Backing up gmail to IMAP or mbox (imapsync?)

Hi all,

I'm in the process of migrating my email to gmail to be more flexible
on the road. However, I want my home server to be constantly backing
up / syncing my gmail to my home network so it's there if anything
goes wrong (and to backup).

At home I have dovecot IMAP and I have a number of mail trees served
up via different IMAP namespaces on a gentoo linux system. My
intention is to make one of these namespaces "GMailBackup" so that I
can just include that in my IMAP client and access it on my home
network whenever I want to. Dovecot is set up for mbox.

So I need a solution that can run in the background (cron job) and
either

1) Sync my gmail account to a local mbox store (that would then get
served up by dovecot)

or

2) Sync my gmail account to the "GMailBackup" namespace.

With 1) I've looked at getmail / fetchmail but both of these require
that the mailboxes/folders I want to sync need to be specified -
because gmail maps IMAP folders to labels I want the solution to pick
up new folders automatically and sync them to local store.

With 2) I've looked at imapsync - but it has hopeless documentation.
I can mangle a few things - such as mangling the gmail INBOX to be
GMailBackup/INBOX using --regextrans2. However it is really slow,
sizing folders in all the local namespaces and seemingly no way in
which to specify just one namespace to sync to.

offlineimap has no --dry-run option (or whatever) and that makes it
too dangerous.

Has anyone got a suggestion, or perhaps some help with imapsync to
make this happen?

Cheers,

W.

Hello Ponstructor,

> With 2) I've looked atimapsync- but it has hopeless documentation.

Ok.
Did you really read it?
http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/README
http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/FAQ

> I can mangle a few things - such as mangling the gmail INBOX to be
> GMailBackup/INBOX using --regextrans2.

Yes.

> However it is really slow,

Ok. Several options can speed a backup.

> sizing folders in all the local namespaces

--nofoldersizes

> and seemingly no way in
> which to specify just one namespace to sync to.

Option --regextrans2 allows to sync anywhere, no?

--
Au revoir, 02 99 64 31 77
Gilles Lamiral. France, Chavagne (35310) 06 20 79 76 06

Hi Gilles

On Aug 18, 11:01*pm, Gilles Lamiral <gilles.lami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Ponstructor,
>
> > With 2) I've looked atimapsync- but it has hopeless documentation.
>
> Ok.
> Did you really read it?http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imap...j/imapsync/FAQ

Copiously - that's how I got as far as I got

>
> > I can mangle a few things - such as mangling the gmail INBOX to be
> > GMailBackup/INBOX using --regextrans2.
>
> Yes.
>
> > However it is really slow,
>
> Ok. Several options can speed a backup.
>
> > sizing folders in all the local namespaces
>
> --nofoldersizes

That helps - the main slow down (having just watched it with --
debugimap) is the STATUS lines on the destination server. It bogs
down getting status of folders on namespaces that I never want it to
use. In the end speed isn't a dealbreaker (after all it will be
running in the background) but it's annoying for debugging. If I
could just tell it to ignore all but one of the namespaces...

>
> > and seemingly no way in
> > which to specify just one namespace to sync to.
>
> Option --regextrans2 allows to sync anywhere, no?

OK. Fair enough. Here's my current attempt, looks like it should
work.

imapsync --host1 imap.gmail.com --user1 gmailuser --password1 pass --
host2 destination --user2 user --password2 pass --ssl1 --ssl2 --
exclude \[Gmail\]/All Mail --exclude \[Gmail\]/Spam --
syncinternaldates --regextrans2 "s#(.*)#GMAILBUP/$&#" --nofoldersizes
--useheader 'Message-Id' --skipsize --justfolders --dry

Thanks, Appreciate the help.

W.


>
> --
> Au revoir, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 0299 64 31 77
> Gilles Lamiral. France, Chavagne (35310) 06 20 79 76 06

Hello Ponstructor,

> Copiously - that's how I got as far as I got

If you want to write better doc you're welcome.

> That helps - the main slow down (having just watched it with --
> debugimap) is the STATUS lines on the destination server. It bogs
> down getting status of folders on namespaces that I never want it to
> use. In the end speed isn't a dealbreaker (after all it will be
> running in the background) but it's annoying for debugging. If I
> could just tell it to ignore all but one of the namespaces...

--folder INBOX

> > > and seemingly no way in
> > > which to specify just one namespace to sync to.

--folderrec "topfolder"

> imapsync--host1 imap.gmail.com --user1 gmailuser --password1 pass --
> host2 destination --user2 user --password2 pass --ssl1 --ssl2 --
> exclude \[Gmail\]/All Mail --exclude \[Gmail\]/Spam --
> syncinternaldates --regextrans2 "s#(.*)#GMAILBUP/$&#" --nofoldersizes
> --useheader 'Message-Id' --skipsize --justfolders --dry

imapsync \
--host1 imap.gmail.com --user1 gmailuser --password1 pass --ssl1 \
--host2 destination --user2 user --password2 pass - --ssl2 \
--nofoldersizes --useheader 'Message-Id' --skipsize \
is OK

In order to select only some folders you can use
--folder
--folderrec
--include

In order to speed up:
- select last messages : --maxage
- do not sync flags again and again : --fast

It's time I start a wiki.

--
Au revoir, 02 99 64 31 77
Gilles Lamiral. France, Chavagne (35310) 06 20 79 76 06