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imap-backup

Backup, restore and migrate email accounts.

Quick Start

brew install imap-backup # for macOS
gem install imap-backup --no-document # for Linux
imap-backup setup
imap-backup

Modes

There are two types of backups:

Keep all (the default) - progressively saves a local copy of all emails,
Mirror - adds and deletes emails from the local copy to keep it up to date with the account.

What You Can Do with a Backup

Migrate - use the local copy to populate emails on another account. This is a once-only action that deletes any existing emails on the destination account.
Mirror - make a destination account match the local copy. This action can be repeated.
Restore - push the local copy back to the original account.

See below for a full list of commands.

Installation

Docker or Podman

If you have Docker or Podman installed, the easist way to use imap-backup is via the container image. You'll need to choose a path on your computer where your backups will be saved, we'll use `./my-data` here. If you have just one account, you can do as follows ```sh docker run \ --volume ./my-data:/data \ --dns 8.8.8.8 \ ghcr.io/joeyates/imap-backup:latest \ imap-backup single backup \ --email me@example.com \ --password mysecret \ --server imap.example.com \ --path /data/me_example.com ``` Podman will work exactly the same. Notes: * If you're using Docker, add `--user $(id -u):$(id -g)` so that the files created by the container are owned by you and not by root, * Pass imap-backup the `--password-environment-variable=VARIABLE_NAME` or `--password-file=FILE` option to avoid having your password in the command line history: ```sh docker run --env THE_PASSWORD=$THE_PASSWORD \ ... \ imap-backup single backup \ --password-environment-variable=THE_PASSWORD \ ... ``` or ```sh docker run \ ... \ imap-backup single backup \ --password-file=/data/password.txt \ ... ``` If you have multiple accounts, you can create a configuration file. You'll need to choose a path on your computer where your configuration will be saved, we'll use `./my-config` here. First, run the menu-driven setup program to configure your accounts ```sh docker run \ --volume ./my-config:/config \ --volume ./my-data:/data \ --dns 8.8.8.8 \ --tty \ --interactive \ ghcr.io/joeyates/imap-backup:latest \ imap-backup setup \ --config /config/imap-backup.json ``` Then, run the backup ```sh docker run \ --volume ./my-config:/config \ --volume ./my-data:/data \ --dns 8.8.8.8 \ ghcr.io/joeyates/imap-backup:latest \ imap-backup backup \ --config /config/imap-backup.json ```

Homebrew (macOS)

![Homebrew installs](https://img.shields.io/homebrew/installs/dm/imap-backup?label=Homebrew%20installs) If you have [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/), do this: ```sh brew install imap-backup ```

As a Ruby Gem

* [Rubygem] ```sh gem install imap-backup --no-document ``` If that doesn't work, see the [detailed installation instructions](/docs/installation/rubygem.md). [Rubygem]: https://rubygems.org/gems/imap-backup "Ruby gem at rubygems.org"

From Source Code

If you want to use imap-backup directly from the source code, see [here](/docs/installation/source.md).

Setup

Normally you will want to backup a number of email accounts. Doing so requires the creation of a config file.

You do this via a menu-driven command line program:

Run:

imap-backup setup

As an alternative, if you only want to backup a single account, you can pass all the necessary parameters directly to the single backup command (see the single backup docs).

GMail

To use imap-backup with GMail, Office 365 and other services that require OAuth2 authentication, you can use email-oauth2-proxy. See this blog post about using imap-backup with email-oauth2-proxy.

Backup

Manually, from the command line:

imap-backup

Alternatively, add it to your crontab.

Backups can also be inspected, for example via local show and exported via utils export-to-thunderbird.

Commands

For a full list of available commands, run

imap-backup help

For more information about a command, run

imap-backup help COMMAND

Performance

There are a couple of performance tweaks that you can use to improve backup speed.

These are activated via two settings:

Global setting "Delay download writes",
Account setting "Multi-fetch size".

See the performance document for more information.

Troubleshooting

If you have problems:

ensure that you have the latest release,
run imap-backup with the -v or --verbose parameter.

Development

See the Developer Documentation.

joeyates / imap-backup

readme