GitHub - joeyates/imap-backup: Backup GMail (or other IMAP) accounts to disk
source link: https://github.com/joeyates/imap-backup
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imap-backup
Backup GMail (or other IMAP) accounts to disk
Installation
$ gem install 'imap-backup'
Commands
For a full list, run
$ imap-backup help
For more information about a command, run
$ imap-backup help COMMAND
Setup
In order to do backups, you need to add accounts via a menu-driven command line program:
$ imap-backup setup
GMail
To use imap-backup with GMail, you will need to enable 'App passwords' on your account.
Folders
By default, all folders are backed-up. You can override this by choosing specific folders.
Configuration file
setup
creates the file ~/.imap-backup/config.json
E.g.:
{ "accounts": [ { "username": "[email protected]", "password": "secret", "local_path": "/path/to/backup/root", "folders": [ {"name": "[Gmail]/All Mail"}, {"name": "my_folder"} ] } ] }
It connects to GMail by default, but you can also specify a server:
{ "accounts": [ { "username": "[email protected]", "password": "secret", "server": "my.imap.example.com", "local_path": "/path/to/backup/root", "folders": [ {"name": "[Gmail]/All Mail"}, {"name": "my_folder"} ] } ] }
Connection options
You can override the parameters passed to Net::IMAP
with connection_options
.
Specifically, if you are using a self-signed certificate and get SSL errors, e.g.
certificate verify failed
, you can choose to not verify the TLS connection:
{ "accounts": [ { "username": "[email protected]", "password": "secret", "server": "my.imap.example.com", "local_path": "/path/to/backup/root", "folders": [ {"name": "[Gmail]/All Mail"}, {"name": "my_folder"} ], "connection_options": { "ssl": {"verify_mode": 0}, "port": 993 } } ] }
Security
Note that email usernames and passwords are held in plain text in the configuration file.
The directory ~/.imap-backup, the configuration file and all backup directories have their access permissions set to only allow access by your user. This is not done on Windows - see below.
Windows
Due to the complexity of managing permissions on Windows, directory and file access permissions are not set explicity.
A pull request that implements permissions management on Windows would be welcome!
Run Backup
Manually, from the command line:
$ imap-backup
Alternatively, add it to your crontab.
Result
Each folder is saved to an mbox file. Alongside each mbox is a file with extension '.imap', which lists the source IMAP UIDs to allow a full restore.
Local commands
There a various commands for viewing local backup status.
To view the list, use
$ imap_backup help local
Troubleshooting
If you have problems:
- ensure that you have the latest release,
- turn on debugging output:
{ "accounts": [ ... ], "debug": true }
Restore
All missing messages are pushed to the IMAP server. Existing messages are left unchanged.
This functionality requires that the IMAP server supports the UIDPLUS extension to IMAP4.
Other Usage
List IMAP folders:
$ imap-backup folders
Get statistics of emails to download per folder:
$ imap-backup status
Design Goals
- Secure - use a local file protected by permissions
- Restartable - calculate start point based on already downloaded messages
- Standalone - do not rely on an email client or MTA
Documentation
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