[notmuch] How to index /var/spool/mail with notmuch

Tassilo Horn tassilo at member.fsf.org
Sun Nov 22 12:24:47 PST 2009


Hi all,

I'd like to try out notmuch.  My mail setup is as follows:

  - I run a local IMAP server (dovecot) and access it using Gnus
  - Dovecot stores its mails in /var/spool/mail/ in some one file per
    message format

But I get some permission problems when trying to index /var/spool/mail.
I was able to create a .notmuch/ directory in there with permissions set
to 700 for my user.  All mail files are readable for my user.

Unfortunately, there are some dovecot internal files, which should
neither be indexed by notmuch, and which have 600 permissions for the
mail user.  And that's where notmuch errors and stops indexing. :-(

All "real" mail files are named "u.<number>", so it would be cool if I
could provide a pattern to notmuch matching all files I'd like to index.
And maybe the other way round (a blacklist pattern) would be useful,
too.

Any thoughts?  Maybe there's a better approach for what I'm trying to
do?

Bye,
Tassilo


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