search query "replytoid:<blah>"

[Xu Wang]

On Sat, Jun 13, 2015 at 5:14 PM, David Bremner <david at tethera.net> wrote:
> Xu Wang <xuwang762 at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Is it possible to search based on which message ID a message
>> *responds* to? For example, suppose message id is MESSAGEID. I want to
>> find all emails that responded to MESSAGEID. How to enter such a query
>> into notmuch?
>
> Threads aren't exactly the concept you ask for, because the include the
> messages before the message-id in question as well. Nonetheless, maybe
> the following helps:
>
>
> % notmuch show $(notmuch search --output=threads $MESAGEID)
>
> or
>
> % notmuch search --output=messages $(notmuch search --output=threads $MESAGEID)

Dear David and Suvayu,

Thank you for your ideas. My goal is to do something like the following:
notmuch search tag:reply-required and not tag:replied

which was discussed here:
http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch/2010/002558.html

However, instead of conditioning on tag:reply-required, I would like
to look at this for a specific message. For example, if I write an
important message, I can do the following:
save the message id, and then in 5 days set a cron script to check
whether my message was responded to. If it was not responded to I will
take some action to notify myself (haven't decided what yet).
It is the "If it was not responded to" part that this email thread is
about. I am now realizing that I cannot use mutt's tag "replied"
because I often send and read email from gmail or other IMap clients
(e.g. phone). Because of this (I believe), the reply tag does not get
set when it should (well not "should" but rather "when I want it to").
For example, I often have

abc
->def
  -> ghi

where the message def does not have the "replied" tag, even though it
was replied to (ghi replied to it). I think the reason is what I
suggested above.

Because I cannot use the "replied" tag (unless I have misunderstood),
I thought I could just check using the message id with 'notmuch search
repliedto:<messageid>', but Suvayu points out that searching for this
is not supported.

Kind regards,

Xu