MU-REMOVE(1)

📦
version 1.14.2 · 11 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 MU REMOVE(1) 💖

okay bestie, listen — this is a page from the General Commands Manual, section 1, and it's all about mu-remove, which is literally the little command that yanks messages OUT of the database. no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

mu-remove — remove messages from the database. that's it, that's the whole job. iconic behavior honestly.

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

mu [COMMON-OPTIONS] remove [OPTIONS] FILE...

like… look at her. she's simple. she's elegant. she takes files. 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so mu remove takes specific messages and removes them from the database, and each one you're removing gets named by its filename. that's how you tell her who to delete — by file path, not by some fancy ID or query.

and here's the little plot twist that lowkey matters: the files do not have to actually exist in the file system. nope. not required. the database just needs to know the name. the actual file can be fully gone, yeeted into the void, doesn't matter — mu remove will still clear it out of the db. it's giving ghost cleanup. 👻

🎀 REMOVE OPTIONS 🎀

💜 --muhome

use a non-default directory to store and read the database, write the logs, etc. etc. — basically "put all my mu stuff over there instead".

by default, mu follows the XDG Base Directory Specification. so on GNU/Linux, for example, it defaults to ~/.cache/mu and ~/.config/mu.

⚠️ plot twist for the oldheads: earlier versions of mu defaulted to ~/.mu, and that's not the default anymore — if you still want that spot, you now have to say it out loud, like --muhome=~/.mu. periodt.

the environment variable MUHOME can be used as an alternative to --muhome. and if you set both? --muhome wins. she has precedence. main character energy. 👑

🌈 COMMON OPTIONS 🌈

  • -d, --debug — makes mu generate extra debug information, which is useful for debugging the program itself. where does all that go? to the standard logging location — go peek at mu(1) for the deets.
  • -q, --quiet — makes mu not output informational messages and progress information to standard output, and instead send them only to the log file. error messages will still go to standard error, she's not gonna hide the bad news from you. and honestly? note that mu index is much faster with --quiet, so it's recommended you use this option when you're running mu from scripts etc. speed + silence = the dream combo fr fr. 🔥
  • --log-stderr — causes mu to not output log messages to standard error, in addition to sending them to the standard logging location.
  • --nocolor — do not use ANSI colors. the environment variable NO_COLOR can be used as an alternative to --nocolor. (sad girlypop hours, but okay, accessibility is valid 💖)
  • -V, --version — prints mu version and copyright information.
  • -h, --help — lists the various command line options. your bestie when you forget literally everything.

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

found a bug? NOT on my watch. please report bugs at:

https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues

go tell them everything, they wanna know 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>

this manpage is part of mu 1.14.2.

Copyright © 2008-2026 Dirk-Jan C. Binnema. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

💀 yes bestie, that's the real deal — free to change, free to redistribute, but no warranty, so don't come crying to anyone if it goes sideways. to the extent permitted by law, obviously.

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

mu(1), mu-index(1), mu-add(1)

and that's the whole page, babes. it came from the General Commands Manual, section 1, it's the MU REMOVE(1) page, and it's documenting mu version 1.14.2. go forth and remove responsibly 💅✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from