How to search emails in Gnus?

How to search emails in Gnus?

[Marius Hofert]

Hi,

I recently realized that I have (require 'nnir) in my ~/.gnus.el but I am missing some nnir-related functions. Do I have to download nnir.el and load it or should it come/be installed with Gnus by default?

How do you search for Mails at a specific date, e.g., 2012-03-04?
I tried it with C-u G G, then DATE and "2012-03-04", but it didn't work.

Cheers,

Marius 

Re: How to search emails in Gnus?

[Tassilo Horn]

Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch> writes:

> I recently realized that I have (require 'nnir) in my ~/.gnus.el but I
> am missing some nnir-related functions.

Basically, there's only one user-frontend function:
gnus-group-make-nnir-group bound to `G G' in *Group*.

> Do I have to download nnir.el and load it or should it come/be
> installed with Gnus by default?

It comes with Gnus.  You don't even need to configure anything for
searching IMAP and Gmane groups.

> How do you search for Mails at a specific date, e.g., 2012-03-04?  I
> tried it with C-u G G, then DATE and "2012-03-04", but it didn't work.

I assume you're searching an IMAP group.  In that case, you can use the
IMAP SEARCH language directly.

  C-u G G ON "17-Aug-2011" RET imap RET
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The underlined thingy is the actual search query.  ON <date> gives you
all messages registered at the imap server at that date.  For more IMAP
search capabilities, have a look at the spec:

  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1730#section-6.4.4

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: How to search emails in Gnus?

[prad]

Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:

>> How do you search for Mails at a specific date, e.g., 2012-03-04?  I
>> tried it with C-u G G, then DATE and "2012-03-04", but it didn't work.
>
> I assume you're searching an IMAP group.  In that case, you can use the
> IMAP SEARCH language directly.
>
>   C-u G G ON "17-Aug-2011" RET imap RET
>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> The underlined thingy is the actual search query.  ON <date> gives you
> all messages registered at the imap server at that date.
>
i can't seem to get this to work always see this message:
Couldn't request group: Search produced empty results.

it doesn't matter what i put into the query.

i'll keep trying some of the commands show in the IMAP4 Keyword Index.
i'm probably doing something illegible with the language.

-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: How to search emails in Gnus?

[Marius Hofert]

On Tuesday, July 24, 2012 7:50:47 PM UTC+2, Tassilo Horn wrote:
> Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> > I recently realized that I have (require 'nnir) in my ~/.gnus.el but I
> > am missing some nnir-related functions.
> 
> Basically, there's only one user-frontend function:
> gnus-group-make-nnir-group bound to `G G' in *Group*.
> 
> > Do I have to download nnir.el and load it or should it come/be
> > installed with Gnus by default?
> 
> It comes with Gnus.  You don't even need to configure anything for
> searching IMAP and Gmane groups.
> 
> > How do you search for Mails at a specific date, e.g., 2012-03-04?  I
> > tried it with C-u G G, then DATE and "2012-03-04", but it didn't work.
> 
> I assume you're searching an IMAP group.  In that case, you can use the
> IMAP SEARCH language directly.
> 
>   C-u G G ON "17-Aug-2011" RET imap RET
>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> The underlined thingy is the actual search query.  ON <date> gives you
> all messages registered at the imap server at that date.  For more IMAP
> search capabilities, have a look at the spec:
> 
>   http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1730#section-6.4.4
> 
> Bye,
> Tassilo

Thanks a lot, Tassilo, this page is precisely what I was looking for.

Cheers,

Marius

Re: How to search emails in Gnus?

[Marius Hofert]

On Tuesday, July 24, 2012 7:50:47 PM UTC+2, Tassilo Horn wrote:
> Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> > I recently realized that I have (require 'nnir) in my ~/.gnus.el but I
> > am missing some nnir-related functions.
> 
> Basically, there's only one user-frontend function:
> gnus-group-make-nnir-group bound to `G G' in *Group*.
> 
> > Do I have to download nnir.el and load it or should it come/be
> > installed with Gnus by default?
> 
> It comes with Gnus.  You don't even need to configure anything for
> searching IMAP and Gmane groups.
> 
> > How do you search for Mails at a specific date, e.g., 2012-03-04?  I
> > tried it with C-u G G, then DATE and "2012-03-04", but it didn't work.
> 
> I assume you're searching an IMAP group.  In that case, you can use the
> IMAP SEARCH language directly.
> 
>   C-u G G ON "17-Aug-2011" RET imap RET
>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> The underlined thingy is the actual search query.  ON <date> gives you
> all messages registered at the imap server at that date.  For more IMAP
> search capabilities, have a look at the spec:
> 
>   http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1730#section-6.4.4
> 
> Bye,
> Tassilo

One more question: How do you know how the date format looks like? Apparently it matters, I tried "2012-08-17" (international date format) and it didn't work.

Re: How to search emails in Gnus?

[Tassilo Horn]

Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch> writes:

Hi Marius,

>>   C-u G G ON &quot;17-Aug-2011&quot; RET imap RET
>>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> 
>> The underlined thingy is the actual search query.  ON &lt;date&gt;
>> gives you all messages registered at the imap server at that date.
>> For more IMAP search capabilities, have a look at the spec:
>> 
>>   http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1730#section-6.4.4
>
> One more question: How do you know how the date format looks like?
> Apparently it matters, I tried "2012-08-17" (international date
> format) and it didn't work.

Yes, that's a bit annoying.  IMAP doesn't specify the date format on its
own (AFAICS), but if references the standard email spec at several
places.  That defines the date format here:

  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822#section-5.1

But according to that spec it should by "17 Aug 2012" which doesn't work
for me.  I have to replace the spaces with hyphens.  Well, in the end
googling for "imap search examples" shows you the right syntax.

BTW, I accidentally referenced an obsole spec.  The current version is
here:

  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2060#section-6.4.4

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: How to search emails in Gnus?

[Marius Hofert]

I can confirm: It also does not work under my setup for "17 Aug 2011". 
Thanks for the links, Tassilo.

Cheers,

Marius

On Wednesday, July 25, 2012 9:11:24 AM UTC+2, Tassilo Horn wrote:
> Marius Hofert <marius.hofert@math.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> Hi Marius,
> 
> >>   C-u G G ON "17-Aug-2011" RET imap RET
> >>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> 
> >> The underlined thingy is the actual search query.  ON <date>
> >> gives you all messages registered at the imap server at that date.
> >> For more IMAP search capabilities, have a look at the spec:
> >> 
> >>   http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1730#section-6.4.4
> >
> > One more question: How do you know how the date format looks like?
> > Apparently it matters, I tried "2012-08-17" (international date
> > format) and it didn't work.
> 
> Yes, that's a bit annoying.  IMAP doesn't specify the date format on its
> own (AFAICS), but if references the standard email spec at several
> places.  That defines the date format here:
> 
>   http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822#section-5.1
> 
> But according to that spec it should by "17 Aug 2012" which doesn't work
> for me.  I have to replace the spaces with hyphens.  Well, in the end
> googling for "imap search examples" shows you the right syntax.
> 
> BTW, I accidentally referenced an obsole spec.  The current version is
> here:
> 
>   http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2060#section-6.4.4
> 
> Bye,
> Tassilo