Understanding the "replied" tag

[Jani Nikula]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015, Xu Wang <xuwang762 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> First, I am extremely excited to be a part of this list now. notmuch
> has really helped me. Thank you go all individuals working to improve
> it and to help others to know how to use it.
>
> I would really like to know if a message has been replied to (e.g.
> using a certain message id). It seems that all I need to do is check
> for the "replied" tag. But often this tag is not there, even when
> there has been a reply (I have confirmed this through the thread
> display and checking the message that replied to the message to make
> sure it indeed has header "replied-to:<MSG-ID>").
>
> I have looked in mutt, and also I see many situations where there is
> no 'r' flag, especially for emails sent from me.
>
> The following returns true:
> notmuch config get maildir.synchronize_flags
>
> So at least both are giving same answer, but I'm not sure why not
> saying "replied" thread is correct.
>
> What is incorrect for my way of thinking about "replied"? Do I
> misunderstand what it is supposed to do or am I not updating the flags
> correctly?

Notmuch deals with the "replied" tag in two ways.

First, the tag is synchronized with the maildir flag R, both ways. This
is the "R" in the filename after ":2,". See [1] for details.

Second, the notmuch-emacs interface adds the "replied" tag upon sending
the reply. You can customize this tag, but note that only "replied" gets
synchronized to maildir flags.

If you use a MUA that doesn't either add the R flag or call notmuch to
add the "replied" tag, you'll lose this bit of information.

You might also find [2] relevant.

BR,
Jani.


[1] http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html
[2] http://notmuchmail.org/special-tags/

>
> Kind regards,
>
> Xu
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