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Email Technology Discussion
Summary
The discussion notes that IMAP does support server‑side full‑text searching of email bodies, and that the =b operator in mutt can invoke this feature. While it works reliably with servers like Dovecot, Gmail's indexing is often poor, causing missed matches.
Highlights
- IMAP protocol includes server‑side full‑text search for message bodies.
- Mutt accesses this capability via the =b operator in its l command.
- Dovecot and similar servers handle IMAP body searches well.
- Gmail's IMAP implementation frequently misses matches due to weak indexing.
- The issue is highlighted in a Hacker News comment thread.
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Context
Audience
Email system administrators, mail server operators, and power users of terminal‑based email clients
DomainEmail Protocols & Client Integration
Accessfree online
Topics
Related
Dovecot IMAP server documentationMutt email client manualGmail IMAP feature overviewIMAP SEARCH command specifications
