Beagle

GMail Search

Beagle (version 0.3.6+) contains a backend to search GMail emails. It does not index the emails itself, instead it directly searches GMail when a query request comes. In the future it can be extended to also index GMail emails. This backend uses xemail-net to search GMail using IMAP protocol.

Enabling GMailSearch backend

First make sure the GMailSearch backend is installed and not already enabled. This list should display GMailSearch if it is installed and registered.

 $ beagle-config --list-backends

If the backend is enabled, then it will not appear in the denied backend list which you can view by

 $ beagle-config Daemon DeniedBackends

The backend is disabled by default. You have to first enable it.

 $ beagle-config Daemon DeniedBackends - GmailSearch

Similarly, to disable the backend anytime

 $ beagle-config Daemon DeniedBackends GmailSearch

Note: Enabling and disabling backends require restarting of beagled to take effect.

Adding account information

You can only search for one GMail account and only one IMAP folder. To search all emails, use the [Gmail]/All Mail folder. See GMail FAQ on how to get the IMAP folder name for GMail folders and labels.

To add account information, you have to use the command line tool beagle-config (user inputs are <marked>):

 $ beagle-config GoogleBackends GMailUsername <gmail-user-name>@gmail.com
 $ beagle-config GoogleBackends GMailSearchFolder <foldername>

For passwords, store the password in plaintext in the beagle config file ~/.beagle/config/GoogleBackends.xml by

 $ beagle-config GoogleBackends GMailPassword <password>
 $ beagle-config GoogleBackends GMailPasswordSource conf-file

Google Apps users can also search their emails. They need to set their domain name:

 $ beagle-config GoogleBackends GoogleAppDomainName <domain.name>

Set the domain name to empty to unset it.

If any of these information is changed while beagled is running, then the new information will be read and used for subsequent searches.

Privacy and Security concerns

Note that GMail IMAP uses SSL so your password is secure during querying. Alternately you can store the password in KDE Wallet. Create a folder called beagle and add a password to this folder with the key your email address and the password your gmail password. Then tell beagle to use KDE Wallet.

 $ beagle-config GoogleBackends GMailPasswordSource kdewallet

Gnome keyring support will be added in the future.

By nature this backend sends to Google all queries to beagle. We understand that some of us are concerned about sending queries outside the computer.

Beagle requires you to explicitly grant permission to search global sources by using --domain global with beagle-query or by checking option Global in the Search Domain menu in the beagle-search.