MU(1)                                                         General Commands Manual                                                        MU(1)

NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

       mu [options]

       mu index [options]

       mu find [options] <search expression>

       mu view <file> [<files>]

       mu mkdir [options] <dir> [<dirs>]

       mu extract [options] <file> [<parts>] [<regexp>]

       mu cfind [options] [<regexp>]

DESCRIPTION

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

       mus main function 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 ('indexing'). The results of this analysis are stored in a database, which can then be queried.

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

       mu 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 (index, find, etc.); each of the mu commands has its own man-page as well.

COMMANDS

       mu offers the following commands:

       index  for indexing (analyzing) the contents of your Maildirs, and storing the information in a database. See mu-index(1)

       find   for finding messages in your database, using certain search parameters. See mu-find(1)

       cfind  for  finding contacts (names + e-mail addresses) matching a certain expression, and exporting the results in various formats for use
              in other programs.  mu-cfind(1)

       view   for displaying e-mail messages. See mu-view(1)

       mkdir  for creating Maildirs. See mu-mkdir(1)

       extract
              for extract MIME-parts (such as attachments) from messages. See mu-extract(1)

COLORS

       Some mu sub-commands support colorized output. If you don't want this, you can use the --nocolor/ option to disable it. Even  then,  colors
       will  only  shown  when output goes to a sufficiently capable terminal (this roughly mirrors the --color=auto of the GNU-version of the ls-
       command).

       Instead of the --color/, you can also set the MU_NOCOLOR environment variable to non-empty to disable colors.

       Currently, mu find, mu view, mu cfind and mu extract support colors.

ENCODING

       mu'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 index, view, extract is always encoded according to the current locale.

       The same is true for find and cfind, with some exceptions, where the output is always UTF-8, regardless of the locale.

       For  cfind  the exception is --format=bbdb. 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 find the output is encoded according the locale for --format=plain (the default), and UTF-8 for all other formats (json, sexp, xml).

DATABASE AND FILE

       Commands mu index and find and cfind work with the database, while the other ones work on invidual mail files. Hence,  running  iew,  mkdir
       and extract 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.

OPTIONS

       mu offers a number of general options that apply to all commands, including mu without any command.

       --muhome
              causes mu to use an alternative directory to store and read its database and logs. By default, ~/.mu is used.

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

       -q, --quiet
              causes mu 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 mu index is much faster with --quiet, so it is recommended you use this option  when
              using mu from scripts etc.

       --log-stderr
              causes mu to not output log messages to standard error, in addition to sending them to the log file.

       -v, --version
              prints mu version and copyright information.

       -h, --help
              lists  the  various  command line options, while --help-index, --help-find and --help-all list only the options for respectively the
              specified command or for all commands.

ERROR CODES

       The various mu subcommands typically exit with 0 (zero) upon success, and non-zero when some error occured. The  table  lists  the  various
       error codes.

       exit code |  error
       ----------+-------------------------------------------
            1      |  MU_ERROR
            2      |  MU_ERROR_IN_PARAMETERS
            3      |  MU_ERROR_INTERNAL
            4      |  MU_ERROR_NO_MATCHES
              |
            11     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN
              |
            13     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN_QUERY
            14     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN_DIR_NOT_ACCESSIBLE
            15     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN_NOT_UP_TO_DATE
            16     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN_MISSING_DATA
            17     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN_CORRUPTION
            18     |  MU_ERROR_XAPIAN_CANNOT_GET_WRITELOCK
            30     |  MU_ERROR_GMIME
              |
            50     |  MU_ERROR_CONTACTS
            51     |  MU_ERROR_CONTACTS_CANNOT_RETRIEVE
              |
            70     |  MU_ERROR_FILE
            71     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_INVALID_NAME
            72     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_CANNOT_LINK
            73     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_CANNOT_OPEN
            74     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_CANNOT_READ
            75     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_CANNOT_CREATE
            76     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_CANNOT_MKDIR
            77     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_STAT_FAILED
            78     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_READDIR_FAILED
            79     |  MU_ERROR_FILE_INVALID_SOURCE

BUGS

       Please report bugs if you find them: http://code.google.com/p/mu0/issues/list

AUTHOR

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

SEE ALSO

       mu-index(1) mu-find(1) mu-cfind(1) mu-mkdir(1) mu-view(1) mu-extract(1) mu-easy(1) mu-bookmarks(5)

User Manuals                                                       January 2012                                                              MU(1)