diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 612060c66..6e481e1b6 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ members = ["melib", "ui", "debug_printer", "testing", "text_processing"]
 
 [features]
 default = []
+notmuch = ["melib/notmuch_backend", "ui/notmuch"]
 
 # Print tracing logs as meli runs in stderr
 # enable for debug tracing logs: build with --features=debug-tracing
diff --git a/README b/README
index b80755de1..b0e758a74 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -59,11 +59,11 @@ BUILDING WITH NOTMUCH
 
 To use the optional notmuch backend feature, you must have libnotmuch installed in your system. In Debian-like systems, install the "libnotmuch" package.
 
-To build with notmuch support, prepend the environment variable "MELI_FEATURES='melib/notmuch_backend'" to your make invocation:
+To build with notmuch support, prepend the environment variable "MELI_FEATURES='notmuch'" to your make invocation:
 
-# MELI_FEATURES="melib/notmuch_backend" make
+# MELI_FEATURES="notmuch" make
 
-or if building directly with cargo, use the flag '--features="melib/notmuch_backend"'.
+or if building directly with cargo, use the flag '--features="notmuch"'.
 
 DEVELOPMENT
 ===========
diff --git a/ui/Cargo.toml b/ui/Cargo.toml
index 746922be0..77e78220d 100644
--- a/ui/Cargo.toml
+++ b/ui/Cargo.toml
@@ -30,7 +30,8 @@ rusqlite = {version = "0.20.0", optional =true }
 
 [features]
 default = ["sqlite3"]
-
+notmuch = []
 sqlite3 = ["rusqlite"]
+
 # Print tracing logs as meli runs
 debug-tracing = []