imap-backup

Backup, restore and migrate email accounts.

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

Homebrew (macOS)

If you have Homebrew, do this:

brew install imap-backup

As a Ruby Gem

gem install imap-backup

If that doesn't work, see the detailed installation instructions.

From Source Code

If you want to use imap-backup directly from the source code, see here.

Setup

As a first step, you need to add accounts via a menu-driven command line program:

Run:

imap-backup setup

GMail

To use imap-backup with GMail, you will need to enable 'App passwords' on your account.

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

• backup
• local accounts
• local check
• local folders
• local list
• local show
• migrate
• mirror
• remote folders
• restore
• setup
• utils export-to-thunderbird
• utils ignore-history

For a full list of available commands, run

imap-backup help

For more information about a command, run

imap-backup help COMMAND

Troubleshooting

If you have problems:

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

Development

See the Development documentation for notes on development and testing.

See the CHANGELOG to a list of changes that have been made in each release.

• Source Code
• Code Documentation
• Rubygem
• CI Status