This is a fork of the latest imapsync code under GPL, included in the Ubuntu 10.04 repos
imapsync - IMAP synchronisation, sync, copy or migration tool. Synchronise mailboxes between two imap servers. Good at IMAP migration. More than 32 different IMAP server softwares supported with success.
imapsync works fine under any Unix OS with perl. imapsync works fine under Windows (2000, XP) and ActiveState's 5.8 Perl
Get imapsync at https://github.com/patkar/imapsync Clone the git repo or download a tarball from the download section.
You'll find a compressed tarball called imapsync-x.xx.tar.gz where x.xx is the version number. Untar the tarball where you want (on Unix):
tar xzvf imapsync-x.xx.tar.gz
imapsync [options]
To get a description of each option just run imapsync like this:
imapsync --help
imapsync
The option list:
imapsync [--host1 server1] [--port1 <num>]
[--user1 <string>] [--passfile1 <string>]
[--host2 server2] [--port2 <num>]
[--user2 <string>] [--passfile2 <string>]
[--ssl1] [--ssl2]
[--authmech1 <string>] [--authmech2 <string>]
[--noauthmd5]
[--folder <string> --folder <string> ...]
[--folderrec <string> --folderrec <string> ...]
[--include <regex>] [--exclude <regex>]
[--prefix2 <string>] [--prefix1 <string>]
[--regextrans2 <regex> --regextrans2 <regex> ...]
[--sep1 <char>]
[--sep2 <char>]
[--justfolders] [--justfoldersizes] [--justconnect] [--justbanner]
[--syncinternaldates]
[--idatefromheader]
[--buffersize <int>]
[--syncacls]
[--regexmess <regex>] [--regexmess <regex>]
[--maxsize <int>]
[--maxage <int>]
[--minage <int>]
[--skipheader <regex>]
[--useheader <string>] [--useheader <string>]
[--skipsize] [--allowsizemismatch]
[--delete] [--delete2]
[--expunge] [--expunge1] [--expunge2] [--uidexpunge2]
[--subscribed] [--subscribe]
[--nofoldersizes]
[--dry]
[--debug] [--debugimap]
[--timeout <int>] [--fast]
[--split1] [--split2]
[--reconnectretry1 <int>] [--reconnectretry2 <int>]
[--version] [--help]
The command imapsync is a tool allowing incremental and recursive imap transfer from one mailbox to another.
By default all folders are transferred, recursively.
We sometimes need to transfer mailboxes from one imap server to another. This is called migration.
imapsync is a good tool because it reduces the amount of data transferred by not transferring a given message if it is already on both sides. Same headers, same message size and the transfer is done only once. All flags are preserved, unread will stay unread, read will stay read, deleted will stay deleted. You can stop the transfer at any time and restart it later, imapsync works well with bad connections. imapsync is CPU hungry so nice and renice commands can be a good help. imapsync can be memory hungry too, especially with large messages.
You can decide to delete the messages from the source mailbox after a
successful transfer (it is a good feature when migrating). In that case,
use the --delete --expunge1 options.
You can also just synchronize a mailbox A from another mailbox B in case you just want to keep a "live" copy of B in A.
To get a description of each option just invoke:
imapsync --help
The original imapsync code comes from Gilles LAMIRAL and was under the GPL until this version. Then he changed it to away from the GPL, because he want to test a new business model. Good idea and with a price about 5 EUR/USD everyone would buy it, but the real price 42 EUR (ca. 50 USD) is a unbounded cheek. This feels like microsoft! So I took the latest GPL licensed code from the Ubuntu 10.04 package repos and forked it on github.
While working on imapsync parameters please run imapsync in dry mode (no
modification induced) with the --dry option. Nothing bad can be done
this way.
To synchronize the imap account buddy on host imap.src.fr to the
imap account max on host imap.dest.fr (the passwords are located in
two files /etc/secret1 for buddy, /etc/secret2 for max):
imapsync --host1 imap.src.fr --user1 buddy --passfile1 /etc/secret1 \
--host2 imap.dest.fr --user2 max --passfile2 /etc/secret2
Then, you will have max's mailbox updated from buddy's mailbox.
You can use --password1 instead of --passfile1 to give the password but
it is dangerous because any user on your host can see the password by
using the ps auxwwww command. Using a variable (like $PASSWORD1) is
also dangerous because of the ps auxwwwwe command. So, saving the
password in a well protected file (600 or rw-------) is the best
solution.
imapsync is not totally protected against sniffers on the network since
passwords may be transferred in plain text if CRAM-MD5 is not supported
by your imap servers. Use --ssl1 and --ssl2 to enable encryption on
host1 and host2.
You may authenticate as one user (typically an admin user), but be
authorized as someone else, which means you don't need to know every
user's personal password. Specify --authuser1 "adminuser" to enable this
on host1. In this case, --authmech1 PLAIN will be used by default since
it is the only way to go for now. So don't use --authmech1 SOMETHING
with --authuser1 "adminuser", it will not work. Same behavior with the
--authuser2 option.
imapsync will exit with a 0 status (return code) if everything went good. Otherwise, it exits with a non-zero status.
So if you have an unreliable internet connection, you can use this loop in a Bourne shell:
while ! imapsync ...; do
echo imapsync not complete
done
imapsync is free, gratis and open source software cover by the GNU General Public License. See the GPL file included in the distribution or the web site http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html
FORKER: Patrik Karisch patrik.karisch@abimus.com
OLD AUTHOR: Gilles LAMIRAL lamiral@linux-france.org
Feedback good or bad is always welcome.
No known serious bug.
Report any bugs or feature requests to the github issues tool. https://github.com/patkar/imapsync/issues
Help us to help you: follow the following guidelines.
Make a good title, not just "imapsync" or "problem", a good title is made of keywords summary, not too long (one visible line).
Help us to help you: in your report, please include:
- imapsync version.
- output given with
--debug --debugimapnear the failure point. Isolate a message in a folder 'BUG' and use--folder 'BUG' - imap server software on both side and their version number.
- imapsync with all the options you use, the full command line you use (except the passwords of course).
IMAPClient.pmversion.- operating system running imapsync.
- operating systems on both sides and the third side in case you run imapsync on a foreign host from the both.
- virtual software context (vmware, xen etc.)
Most of those values can be found as a copy/paste at the begining of the output.
Failure stories reported with the following 4 imap servers:
- MailEnable 1.54 (Proprietary) http://www.mailenable.com/
- DBMail 0.9, 2.0.7 (GPL). But DBMail 1.2.1 works. Patient and confident testers are welcome.
- dkimap4 2.39
- Imail 7.04 (maybe).
Success stories reported with the following 35 imap servers (software names are in alphabetic order):
- Archiveopteryx 2.03, 2.04, 2.09, 2.10 [dest], 3.0.0 [dest] (OSL 3.0) http://www.archiveopteryx.org/
- BincImap 1.2.3 (GPL) (http://www.bincimap.org/)
- CommuniGatePro server (Redhat 8.0) (Solaris)
- Courier IMAP 1.5.1, 2.2.0, 2.1.1, 2.2.1, 3.0.8, 3.0.3, 4.1.1 (GPL) (http://www.courier-mta.org/)
- Critical Path (7.0.020)
- Cyrus IMAP 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.1.15, 2.1.16, 2.1.18 2.2.1, 2.2.2-BETA, 2.2.10, 2.2.12, v2.2.3-Invoca-RPM-2.2.3-8, 2.3-alpha (OSI Approved), v2.2.12-Invoca-RPM-2.2.12-3.RHEL4.1, 2.2.13, v2.3.1-Invoca-RPM-2.3.1-2.7.fc5, v2.3.7, (http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/)
- David Tobit V8 (proprietary Message system).
- DBMail 1.2.1, 2.0.4, 2.0.9, 2.2rc1 (GPL) (http://www.dbmail.org/). 2.0.7 seems buggy.
- Deerfield VisNetic MailServer 5.8.6 [from]
- Dovecot 0.99.10.4, 0.99.14, 0.99.14-8.fc4, 1.0-0.beta2.7, 1.0.0 [dest/source] (LGPL) (http://www.dovecot.org/)
- Domino (Notes) 4.61[from], 6.5, 5.0.6, 5.0.7, 7.0.2, 6.0.2CF1, 7.0.1 [from]
- Eudora WorldMail v2
- GMX IMAP4 StreamProxy.
- Groupwise IMAP (Novell) 6.x and 7.0. Buggy so see the FAQ.
- iPlanet Messaging server 4.15, 5.1, 5.2
- IMail 7.15 (Ipswitch/Win2003), 8.12
- MDaemon 7.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.1, 9.5.4 (Windows server 2003 R2 platform)
- Mercury 4.1 (Windows server 2000 platform)
- Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, 6.0.6249.0[from], 6.0.6487.0[from], 6.5.7638.1 [dest]
- Netscape Mail Server 3.6 (Wintel !)
- Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 7
- OpenMail IMAP server B.07.00.k0 (Samsung Contact ?)
- OpenWave
- Qualcomm Worldmail (NT)
- Rockliffe Mailsite 5.3.11, 4.5.6
- Samsung Contact IMAP server 8.5.0
- Scalix v10.1, 10.0.1.3, 11.0.0.431
- SmarterMail
- SunONE Messaging server 5.2, 6.0 (SUN JES - Java Enterprise System)
- Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.2-2.05, 6.2-7.05
- Surgemail 3.6f5-5
- UW-imap servers (imap-2000b) rijkkramer IMAP4rev1 2000.287 (RedHat uses UW like 2003.338rh), v12.264 Solaris 5.7 (OSI Approved) (http://www.washington.edu/imap/)
- UW - QMail v2.1
- Imap part of TCP/IP suite of VMS 7.3.2
- Zimbra-IMAP 3.0.1 GA 160, 3.1.0 Build 279, 4.0.5, 4.5.2, 4.5.6, 5.5.
Please report to the author any success or bad story with imapsync and do not forget to mention the IMAP server software names and version on both sides. This will help future users. To help the author maintaining this section report the two lines at the begining of the output if they are useful to know the softwares. Example:
From software:* OK louloutte Cyrus IMAP4 v1.5.19 server ready
To software:* OK Courier-IMAP ready
You can use option --justconnect to get those lines. Example:
imapsync --host1 imap.troc.org --host2 imap.trac.org --justconnect
Pay special attention to options --subscribed --subscribe --delete
--delete2 --expunge --expunge1 --expunge2 --uidexpunge2 --maxage
--minage --maxsize --useheader --fast
If you have many mailboxes to migrate think about a little shell
program. Write a file called users.csv (for example) containing users and
passwords. The separator used in this example is ';'
The users.csv file contains:
user0001;password0001;user0002;password0002
user0011;password0011;user0012;password0012 ...
And the shell program is just:
{ while IFS=';' read u1 p1 u2 p2; do
imapsync --user1 "$u1" --password1 "$p1" --user2 "$u2" --password2 "$p2" ...
done ; } < users.csv
Welcome in shell programming !
Feel free to hack imapsync as the GPL Licence permits it.
- imap_tools : http://www.athensfbc.com/imap_tools
- offlineimap : http://software.complete.org/offlineimap
- mailsync : http://mailsync.sourceforge.net/
- imapxfer : http://www.washington.edu/imap/ part of the imap-utils from UW.
- mailutil : replace imapxfer in part of the imap-utils from UW. http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?topic=mailutil
- imaprepl : http://www.bl0rg.net/software/ http://freshmeat.net/projects/imap-repl/
- imap_migrate : http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapmigration/
- imapcopy : http://home.arcor.de/armin.diehl/imapcopy/imapcopy.html
- migrationtool : http://sourceforge.net/projects/migrationtool/
- imapmigrate : http://sourceforge.net/projects/cyrus-utils/
- wonko_imapsync : http://wonko.com/article/554 see also tools/wonko_ruby_imapsync
- pop2imap : http://www.linux-france.org/prj/pop2imap/
Feedback (good or bad) will always be welcome.