesses wrong,
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you can use the \fI--maildir\fR option to specify the top-level directory that
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should be processed. See the \fBmu-index\fR(1) man page for more details.
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Normally, \fBmu index\fR visits all the directories under the top-level Maildir;
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however, you can exclude certain directories (say, the 'trash' or 'spam'
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folders) by creating a file called \fI.noindex\fR in the directory. When
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\fBmu\fR sees such a file, it will exclude this directory and its
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sub-directories from indexing. Also see \fB.noupdate\fR in the \fBmu-index\fR(1)
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manpage.
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.SH SEARCHING YOUR E-MAIL
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After you have indexed your mail, you can start searching it. By default, the
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search results are printed on standard output. Alternatively, the output can
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take the form of Maildir with symbolic links to the found messages. This enables
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integration with e-mail clients; see the \fBmu-find\fR(1) man page for details,
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the syntax of the search parameters and so on. Here, we just give some examples
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for common cases.
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You can use the \fBmu fields\fR command to get information about all possible
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fields and flags.
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First, let's search for all messages sent to Julius (Caesar) regarding
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fruit:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find t:julius fruit\fR
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.fi
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This should return something like:
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.nf
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2008-07-31T21:57:25 EEST John Milton <jm@example.com> Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt
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.fi
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This means there is a message to 'julius' with 'fruit' somewhere in the message.
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In this case, it's a message from John Milton. Note that the date format depends
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on your the language/locale you are using.
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How do we know that the message was sent to Julius Caesar? Well, it's not
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visible from the results above, because the default fields that are shown are
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date/sender/subject. However, we can change this using the \fI--fields\fR
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parameter (try \fBmu fields\fR to see all the details):
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find --fields="t s" t:julius fruit\fR
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.fi
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In other words, display the 'To:'-field (t) and the subject (s). This should
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return something like:
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.nf
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Julius Caesar <jc@example.com> Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt
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.fi
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This is the same message found before, only with some different fields
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displayed.
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By default, \fBmu\fR uses the logical AND for the search parameters -- that
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is, it displays messages that match all the parameters. However, we can use
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logical OR as well:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find t:julius OR f:socrates\fR
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.fi
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In other words, display messages that are either sent to Julius Caesar
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\fBor\fR are from Socrates. This could return something like:
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.nf
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2008-07-31T21:57:25 EEST Socrates <soc@example.com> cool stuff
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2008-07-31T21:57:25 EEST John Milton <jm@example.com> Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt
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.fi
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What if we want to see some of the body of the message? You can get
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a 'summary' of the first lines of the message using the \fI--summary-len\fR
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option, which will 'summarize' the first \fIn\fR lines of the message:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find --summary-len=3 napoleon m:/archive\fR
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.fi
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.nf
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1970-01-01T02:00:00 EET Napoleon Bonaparte <nb@example.com> rock on dude
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Summary: Le 24 février 1815, la vigie de Notre-Dame de la Garde signala le
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trois-mâts le Pharaon, venant de Smyrne, Trieste et Naples. Comme
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d'habitude, un pilote côtier partit aussitôt du port, rasa le château
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.fi
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The summary consists of the first n lines of the message with all superfluous
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whitespace removed.
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Also note the \fBm:/archive\fR parameter in the query. This means that we only
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match messages in a maildir called '/archive'.
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.SH MORE QUERIES
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Let's list a few more queries that may be interesting; please note that
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searches for message flags, priority and date ranges are only available in mu
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version 0.9 or later.
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Get all important messages which are signed:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find flag:signed prio:high \fR
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.fi
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Get all messages from Jim without an attachment:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find from:jim AND NOT flag:attach\fR
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.fi
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Get all messages where Jack is in one of the contact fields:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find contact:jack\fR
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.fi
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This uses the special contact: pseudo-field which matches (\fBfrom\fR,
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\fBto\fR, \fBcc\fR and \fBbcc\fR).
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Get all messages in the Sent Items folder about yoghurt:
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.nf
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\fB$mu find maildir:'/Sent Items' yoghurt\fR
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.fi
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Note how we need to quote search terms that include spaces.
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Get all unread messages where the subject mentions Ångström:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find subject:Ångström flag:unread\fR
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.fi
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which is equivalent to:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find subject:angstrom flag:unread\fR
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.fi
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because does mu is case-insensitive and accent-insensitive.
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Get all unread messages between March 2002 and August 2003 about some bird (or
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a Swedish rock band):
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find date:20020301..20030831 nightingale flag:unread\fR
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.fi
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Get all messages received today:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find date:today..now\fR
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.fi
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Get all messages we got in the last two weeks about emacs:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find date:2w..now emacs\fR
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.fi
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Another powerful feature (since 0.9.6) are wildcard searches, where you can
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search for the last \fIn\fR characters in a word. For example, you can search
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for:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find 'subject:soc*'\fR
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.fi
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and get mails about soccer, Socrates, society, and so on. Note, it's important
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to quote the search query, otherwise the shell will interpret
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the '*'.
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You can also search for messages with a certain attachment using their
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filename, for example:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find 'file:pic*'\fR
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.fi
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will get you all messages with an attachment starting with 'pic'.
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If you want to find attachments with a certain MIME-type, you can use the
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following:
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Get all messages with PDF attachments:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find mime:application/pdf\fR
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.fi
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or even:
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Get all messages with image attachments:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find 'mime:image/*'\fR
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.fi
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Note that (1) the '*' wildcard can only be used as the rightmost thing in a
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search query, and (2) that you need to quote the search term, because
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otherwise your shell will interpret the '*' (expanding it to all files in the
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current directory -- probably not what you want).
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.SH DISPLAYING MESSAGES
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We might also want to display the complete messages instead of the header
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information. This can be done using \fBmu view\fR command. Note that this
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command does not use the database; you simply provide it the path to a
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message.
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Therefore, if you want to display some message from a search query, you'll
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need its path. To get the path (think \fBl\fRocation) for our first example we
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can use:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu find --fields="l" t:julius fruit\fR
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.fi
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And we'll get something like:
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.nf
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/home/someuser/Maildir/archive/cur/1266188485_0.6850.cthulhu:2,
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.fi
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We can now display this message:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu view /home/someuser/Maildir/archive/cur/1266188485_0.6850.cthulhu:2,\fR
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From: John Milton <jm@example.com>
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To: Julius Caesar <jc@example.com>
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Subject: Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt
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Date: 2008-07-31T21:57:25 EEST
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OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
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Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
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Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
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[...]
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.fi
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.SH FINDING CONTACTS
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While \fBmu find\fR searches for messages, there is also \fBmu cfind\fR to
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find \fIcontacts\fR, that is, names + addresses. Without any search
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expression, \fBmu cfind\fR lists all of your contacts.
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.nf
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\fB$ mu cfind julius\fR
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.fi
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will find all contacts with 'julius' in either name or e-mail address. Note
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that \fBmu cfind\fR accepts a \fIregular expression\fR.
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\fBmu cfind\fR also supports a \fI--format=\fR-parameter, which sets the
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output to some specific format, so the results can be imported into another
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program. For example, to export your contact information to a \fBmutt\fR
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address book file, you can use something like:
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.nf
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\fB$ mu cfind --format=mutt-alias > ~/mutt-aliases \fR
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.fi
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Then, you can use them in \fBmutt\fR if you add something like \fBsource
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~/mutt-aliases\fR to your \fImuttrc\fR.
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.SH AUTHOR
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Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
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.SH "SEE ALSO"
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.BR mu (1),
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.BR mu-init (1),
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.BR mu-index (1),
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.BR mu-find (1),
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.BR mu-mfind (1),
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.BR mu-mkdir (1),
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.BR mu-view (1),
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.BR mu-extract (1)
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