diff --git a/pkgs/applications/networking/mailreaders/notmuch/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/networking/mailreaders/notmuch/default.nix
index 43e04ed8a39..4304520383e 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/networking/mailreaders/notmuch/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/networking/mailreaders/notmuch/default.nix
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "notmuch-0.19";
 
+  passthru = {
+    pythonSourceRoot = "${name}/bindings/python";
+  };
+
   src = fetchurl {
     url = "http://notmuchmail.org/releases/${name}.tar.gz";
     sha256 = "1szf6c44g209pcjq5nvfhlp3nzcm3lrcwv4spsxmwy13hiaccvrr";
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
index f3dade7d0f9..97a3c76b02a 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
@@ -7077,7 +7077,7 @@ let
 
     src = pkgs.notmuch.src;
 
-    sourceRoot = "${pkgs.notmuch.src.name}/bindings/python";
+    sourceRoot = pkgs.notmuch.pythonSourceRoot;
 
     buildInputs = with self; [ python pkgs.notmuch ];