mu/README.org

#+TITLE:mu
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 [ *Note*: you are looking at the *development* branch, which is where new code is
 being developed and tested, and which may occasionally break. Distributions and
 non-adventurous users are instead recommended to use the [[https://github.com/djcb/mu/tree/release/1.10][1.10 Release Branch]] or
 to pick up one of the [[https://github.com/djcb/mu/releases][1.10 Releases]]. ]

Welcome to ~mu~!

Latest development news: [[NEWS.org]].

With the enormous amounts of e-mail many people gather and the importance of
e-mail message in our work-flows, it's essential to quickly deal with all that
mail - in particular, to instantly find that one important e-mail you need right
now, and quickly file away message for later use.

~mu~ is a tool for dealing with e-mail messages stored in the Maildir-format. ~mu~'s
purpose in life is to help you to quickly find the messages you need; in
addition, it allows you to view messages, extract attachments, create new
maildirs, and so on.

After indexing your messages into a [[http://www.xapian.org][Xapian]]-database, you can search them using a
custom query language. You can use various message fields or words in the body
text to find the right messages.

Built on top of ~mu~ are some extensions (included in this package):

- ~mu4e~: a full-featured e-mail client that runs inside emacs

- ~mu-guile~: bindings for the Guile/Scheme programming language (version 3.0 and
  later)

~mu~ is written in C++; ~mu4e~ is written in ~elisp~ and ~mu-guile~ in a mix of C++ and
Scheme.

~mu~ is available in Linux distributions (e.g. Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora) under the
name ~maildir-utils~; apparently because they don't like short names. All of the
code is distributed under the terms of the [[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html][GNU General Public License version 3]]
(or higher).

* Installation

Note: building from source is an /advanced/ subject, especially if something goes
wrong. The below simple examples are a start, but all tools involved have many
options; there are differences between systems, versions etc. So if this is all
a bit daunting we recommend to wait for someone else to build it for you, such
as a Linux distribution. Many have packages available.

** Requirements

To be able to build ~mu~, ensure you have:

- a C++17 compiler (~gcc~ or ~clang~ are known to work)
- development packages for /Xapian/ and /GMime/ and /GLib/ (see ~meson.build~ for thex
  versions)
- basic tools such as ~make~, ~sed~, ~grep~
- ~meson~

For ~mu4e~, you also need ~emacs~.

Note, support for Windows is very much _experimental_, that is, it works for some
people, but we can't really support it due to lack of the specific expertise.
Help is welcome!

** Building

#+begin_example
$ git clone git://github.com/djcb/mu.git
$ cd mu
#+end_example

~mu~ uses ~meson~ for building, so you can use that directly, and all the usual
commands apply. You can also use it _indirectly_ through the provided ~Makefile~,
which provides a number of useful targets.

For instance, using the ~Makefile~, you could install ~mu~ using:

#+begin_example
$ ./autogen.sh && make
$ sudo make install
#+end_example

Alternatively, you can run ~meson~ directly (see the ~meson~ documentation for
more details):
#+begin_example
$ meson setup -C build
$ meson compile -C build
$ meson install -C build
#+end_example

** Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See the Github issue list and [[IDEAS.org]].