AFEW(1) afew AFEW(1) NAME afew - afew Documentation afew is an initial tagging script for notmuch mail: o o Its basic task is to provide automatic tagging each time new mail is registered with notmuch. In a classic setup, you might call it after notmuch new in an offlineimap post sync hook or in the notmuch post-new hook. It can do basic thing such as adding tags based on email headers or maildir folders, handling killed threads and spam. fyi: afew plays nicely with alot, a GUI for notmuch mail ;) o Contents: QUICK START The steps to get up and running are: o install the afew package o create the config files o add a notmuch post-new hook that calls afew Install The following commands will get you going on Debian/Ubuntu systems: $ sudo aptitude install notmuch python-notmuch dbacl $ git clone git://github.com/teythoon/afew.git $ cd afew $ python setup.py install --prefix=~/.local Ensure that ~/.local/bin is in your path. One way is to add the following to your ~/.bashrc: if [ -d ~/.local/bin ]; then PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin fi See Installation <> for a more detailed guide. Initial Config Make sure that ~/.notmuch-config reads: [new] tags=new Put a list of filters into ~/.config/afew/config: # This is the default filter chain [SpamFilter] [KillThreadsFilter] [ListMailsFilter] [ArchiveSentMailsFilter] [InboxFilter] And create a post-new hook for notmuch to call afew: $ notmuchdir=path/to/maildir/.notmuch $ mkdir -p "$notmuchdir/hooks" $ printf > "$notmuchdir/hooks/post-new" '#!/usr/bin/env sh\n$HOME/.local/bin/afew --tag --new\n' $ chmod u+x "$notmuchdir/hooks/post-new" Next Steps You can: o add extra Filters <> for more custom filtering o make use of the Move Mode <> to move your email between folders o run afew against all your old mail by running afew --tag --all o start Extending afew <> afew INSTALLATION Requirements afew works with python 3.6+, and requires notmuch and its python bindings. On Debian/Ubuntu systems you can install these by doing: $ sudo aptitude install notmuch python-notmuch python-dev python-setuptools Note: if you are installing notmuch using Homebrew on macOS, make sure to run $ brew install --with-python3 notmuch, because the brew formula doesn't install python3 notmuch bindings by default. Unprivileged Install It is recommended to install afew itself inside a virtualenv as an unprivileged user, either via checking out the source code and installing via setup.py, or via pip. # create and activate virtualenv $ python -m venv --system-site-packages .venv $ source .venv/bin/activate # install via pip from PyPI: $ pip install afew # or install from source: $ python setup.py install --prefix=~/.local You might want to symlink .venv/bin/afew somewhere inside your path (~/bin/ in this case): $ ln -snr .venv/bin/afew ~/.bin/afew Building documentation Documentation can be built in various formats using Sphinx: # build docs into build/sphinx/{html,man} $ python setup.py build_sphinx -b html,man COMMAND LINE USAGE Ultimately afew is a command line tool. You have to specify an action, and whether to act on all messages, or only on new messages. The actions you can choose from are: tag run the tag filters. See Initial tagging. watch continuously monitor the mailbox for new files move-mails move mail files between maildir folders Initial tagging Basic tagging stuff requires no configuration, just run $ afew --tag --new # or to tag *all* messages $ afew --tag --all To do this automatically you can add the following hook into your ~/.offlineimaprc: postsynchook = ionice -c 3 chrt --idle 0 /bin/sh -c "notmuch new && afew --tag --new" There is a lot more to say about general filter Configuration <> and the different Filters <> provided by afew. Simulation Adding --dry-run to any --tag or --sync-tags action prevents modification of the notmuch db. Add some -vv goodness to see some action. Move Mode To invoke afew in move mode, provide the --move-mails option on the command line. Move mode will respect --dry-run, so throw in --verbose and watch what effects a real run would have. In move mode, afew will check all mails (or only recent ones) in the configured maildir folders, deciding whether they should be moved to another folder. The decision is based on rules defined in your config file. A rule is bound to a source folder and specifies a target folder into which a mail will be moved that is matched by an associated query. This way you will be able to transfer your sorting principles roughly to the classic folder based maildir structure understood by your traditional mail server. Tag your mails with notmuch, call afew --move-mails in an offlineimap presynchook and enjoy a clean inbox in your webinterface/GUI-client at work. Note that in move mode, afew calls notmuch new after moving mails around. You can use afew -m --notmuch-args=--no-hooks in a pre-new notmuch hook to avoid loops. For information on how to configure rules for move mode, what you can do with it and what you can't, please refer to Move Mode <>. Commandline help The full set of options is: $ afew --help Usage: afew [options] [--] [query] Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit Actions: Please specify exactly one action. -t, --tag run the tag filters -w, --watch continuously monitor the mailbox for new files -m, --move-mails move mail files between maildir folders Query modifiers: Please specify either --all or --new or a query string. -a, --all operate on all messages -n, --new operate on all new messages General options: -C NOTMUCH_CONFIG, --notmuch-config=NOTMUCH_CONFIG path to the notmuch configuration file [default: $NOTMUCH_CONFIG or ~/.notmuch-config] -e ENABLE_FILTERS, --enable-filters=ENABLE_FILTERS filter classes to use, separated by ',' [default: filters specified in afew's config] -d, --dry-run don't change the db [default: False] -R REFERENCE_SET_SIZE, --reference-set-size=REFERENCE_SET_SIZE size of the reference set [default: 1000] -T DAYS, --reference-set-timeframe=DAYS do not use mails older than DAYS days [default: 30] -v, --verbose be more verbose, can be given multiple times CONFIGURATION Configuration File Customization of tag filters takes place in afew's config file in ~/.config/afew/config. NotMuch Config afew tries to adapt to the new tag that notmuch sets on new email, but has mostly been developed and used against the new tag. To use that, make sure that ~/.notmuch-config contains: [new] tags=new afew reads the notmuch database location from notmuch config. When no database path is set in notmuch config, afew uses the MAILDIR environment variable when set, or $HOME/mail as a fallback, like notmuch CLI does. If a relative path is provided, afew prepends $HOME/ to the path in the same manner as notmuch, which was introduced in version 0.28 of notmuch. Filter Configuration You can modify filters, and define your own versions of the base Filter that allow you to tag messages in a similar way to the notmuch tag command, using the config file. The default config file is: [SpamFilter] [KillThreadsFilter] [ListMailsFilter] [ArchiveSentMailsFilter] sent_tag = '' [InboxFilter] See the Filters <> page for the details of those filters and the custom arguments they accept. You can add filters based on the base filter as well. These can be customised by specifying settings beneath them. The standard settings, which apply to all filters, are: message text that will be displayed while running this filter if the verbosity is high enough. query the query to use against the messages, specified in standard notmuch format. Note that you don't need to specify the new tag - afew will add that when run with the --new flag. tags the tags to add or remove for messages that match the query. Tags to add are preceded by a + and tags to remove are preceded by a -. Multiple tags are separated by semicolons. tags_blacklist if the message has one of these tags, don't add tags to it. Tags are separated by semicolons. So to add the deer tag to any message to or from antelope@deer.com you could do: [Filter.1] query = 'antelope@deer.com' tags = +deer message = Wild animals ahoy You can also (in combination with the InboxFilter) have email skip the Inbox by removing the new tag before you get to the InboxFilter: [Filter.2] query = from'pointyheaded@boss.com' tags = -new;+boss message = Message from above Full Sample Config Showing some sample configs is the easiest way to understand. The notmuch initial tagging page shows a sample config: # immediately archive all messages from "me" notmuch tag -new -- tag:new and from:me@example.com # delete all messages from a spammer: notmuch tag +deleted -- tag:new and from:spam@spam.com # tag all message from notmuch mailing list notmuch tag +notmuch -- tag:new and to:notmuch@notmuchmail.org # finally, retag all "new" messages "inbox" and "unread" notmuch tag +inbox +unread -new -- tag:new The (roughly) equivalent set up in afew would be: [ArchiveSentMailsFilter] [Filter.1] message = Delete all messages from spammer query = from:spam@spam.com tags = +deleted;-new [Filter.2] message = Tag all messages from the notmuch mailing list query = to:notmuch@notmuchmail.org tags = +notmuch [InboxFilter] Not that the queries do not generally include tag:new because this is implied when afew is run with the --new flag. The differences between them is that o the ArchiveSentMailsFilter will add tags specified by sent_tag option (default '' means add no tags. You may want to set it to sent), as well as archiving the email. And it will not archive email that has been sent to one of your own addresses. o the InboxFilter does not add the unread tag. But most mail clients will manage the unread status directly in maildir. More Filter Examples Here are a few more example filters from github dotfiles: [Filter.1] query = 'sicsa-students@sicsa.ac.uk' tags = +sicsa message = sicsa [Filter.2] query = 'from:foosoc.ed@gmail.com OR from:GT Silber OR from:lizzie.brough@eusa.ed.ac.uk' tags = +soc;+foo message = foosoc [Filter.3] query = 'folder:gmail/G+' tags = +G+ message = gmail spam # skip inbox [Filter.6] query = 'to:notmuch@notmuchmail.org AND (subject:emacs OR subject:elisp OR "(defun" OR "(setq" OR PATCH)' tags = -new message = notmuch emacs stuff # Assuming the following workflow: all messages for projects or releases should be tagged # as "project/A", "project/B" respectively "release/1.0.1" or "release/1.2.0". # # In most cases replies to messages retain their context: the project, the release(s), .. # # The following config will propagate all project/... or release/... tags from a thread # to all new messages. [PropagateTagsByRegexInThreadFilter.1] propagate_tags = project/.* # do not tag spam filter = not is:spam [PropagateTagsByRegexInThreadFilter.2] propagate_tags = release/.* FILTERS The default filter set (if you don't specify anything in the config) is: [SpamFilter] [KillThreadsFilter] [ListMailsFilter] [ArchiveSentMailsFilter] [InboxFilter] The standard filter Configuration <> can be applied to these filters as well. Though note that most of the filters below set their own value for message, query and/or tags, and some ignore some of the standard settings. ArchiveSentMailsFilter It extends SentMailsFilter with the following feature: o Emails filtered by this filter have the new tag removed, so will not have the inbox tag added by the InboxFilter. DKIMValidityFilter This filter verifies DKIM signatures of E-Mails with DKIM header, and adds dkim-ok or dkim-fail tags. DMARCReportInspectionFilter DMARC reports usually come in ZIP files. To check the report you have to unpack and search thru XML document which is very tedious. This filter tags the message as follows: if there's any SPF failure in any attachment, tag the message with "dmarc-spf-fail" tag, otherwise tag with "dmarc-spf-ok" if there's any DKIM failure in any attachment, tag the message with "dmarc-dkim-fail" tag, otherwise tag with "dmarc-dkim-ok" FolderNameFilter For each email, it looks at all folders it is in, and uses the path and filename as a tag, for the email. So if you have a procmail or sieve set up that puts emails in folders for you, this might be useful. o folder_explicit_list = o Tag mails with tag in only. is a space separated list, not enclosed in quotes or any other way. o Empty list means all folders (of course blacklist still applies). o The default is empty list. o You may use it e.g. to set tags only for specific folders like 'Sent'. o folder_blacklist = o Never tag mails with tag in . is a space separated list, not enclosed in quotes or any other way. o The default is to blacklist no folders. o You may use it e.g. to avoid mails being tagged as 'INBOX' when there is the more standard 'inbox' tag. o folder_transforms = o Transform folder names according to the specified rules before tagging mails. is a space separated list consisting of 'folder:tag' style pairs. The colon separates the name of the folder to be transformed from the tag it is to be transformed into. o The default is to transform to folder names. o You may use the rules e.g. to transform the name of your 'Junk' folder into your 'spam' tag or fix capitalization of your draft and sent folder: folder_transforms = Junk:spam Drafts:draft Sent:sent o folder_lowercases = true o Use lowercase tags for all folder names o maildir_separator = o Use to split your maildir hierarchy into individual tags. o The default is to split on '.' o If your maildir hierarchy is represented in the filesystem as collapsed dirs, is used to split it again before applying tags. If your maildir looks like this: [...] /path/to/maildir/devel.afew/[cur|new|tmp]/... /path/to/maildir/devel.alot/[cur|new|tmp]/... /path/to/maildir/devel.notmuch/[cur|new|tmp]/... [...] the mails in your afew folder will be tagged with 'devel' and 'afew'. If instead your hierarchy is split by a more conventional '/' or any other divider [...] /path/to/maildir/devel/afew/[cur|new|tmp]/... /path/to/maildir/devel/alot/[cur|new|tmp]/... /path/to/maildir/devel/notmuch/[cur|new|tmp]/... [...] you need to configure that divider to have your mails properly tagged: maildir_separator = / HeaderMatchingFilter This filter adds tags to a message if the named header matches the regular expression given. The tags can be set, or based on the match. The settings you can use are: o header = o pattern = o tags = If you surround a tag with {} then it will be replaced with the named match. Some examples are: [HeaderMatchingFilter.1] header = X-Spam-Flag pattern = YES tags = +spam [HeaderMatchingFilter.2] header = List-Id pattern = <(?P.*)> tags = +lists;+{list_id} [HeaderMatchingFilter.3] header = X-Redmine-Project pattern = (?P.+) tags = +redmine;+{project} SpamFilter and ListMailsFilter are implemented using HeaderMatchingFilter, and are only slightly more complicated than the above examples. InboxFilter This removes the new tag, and adds the inbox tag, to any message that isn't killed or spam. (The new tags are set in your notmuch config, and default to just new.) KillThreadsFilter If the new message has been added to a thread that has already been tagged killed then add the killed tag to this message. This allows for ignoring all replies to a particular thread. ListMailsFilter This filter looks for the List-Id header, and if it finds it, adds a tag lists and a tag named lists/. MeFilter Add filter tagging mail sent directly to any of addresses defined in Notmuch config file: primary_email or other_email. Default tag is to-me and can be customized with me_tag option. SentMailsFilter The settings you can use are: o sent_tag = o Add to all mails sent from one of your configured mail addresses, and not to any of your addresses. o The default is to add no tag, so you need to specify something. o You may e.g. use it to tag all mails sent by you as 'sent'. This may make special sense in conjunction with a mail client that is able to not only search for threads but individual mails as well. o to_transforms = o Transform To/Cc/Bcc e-mail addresses to tags according to the specified rules. is a space separated list consisting of <'user_part@domain_part>:tags' style pairs. The colon separates the e-mail address to be transformed from tags it is to be transformed into. ':tags' is optional and if empty, 'user_part' is used as tag. 'tags' can be a single tag or semi-colon separated list of tags. o It can be used for example to easily tag posts sent to mailing lists which at this stage don't have List-Id field. SpamFilter The settings you can use are: o spam_tag = o Add to all mails recognized as spam. o The default is 'spam'. o You may use it to tag your spam as 'junk', 'scum' or whatever suits your mood. Note that only a single tag is supported here. Email will be considered spam if the header X-Spam-Flag is present. Customizing filters To customize these filters, there are basically two different possibilities: Let's say you like the SpamFilter, but it is way too polite 1. Create an filter object and customize it [SpamFilter.0] # note the index message = meh The index is required if you want to create a new SpamFilter in addition to the default one. If you need just one customized SpamFilter, you can drop the index and customize the default instance. 2. Create a new type... [ShitFilter(SpamFilter)] message = I hatez teh spam! and create an object or two [ShitFilter.0] [ShitFilter.1] message = Me hatez it too. You can provide your own filter implementations too. You have to register your filters via entry points. See the afew setup.py for examples on how to register your filters. To add your filters, you just need to install your package in the context of the afew application. MOVE MODE Configuration Section Here is a full sample configuration for move mode: [MailMover] folders = INBOX Junk rename = False max_age = 15 # rules INBOX = 'tag:spam':Junk 'NOT tag:inbox':Archive Junk = 'NOT tag:spam AND tag:inbox':INBOX 'NOT tag:spam':Archive Below we explain what each bit of this means. Rules First you need to specify which folders should be checked for mails that are to be moved (as a whitespace separated list). Folder names containing whitespace need to be quoted: folders = INBOX Junk "Sent Mail" Then you have to specify rules that define move actions of the form = ['':]+ Every mail in the folder that matches a will be moved into the folder associated with that query. A message that matches multiple queries will be copied to multiple destinations. You can bind as many rules to a maildir folder as you deem necessary. Just add them as elements of a (whitespace separated) list. Please note, though, that you need to specify at least one rule for every folder given by the folders option and at least one folder to check in order to use the move mode. INBOX = 'tag:spam':Junk will bind one rule to the maildir folder INBOX that states that all mails in said folder that carry (potentially among others) the tag spam are to be moved into the folder Junk. With being an arbitrary notmuch query, you have the power to construct arbitrarily flexible rules. You can check for the absence of tags and look out for combinations of attributes: Junk = 'NOT tag:spam AND tag:inbox':INBOX 'NOT tag:spam':Archive The above rules will move all mails in Junk that don't have the spam tag but do have an inbox tag into the directory INBOX. All other mails not tagged with spam will be moved into Archive. Max Age You can limit the age of mails you want to move by setting the max_age option in the configuration section. By providing max_age = 15 afew will only check mails at most 15 days old. Rename Set this option if you are using the mbsync IMAP syncing tool. mbsync adds a unique identifier to files' names when it syncs them. If the rename option is not set, moving files can cause UID conflicts and prevent mbsync from syncing with error messages such as "Maildir error: duplicate UID 1234" or "UID 567 is beyond highest assigned UID 89". When the option is set, afew will rename files while moving them, removing the UID but preserving other mbsync information. This allows mbsync to assign a new UID to the file and avoid UID conflicts. If you are using offlineimap, you can safely ignore this option. rename = True Limitations (1) Rules don't manipulate tags. INBOX = 'NOT tag:inbox':Archive Junk = 'NOT tag:spam':INBOX The above combination of rules might prove tricky, since you might expect de-spammed mails to end up in INBOX. But since the Junk rule will not add an inbox tag, the next run in move mode might very well move the matching mails into Archive. Then again, if you remove the spam tag and do not set an inbox tag, how would you come to expect the mail would end up in your INBOX folder after moving it? ;) (2) There is no 1:1 mapping between folders and tags. And that's a feature. If you tag a mail with two tags and there is a rule for each of them, both rules will apply. Your mail will be copied into two destination folders, then removed from its original location. EXTENDING AFEW You can put python files in ~/.config/afew/ and they will be imported by afew. If you use that python file to define a Filter class and use the register_filter decorator then you can refer to it in your filter configuration. So an example small filter you could add might be: from afew.filters.BaseFilter import Filter from afew.FilterRegistry import register_filter PROJECT_MAPPING = { 'fabric': 'deployment', 'oldname': 'new-name', } @register_filter class RedmineFilter(Filter): message = 'Create tag based on redmine project' query = 'NOT tag:redmine' def handle_message(self, message): project = message.get_header('X-Redmine-Project') if project in PROJECT_MAPPING: project = PROJECT_MAPPING[project] self.add_tags(message, 'redmine', project) We have defined the message and query class variables that are used by the parent class Filter. The message is printed when running with verbose flags. The query is used to select messages to run against - here we ensure we don't bother looking at messages we've already looked at. The handle_message() method is the key one to implement. This will be called for each message that matches the query. The argument is a notmuch message object and the key methods used by the afew filters are header(), filename() and get_thread(). Of the methods inherited from the Filter class the key ones are add_tags() and remove_tags(), but read about the Implementation <> or just read the source code to get your own ideas. Once you've defined your filter, you can add it to your config like any other filter: [RedmineFilter] IMPLEMENTATION Database Manager The design of the database manager was inspired by alots database manager alot.db.DBManager. class afew.Database.Database Convenience wrapper around notmuch. add_message(path, sync_maildir_flags=False, new_mail_handler=None) Adds the given message to the notmuch index. Parameters o path (str ) -- path to the message o sync_maildir_flags (bool ) -- if True notmuch converts the standard maildir flags to tags o new_mail_handler (a function that is called with a notmuch.Message object as its only argument) -- callback for new messages Raises notmuch.NotmuchError if adding the message fails Returns a notmuch.Message object close() Closes the notmuch database if it has been opened. do_query(query) Executes a notmuch query. Parameters query (str ) -- the query to execute Returns the query result Return type notmuch.Query get_messages(query, full_thread=False) Get all messages matching the given query. Parameters o query (str ) -- the query to execute using Database.do_query() o full_thread (bool ) -- return all messages from mathing threads Returns an iterator over notmuch.Message objects remove_message(path) Remove the given message from the notmuch index. Parameters path (str ) -- path to the message walk_replies(message) Returns all replies to the given message. Parameters message (notmuch.Message) -- the message to start from Returns an iterator over notmuch.Message objects walk_thread(thread) Returns all messages in the given thread. Parameters thread (notmuch.Thread) -- the tread you are interested in Returns an iterator over notmuch.Message objects Filter class afew.filters.BaseFilter.Filter(database, **kwargs) flush_changes() (Re)Initializes the data structures that hold the enqueued changes to the notmuch database. Configuration management Miscellanious utility functions o Index <> o Module Index <> o Search Page <> Author Justus Winter Copyright afewmail project 3.0.2 December 16, 2025 AFEW(1)