DOKK / manpages / debian 11 / maildir-utils / mu-init.1.en
MU-INIT(1) General Commands Manual MU-INIT(1)

mu init - initialize the mu message database

mu init [options]

mu init is the mu command for setting up the mu message database. After mu init has completed, you can run mu index

Note, some of the general options are described in the mu(1) man-page and not here, as they apply to multiple mu commands.

use an alternative directory to store and read the database, write the logs, etc. By default, mu uses XDG Base Directory Specification (e.g. on Linux this defaults to ~/.cache/mu, ~/.config/mu). Earlier versions of mu defaulted to ~/.mu, which now requires --muhome=~/.mu.

starts searching at <maildir>. By default, mu uses whatever the MAILDIR environment variable is set to; if it is not set, it tries ~/Maildir. The maildir must be on a single file-system; and symbolic links are not supported.

specifies that some e-mail addresses are 'my-address' (--my-address can be used multiple times). This is used by mu cfind -- any e-mail address found in the address fields of a message which also has <my-email-address> in one of its address fields is considered a personal e-mail address. This allows you, for example, to filter out (mu cfind --personal) addresses which were merely seen in mailing list messages.

mu init uses MAILDIR to find the user's Maildir if it has not been specified explicitly with --maildir=<maildir>. If MAILDIR is not set, mu init uses ~/Maildir.

mu init returns 0 upon successful completion, or a non-zero exit code if there was some error.

Please report bugs if you find them: https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues

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

maildir(5), mu(1), mu-index(1)

February 2020 User Manuals