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)