imapsync/README

NAME
    imapsync - synchronize mailboxes between two imap servers.

    $Revision: 1.44 $

INSTALL
     Get imapsync at http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/dist/
     tar xzvf  imapsync-x.xx.tgz  # x.xx is the version number
     Read the INSTALL file.
     freshmeat record: http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapsync/

SYNOPSIS
      imapsync [options]

      imapsync --help
      imapsync

      imapsync [--host1 server1]  [--port1 <num>]
               [--user1 <string>] [--passfile1 <string>] 
               [--host2 server2]  [--port2 <num>]
               [--user2 <string>] [--passfile2 <string>] 
               [--folder <string> --folder <string> ...]
               [--prefix2 <string>]
               [--sep1 <char>]
               [--sep2 <char>]
               [--syncinternaldate]
               [--delete] [--expunge]
               [--dry]
               [--debug] [--debugimap]
               [--version] [--help]
  
DESCRIPTION
    The command imapsync is a tool allowing incremental and recursive imap
    transfer from one mailbox to another.

    We sometimes need to transfer mailboxes from one imap server to another.
    This is called migration.

    imapsync is the adequate tool because it reduces the amount of data
    transfered by not transfering a given message if it is already on both
    sides. All flags are preserved, unread will stay unread, read will stay
    read, deleted will stay deleted. You can stop the transfert at any time
    and restart it later, imapsync is adapted to a bad connection.

    You can decide to delete the messages from the source mailbox after a
    successful transfert (it is a good feature when migrating). In that
    case, use the --delete option, and run imapsync again with the --expunge
    option.

    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.

OPTIONS
    Invoke: imapsync --help

HISTORY
    I wrote imapsync because an enterprise (basystemes) paid me to install a
    new imap server without loosing huge old mailboxes located on a far away
    remote imap server accessible by a low bandwith link. The tool imapcp
    (written in python) could not help me because I had to verify every
    mailbox was well transfered and delete it after a good transfert.
    imapsync started its life being a copy_folder.pl patch. The tool
    copy_folder.pl comes from the Mail-IMAPClient-2.1.3 perl module tarball
    source (in the examples/ directory of the tarball).

EXAMPLES
    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
    too 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 buddy's mailbox updated from max's mailbox.

EXIT STATUS
    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 a buggy internet connection, you can use this loop in a
    Bourne shell:

            while ! imapsync ...; do 
                  echo imapsync not complete
            done

AUTHOR
    Gilles LAMIRAL lamiral@linux-france.org

LICENSE
    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

BUGS
    No known serious bug.

    Flags : with some IMAP servers the flags are not very well copied the
    first time. Run imapsync twice if you want the flags set correctly.
    (fixed since 1.28 release but wait for a time before removing those
    lines)

    Report any bugs to the author: lamiral@linux-france.org

IMAP SERVERS
    Success stories reported :

     - Courier IMAP 1.5.1
     - Cyrus IMAP 1.5, 1.6, 2.1
     - Netscape Mail Server 3.6 (Wintel)
     - CommunicatePro server (Redhat 8.0)
     - SunONE Messaging server 5.2
     - iPlanet Messaging server 4.15
     - dovecot ?.?? 

    Please report to the author any success or bad story with imapsync and
    don't 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

    Rate imapsync : http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapsync/

SIMILAR SOFTWARES
      offlineimap : http://gopher.quux.org:70/devel/offlineimap/
      mailsync    : http://mailsync.sourceforge.net/
      imapxfer    : http://www.washington.edu/imap/
                    part of the imap-utils from UW.

    Feedback (good or bad) will be always welcome.

    $Id: imapsync,v 1.44 2003/11/11 18:01:49 gilles Exp $