notmuch
Hacker ApprovedEmail search tool in Productivity & writing
Fast, rich search and tagging across very large mail archives, and a solid indexing layer for building other mail tools. Critics note it has no graphical interface for end users.
Fast, rich search and tagging across very large mail archives, and a solid indexing layer for building other mail tools. Critics note it has no graphical interface for end users.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 91%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 10 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fast search across huge mail archives
“I could query 20 years of the Smalltalk USENET group or the Supercollider mailing list instantly”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Offpunk 3.0” “which will let you index and search colossal mail accounts”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Msgvault: fast private email archive and search system” “notmuch beat recoll for me on the mbox split”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “Usenet rewind archive search engine” Strong search and tagging capabilities
“Best email search and virtual folder capability I've used on any platform.”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Putting email in its place with Emacs and Mu4e” “gives really responsive and rich search and tagging capabilities”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support” Solid indexing layer for other tools
“I think a thin layer on notmuch would get you pretty close without so much infrastructure.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “What AI-Native Looks Like” “use notmuch for searching/indexing. It's amazing.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Thunderbird for iOS” “notmuch for indexing email, for example”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Grep beats LSP? Why coding agents ignore your fancier tools” - Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Penguin Mail – open-source Rust email client for Linux with AI”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No graphical interface for end users
“the absence of a shiny UI for end users makes their use a no go”
Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “Bye Bye Gmail”
What people said
All 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“use notmuch for searching/indexing. It's amazing.”
“until I built my mail client on notmuch”
“I think a thin layer on notmuch would get you pretty close without so much infrastructure.”
“notmuch beat recoll for me on the mbox split”
“notmuch for indexing email, for example”
“I could query 20 years of the Smalltalk USENET group or the Supercollider mailing list instantly”
“which will let you index and search colossal mail accounts”
“the absence of a shiny UI for end users makes their use a no go”
“the more flexible/cli friendly maildir and notmuch”
“Best email search and virtual folder capability I've used on any platform.”
“it didn't work so well with the upstream mailboxes”
“gives really responsive and rich search and tagging capabilities”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.