Migrating your IMAP mail? Here’s how!

usage: /usr/bin/imapsync [options]

Several options are mandatory.

–host1       <string> : “from” imap server. Mandatory.

–port1       <int>    : port to connect on host1. Default is 143.

–user1       <string> : user to login on host1. Mandatory.

–authuser1   <string> : user to auth with on host1 (admin user).

Avoid using –authmech1 SOMETHING with –authuser1.

–password1   <string> : password for the user1. Dangerous, use –passfile1

–passfile1   <string> : password file for the user1. Contains the password.

–host2       <string> : “destination” imap server. Mandatory.

–port2       <int>    : port to connect on host2. Default is 143.

–user2       <string> : user to login on host2. Mandatory.

–authuser2   <string> : user to auth with on host2 (admin user).

–password2   <string> : password for the user2. Dangerous, use –passfile2

–passfile2   <string> : password file for the user2. Contains the password.

–noauthmd5            : don’t use MD5 authentification.

–authmech1   <string> : auth mechanism to use with host1:

PLAIN, LOGIN, CRAM-MD5 etc. Use UPPERCASE.

–authmech2   <string> : auth mechanism to use with host2. See –authmech1

–ssl1                 : use an SSL connection on host1.

–ssl2                 : use an SSL connection on host2.

–folder      <string> : sync this folder.

–folder      <string> : and this one, etc.

–folderrec   <string> : sync this folder recursively.

–folderrec   <string> : and this one, etc.

–include     <regex>  : sync folders matching this regular expression

–include     <regex>  : or this one, etc.

in case both –include –exclude options are

use, include is done before.

–exclude     <regex>  : skips folders matching this regular expression

Several folders to avoid:

–exclude ‘fold1|fold2|f3’ skips fold1, fold2 and f3.

–exclude     <regex>  : or this one, etc.

–prefix1     <string> : remove prefix to all destination folders

(usually INBOX. for cyrus imap servers)

you can use –prefix1 if your source imap server

does not have NAMESPACE capability.

–prefix2     <string> : add prefix to all destination folders

(usually INBOX. for cyrus imap servers)

use –prefix2 if your target imap server does not

have NAMESPACE capability.

–regextrans2 <regex>  : Apply the whole regex to each destination folders.

–regextrans2 <regex>  : and this one. etc.

When you play with the –regextrans2 option, first

add also the safe options –dry –justfolders

Then, when happy, remove –dry, remove –justfolders

–regexmess   <regex>  : Apply the whole regex to each message before transfer.

Example: ‘s/\000/ /g’ # to replace null by space.

–regexmess   <regex>  : and this one.

–regexmess   <regex>  : and this one, etc.

–regexflag   <regex>  : Apply the whole regex to each flags list.

Example: ‘s/”Junk”//g’ # to remove “Junk” flag.

–regexflag   <regex>  : and this one, etc.

–sep1        <string> : separator in case namespace is not supported.

–sep2        <string> : idem.

–delete               : delete messages on source imap server after

a successful transfer. Useful in case you

want to migrate from one server to another one.

With imap, delete tags messages as deleted, they

are not really deleted. See expunge.

–delete2              : delete messages on the destination imap server that

are not on the source server.

–expunge              : expunge messages on source account.

expunge really deletes messages marked deleted.

expunge is made at the beginning on the

source server only. newly transferred messages

are expunged if option –expunge is given.

no expunge is done on destination account but

it will change in future releases.

–expunge1             : expunge messages on source account.

–expunge2             : expunge messages on target account.

–uidexpunge2          : uidexpunge messages on the destination imap server

that are not on the source server, requires –delete2

–syncinternaldates    : sets the internal dates on host2 same as host1.

Turned on by default.

–idatefromheader      : sets the internal dates on host2 same as the

“Date:” headers.

–buffersize  <int>    : sets the size of a block of I/O.

–maxsize     <int>    : skip messages larger than <int> bytes

–maxage      <int>    : skip messages older than <int> days.

final stats (skipped) don’t count older messages

see also –minage

–minage      <int>    : skip messages newer than <int> days.

final stats (skipped) don’t count newer messages

You can do (+ are the messages selected):

past|—-maxage+++++++++++++++>now

past|+++++++++++++++minage—->now

past|—-maxage+++++minage—->now (intersection)

past|++++minage—–maxage++++>now (union)

–skipheader  <regex>  : Don’t take into account header keyword

matching <string> ex: –skipheader ‘X.*’

–useheader   <string> : Use this header to compare messages on both sides.

Ex: Message-ID or Subject or Date.

–useheader   <string>   and this one, etc.

–skipsize             : Don’t take message size into account.

–allowsizemismatch    : allow RFC822.SIZE != fetched msg size

consider –skipsize to avoid duplicate messages

when running syncs more than one time per mailbox

–dry                  : do nothing, just print what would be done.

–subscribed           : transfers subscribed folders.

–subscribe            : subscribe to the folders transferred on the

“destination” server that are subscribed

on the “source” server.

–nofoldersizes        : Do not calculate the size of each folder in bytes

and message counts. Default is to calculate them.

–justfoldersizes      : exit after printed the folder sizes.

–syncacls             : Synchronises acls (Access Control Lists).

–nosyncacls           : Does not synchronise acls. This is the default.

–debug                : debug mode.

–debugimap            : imap debug mode.

–version              : print software version.

–justconnect          : just connect to both servers and print useful

information. Need only –host1 and –host2 options.

–justlogin            : just login to both servers with users credentials

and exit.

–justfolders          : just do things about folders (ignore messages).

–fast                 : be faster (just does not sync flags).

–reconnectretry1 <int>: reconnect if connection is lost up to <int> times

–reconnectretry2 <int>: reconnect if connection is lost up to <int> times

–split1     <int>     : split the requests in several parts on source server.

<int> is the number of messages handled per request.

default is like –split1 1000

–split2     <int>     : same thing on the “destination” server.

–fastio1              : use fastio with the “from” server.

–fastio2              : use fastio with the “destination” server.

–timeout     <int>    : imap connect timeout.

–help                 : print this.

Example: to synchronise imap account “foo” on “imap.truc.org”

to  imap account “bar” on “imap.trac.org”

with foo password stored in /etc/secret1

and  bar password stored in /etc/secret2

/usr/bin/imapsync \

–host1 imap.truc.org –user1 foo –passfile1 /etc/secret1 \

–host2 imap.trac.org –user2 bar –passfile2 /etc/secret2

Here is a [linux] system (Linux ovidiu-desktop 2.6.31-16-generic #53-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 8 04:01:29 UTC 2009 i686)

with perl 5.10.0

Mail::IMAPClient  3.19

IO::Socket        1.30_01

IO::Socket::SSL

Digest::MD5       2.36_01

Digest::HMAC_MD5

Term::ReadKey

Date::Manip

$Id: imapsync,v 1.286 2009/07/24 15:53:04 gilles Exp gilles $

Happy with this free, open and gratis GPL software?

Please, thank the author (Gilles LAMIRAL) by giving him a book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1C9UNDIH3P7R7/

or rate imapsync at http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapsync/