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

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:

docker run --env THE_PASSWORD=$THE_PASSWORD \
  ... \
  imap-backup single backup \
    --password-environment-variable=THE_PASSWORD \
    ...

or

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

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

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)


If you have Homebrew, do this:

brew install imap-backup

As a Ruby Gem

* [Rubygem]

gem install imap-backup --no-document

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](/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

• backup
• local accounts
• local check
• local folders
• local list
• local show
• migrate
• mirror
• remote folders
• restore
• setup
• single backup
• 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

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:

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

Development

See the Developer Documentation.