mu/man/mu.1

.TH MU 1 "May 2022" "User Manuals"

.SH NAME

mu \- a set of tools to deal with Maildirs and message files, in particular to
index and search e-mail messages.

.SH SYNOPSIS

In alphabetical order:

.B mu [options]
general mu command.

.B mu add
add specific messages to the database. See
.BR mu-add(1)

.B mu cfind [options] [<regexp>]
find contacts. See
.BR mu-cfind(1)

.B mu extract [options] <file> [<parts>] [<regexp>]
extract attachments and other MIME-parts. See
.BR mu-extract(1)

.B mu find [options] <search expression>
find messages. See
.BR mu-find(1)

.B mu help [command]
get help for some command. See
.BR mu-help(1)

.B mu index [options]
(re)index the messages in a Maildir. See
.BR mu-index(1)

.B mu info [options]
show information about the mu database
.BR mu-info(1)

.B mu init [options]
initialize the mu database
.BR mu-init(1)

.B mu mkdir [options] <dir> [<dirs>]
create a new Maildir. See
.BR mu-mkdir(1)

.B mu remove [options]
remove specific messages from the database. See
.BR mu-remove(1)

.B mu script [options]
run a mu (Guile) script. See
.BR mu-script(1)

.B mu server [options]
start a server process (for \fBmu4e\fR-internal use). See
.BR mu-server(1)

.B mu view <file> [<files>]
view a specific message. See
.BR mu-view(1)

.SH DESCRIPTION

\fBmu\fR is a set of tools for dealing with Maildirs and the e-mail messages
in them.

\fBmu\fR's main purpose is to enable searching of e-mail messages. It
does so by periodically scanning a Maildir directory tree and
analyzing the e-mail messages found (this is called 'indexing'). The
results of this analysis are stored in a database, which can then be
queried.

In addition to indexing and searching, \fBmu\fR also offers
functionality for viewing messages, extracting attachments and
creating maildirs, and searching and exporting contact information.

\fBmu\fR can be used from the command line or can be integrated with various
e-mail clients.

This manpage gives a general overview of the available commands
(\fBindex\fR, \fBfind\fR, etc.); each \fBmu\fR command has its own
man-page as well.

.SH COLORS

Some \fBmu\fR sub-commands support colorized output, and do so by
default. If you don't want colors, you can use \fI--nocolor\fR.

Currently, \fBmu find\fR, \fBmu view\fR, \fBmu cfind\fR and \fBmu extract\fR
support colors.

.SH ENCODING

\fBmu\fR's output is in the current locale, with the exceptions of the output
specifically meant for output to UTF8-encoded files. In practice, this means
that the output of commands \fBindex\fR, \fBview\fR,
\fBextract\fR is always encoded according to the current locale.

The same is true for \fBfind\fR and \fBcfind\fR, with some exceptions, where
the output is always UTF-8, regardless of the locale.

For \fBcfind\fR the exception is \fI--format=bbdb\fR. This is hard-coded to
UTF-8, and as such specified in the output-file, so emacs/bbdb can handle it
correctly without guessing.

For \fBfind\fR the output is encoded according the locale for
\fI--format=plain\fR (the default), and UTF-8 for all other formats
(\fIjson\fR, \fIsexp\fR, \fIxml\fR).

.SH DATABASE AND FILE

Commands \fBmu index\fR and \fBfind\fR and \fBcfind\fR work with the database,
while the other ones work on individual mail files. Hence, running \fBview\fR,
\fBmkdir\fR and \fBextract\fR does not require the mu database.

The various commands are discussed in more detail in their own separate
man-pages; here the general options are discussed.

.SH OPTIONS

\fBmu\fR offers several general options that apply to all commands,
including \fBmu\fR without any command.

.TP
\fB\-\-muhome\fR
use an alternative directory to store and read the database, write the logs,
etc. By default, \fBmu\fR uses XDG Base Directory Specification (e.g. on Linux
by default \fI~/.cache/mu\fR, \fI~/.config/mu\fR). Earlier versions of \fBmu\fR defaulted
to \fI~/.mu\fR, which now requires \fI\-\-muhome=~/.mu\fR.

.TP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-debug\fR
makes \fBmu\fR generate extra debug information,
useful for debugging the program itself. By default, debug information goes to
the log file, \fI~/.cache/mu/mu.log\fR. It can safely be deleted when \fBmu\fR is
not running. When running with \fB--debug\fR option, the log file can grow
rather quickly. See the note on logging below.

.TP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
causes \fBmu\fR not to output informational
messages and progress information to standard output, but only to the log
file. Error messages will still be sent to standard error. Note that \fBmu
index\fR is \fBmuch\fR faster with \fB\-\-quiet\fR, so it is recommended you
use this option when using \fBmu\fR from scripts etc.

.TP
\fB\-\-log-stderr\fR
causes \fBmu\fR to \fBnot\fR output log messages to standard error, in
addition to sending them to the log file.

.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
prints \fBmu\fR version and copyright information.

.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
lists the various command line options.

.SH ENVIRONMENT

\fBMUHOME\fR can be used as an alternative to \fB\-\-muhome\fR. The latter has precedence.

\fBNO_COLOR\fR can be used as an alternative to \fB\-\-nocolor\fR.

.SH ERROR CODES

The various mu subcommands typically exit with 0 (zero) upon success, and
non-zero when some error occurred.

.SH BUGS

Please report bugs if you find them:
.BR https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues

.SH AUTHOR

Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>

.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR mu-index (1), mu-find (1), mu-cfind (1), mu-mkdir (1), mu-view (1),
.BR mu-extract (1), mu-easy (1), mu-bookmarks (5), mu-query (7)
.BR https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html