setup.md

Setup

imap-backup setup

This command starts the interactive, menu-driven setup tool.

By default, the tool saves a configuration file in ~/.imap-backup/config.json.

Custom Configuration Path

You can override the location where the file is accessed and stored with the --config parameter:

imap-backup setup --config /home/me/.local/imap-backup/config.json

In this case, it is up to you to create the directory for the configuration file.

Account Setup

modify server

For GMail accounts, use imap.gmail.com as the 'server' setting.

modify connection options

You can override the parameters passed to Net::IMAP with modify connection options.

Connection options must be entered as JSON.

See the Ruby Standard Library documentation for Net::IMAP of details of supported parameters.

Specifically, if you are using a self-signed certificate and get SSL errors, e.g. certificate verify failed, you can choose to not verify the TLS connection.

For example:

toggle folder inclusion mode (whitelist/blacklist)

This setting, combined with the following folders setting, govern which folders are backed up.

If you choose whitelist, then only the selected folders will be backed up.

If you choose blacklist, all folders except those selected will be backed up.

choose folders

By default, without a list of folders, all folders are backed up.

You can change this behaviour by choosing specific folders.

modify multi-fetch size

By default, one email is downloaded and backed up at a time.

If your email server supports faster fetching, you can set the multi-fetch size to a larger numbe to fetch more emails at a time.

fix changes to unread flags during download

Certain mail servers mark emails as Read when imap-backup fetches them. Activating this setting will cause imap-backup apply a workaround, where is checks flags before fetching emails and then re-applies them after the fetch.

The Configuration File

More information about the configuration file is available in the specific documentation.