On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 03:22:26PM -0400, Ethan Mallove wrote: > If this is not possible, is there a way to download all the > matching messages to a local filesystem so I can grep them?
I don't think it's possible to show matching lines in mutt. However, you can copy matching mails to a Maildir-type mailbox. Set $mbox_type to Maildir and copy matching mails to a new mailbox. That would be something like :set mbox_type=Maildir<enter> Set mailbox-type to Maildir T[YOUR SEARCH PATTERN]<enter> Tag all matching mails ;C=my_matching_mails<enter> Copy them to a new Maildir-mailbox named 'my_matching_mails' That's in case you didn't remap any of the default keys. Maildir-style mailboxes save messages in different files, so you can grep through them. $ grep -Hni [YOUR SEARCH PATTERN] my_matching_mails/{cur,new,tmp}/* Problem is the overhead of typing the search pattern twice, once for mutt and once for grep. Maybe one could write a macro/script-combo for this purpose. Or you could convert your mailboxes to Maildirs. Also, you maybe want to have a look at mboxgrep. It's a tool for searching through multiple mailboxes. It's also possible to save matching messages to a new mailbox. I don't know if you can save to a Maildir mailbox though. HTH, David