Fast Apple Mail search via SQLite on macOS. Search emails by subject, sender, date, attachments - results in ~50ms vs 8+ minutes with AppleScript. Use when asked to find, search, or list emails.
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Search Apple Mail.app emails instantly via SQLite. ~50ms vs 8+ minutes with AppleScript.
# Copy mail-search to your PATH cp mail-search /usr/local/bin/ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/mail-search
mail-search subject "invoice" # Search subjects mail-search sender "@amazon.com" # Search by sender email mail-search from-name "John" # Search by sender name mail-search to "recipient@example.com" # Search sent mail mail-search unread # List unread emails mail-search attachments # List emails with attachments mail-search attachment-type pdf # Find PDFs mail-search recent 7 # Last 7 days mail-search date-range 2025-01-01 2025-01-31 mail-search open 12345 # Open email by ID mail-search stats # Database statistics
-n, --limit N Max results (default: 20) -j, --json Output as JSON -c, --csv Output as CSV -q, --quiet No headers --db PATH Override database path
# Find bank statements from last month mail-search subject "statement" -n 50Get unread emails as JSON for processing
mail-search unread --json | jq '.[] | .subject'
Find all PDFs from a specific sender
mail-search sender "@bankofamerica.com" -n 100 | grep -i statement
Export recent emails to CSV
mail-search recent 30 --csv > recent_emails.csv
| Method | Time for 130k emails |
|---|---|
| AppleScript iteration | 8+ minutes |
| Spotlight/mdfind | Broken since Big Sur |
| SQLite (this tool) | ~50ms |
Apple removed the emlx Spotlight importer in macOS Big Sur. This tool queries the
Envelope IndexDatabase:
~/Library/Mail/V{9,10,11}/MailData/Envelope IndexKey tables:
messagessubjectsaddressesrecipientsattachmentsLimitations:
For custom queries, use sqlite3 directly:
sqlite3 -header -column ~/Library/Mail/V10/MailData/Envelope\ Index " SELECT m.ROWID, s.subject, a.address FROM messages m JOIN subjects s ON m.subject = s.ROWID LEFT JOIN addresses a ON m.sender = a.ROWID WHERE s.subject LIKE '%your query%' ORDER BY m.date_sent DESC LIMIT 20; "
MIT
No automatic installation available. Please visit the source repository for installation instructions.
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