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7.1 Queries ¶

mu4e queries are the same as the ones that mu find understands¹². You can consult the mu-query man-page for the details. In addition, mu4e provides a command mu4e-analyze-last-query, which shows how the mu server has interpreted the query, similar to what the --analyze option does for mu find.

Additionally, mu4e supports TAB-completion for queries. There is completion for all search keywords such as and, from:, or date: and also for certain values, i.e., the possible values for flag:, prio:, mime:, and maildir:.

Let’s look at some examples here.

• Get all messages regarding bananas:

  bananas
  

• Get all messages regarding bananas from John with an attachment:

  from:john and flag:attach and bananas
  

• Get all messages with subject wombat in June 2017

  subject:wombat and date:20170601..20170630
  

• Get all messages with PDF attachments in the /projects folder

  maildir:/projects and mime:application/pdf
  

• Get all messages about Rupert in the /Sent Items folder. Note that maildirs with spaces must be quoted.

  "maildir:/Sent Items" and rupert
  

• Get all important messages which are signed:

  flag:signed and prio:high
  

• Get all messages from Jim without an attachment:

  from:jim and not flag:attach
  

• Get all messages with Alice in one of the contacts-fields (to, from, cc, bcc):

  contact:alice
  

• Get all unread messages where the subject mentions Ångström: (search is case-insensitive and accent-insensitive, so this matches Ångström, angstrom, aNGstrøM, ...)

  subject:Ångström and flag:unread
  

• Get all unread messages between Mar-2012 and Aug-2013 about some bird:

  date:20120301..20130831 and nightingale and flag:unread
  

• Get today’s messages:

  date:today..now
  

• Get all messages we got in the last two weeks regarding emacs:

  date:2w.. and emacs
  

• Get messages from the Mu mailing list:

  list:mu-discuss.googlegroups.com
  

  Note — in The headers view you may see the ‘friendly name’ for a list; however, when searching you need the real name. You can see the real name for a mailing list from the friendly name’s tool-tip.

• Get messages with a subject soccer, Socrates, society, ...; note that the ‘*’-wildcard can only appear as a term’s rightmost character:

  subject:soc*
  

• Get all messages not sent to a mailing-list:

  NOT flag:list
  

• Get all mails with attachments with filenames starting with pic; note that the ‘*’ wildcard can only appear as the term’s rightmost character:

  file:pic*
  

• Get all messages with PDF-attachments:

  mime:application/pdf
  

  Get all messages with image attachments, and note that the ‘*’ wildcard can only appear as the term’s rightmost character:

  mime:image/*
  

  Get all messages with files that end in .ppt; this uses the regular-expression support, which is powerful but relatively slow:

  file:/\.ppt$/