NOTMUCH-RESTORE(1)

📦
version 0.40 · 13 versions
, in fedora 44, nixos 26.05, ubuntu resolute

💖 NOTMUCH-RESTORE 💖

okay bestie, this is notmuch-restore — the glow-up button for your mail tags. it puts all your tags BACK from a file you made earlier (you know, with notmuch dump). it's the reverse-uno of dump. no cap. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

notmuch restore [--accumulate] [--format=(auto|batch-tag|sup)]
[--input=<filename>]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So like. notmuch restore restores the tags from the given file (see notmuch-dump). that's the whole vibe. dump saved them, restore brings them home. 🫶

The input is read from the given filename, if any, or from stdin. easy.

Supported options for restore include:

  • --accumulate — the union of the existing tags and the new tags gets applied, instead of straight-up replacing each message's tags as they're read in from the dump file. so you keep what you had AND gain the new stuff. iconic teamwork behavior honestly. 💅
  • --format=(sup|batch-tag|auto) — notmuch restore supports two plain text dump formats, and each line specifies a message-id and a set of tags. for the details of the actual formats, go peek at notmuch-dump. here's the rundown:
    • sup — the sup dump file format is specifically chosen to be compatible with the format of files produced by sup-dump. so if you've previously been using sup for mail, then the notmuch restore command gives you a way to import all of your tags (or labels, as sup calls them). legacy bestie migration arc, we love to see it. ✨
    • batch-tag — the batch-tag dump format is intended to be more robust against malformed message-ids and tags containing whitespace or non-ascii(7) characters. see notmuch-dump for details on this format.
notmuch restore updates the maildir flags according to tag changes if the maildir.synchronize_flags configuration option is enabled. see notmuch-config for details.
  • auto — this option (the default!) tries to guess the format from the input. for correctly formed input in either supported format, this heuristic — based on the fact that batch-tag format contains no parentheses — should be accurate. she's guessing but she's guessing well. 👑
  • --include=(config|properties|tags) — controls what kind of metadata actually gets restored. the menu:
    • config — restore configuration data to the database. each configuration line starts with #@ , followed by a space separated key-value pair. both key and value are hex encoded if needed.
    • properties — restore per-message (key,value) metadata. each line starts with #= , followed by a message id, and a space separated list of key=value pairs. ids, keys and values are hex encoded if needed. see notmuch-properties for more details.
    • tags — restore per-message metadata, namely tags. see format above for more details. it's literally in the name bestie.
    • The default is to restore all available types of data. and plot twist: the option can be specified multiple times to select some subset. so pick and choose, it's your world. 🌈
  • --input=<filename> — read input from the given file instead of stdin. simple. clean. 💖

🦋 GZIPPED INPUT 🦋

notmuch restore will detect if the input is compressed in gzip(1) format and automatically decompress it while reading. and the gag is — this detection does not depend on file naming, and in particular works for standard input. so you can just pipe a gzipped blob in and she'll figure it out. mind reading, basically. 🔮

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

  • notmuch
  • notmuch-config
  • notmuch-count
  • notmuch-dump
  • notmuch-hooks
  • notmuch-insert
  • notmuch-new
  • notmuch-properties
  • notmuch-reply
  • notmuch-search
  • notmuch-search-terms
  • notmuch-show
  • notmuch-tag

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Carl Worth and many others — shoutout to the whole crew, fr fr. 💐

2009-2026, Carl Worth and many others

and that's the page, bestie!! 🎀 this was version 0.40, dated Jan 31, 2026, and it's giving very much "your tags are safe with me." now go restore something and feel gorgeous. mwah. 💅✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from