Welcome to the imapsync web site!
What is imapsync?
imapsync software is a command line tool allowing incremental and
recursive IMAP transfers from one mailbox to another, both anywhere on the internet
or in your local network. "Incremental" means you can stop the transfer at any time
and restart it later efficiently. "Recursive" means all folders hierarchy can be copied.
imapsync is useful for imap account migration or imap account backup.
imapsync is not adequate for maintaining two active imap accounts
in synchronization where the user plays independently on both sides.
Use offlineimap (written by John Goerzen)
or mbsync (written by Michael R. Elkins)
for 2 ways synchronizations.
Alternatives to imapsync are listed in the Similar softwares section.
Some numbers for past year 2011
- Number of imapsync users per month: between 2 and 3 thousands users
- Number of imapsync transfers between 3 and 25 millions mailboxes transfers per month, 93 millions in 2011
- Pourcentage between operating systems users running imapsync:
- Linux: 65 %
- Win32: 18 %
- Darwin: 11 %
- FreeBSD: 6 %
- Solaris: 0.4 %
- OpenBSD: 0.05 %
- Biggest user usage: about 21 millions of IMAP mailbox transfers (in one month)
Latest release is imapsync
Written on
See ChangeLog to know what's new in details since 2001.
New features or bugfixes since previous releases:
- 1.484
- Bug fix: Back to select() (read-write mode) instead of examine() (read-only mode in 1.468) on host1. Needed with --delete
- Enhancement: Added option --exitwhenover option to avoid locking when transfers exceed maximum limit.
See for example this Gmail constraint
- imapsync ... --exitwhenover 2500000000 # 2.5GB if host1 is Gmail
- imapsync ... --exitwhenover 500000000 # 500MB if host2 is Gmail
- Better behavior: Check if a message exists before fetching it (could have been deleted recently)
- Usability: Unified outout in --debug mode. Lines start with Host1 or Host2.
- Usability: Changed output about messages ignored to better reflect what is going on.
- Better behavior: --split down to 100 by defaultto follow the recommendation of RFC2683 section 3.2.1.5
Thanks to Phil Pearl for this advice.
- 1.476
- Usability: Added start and end dates in the final statistics.
- Better behavior: Default headers used to identify a message are now "Message-Id" and "Received" (Exchange compatibility bu default).
- Cyrus fix: Default value down from --split 1000 to --split1 500 (Cyrus bug "Word too long")
- Enhancement: Added option --addheader to fix the issue
"ignored (no header so we ignore this message)" (on Sent folder usually).
Thanks to Ameir Abdeldayem
- Similar tools: Checked and updated "Similar softwares" section in the documentation.
- Experimental: Added --nofilterflags to check any STORE flags by ignoring PERMANENTFLAGS (Exchange tests)
Basic usage
See imapsync_example.bat.txt batch file example
that you can easily adapt with your parameters (remove .txt extension in order to run it).
Huge usage
See file.txt example for batch massive migration
(many mailboxes) on Windows or Unix.
Who is the author?
Gilles LAMIRAL
Email: gilles.lamiral@laposte.net
Good feedback is always welcome, bad feedback is often welcome.
Where to talk about imapsync?
A nice place to talk about imapsync is the public
imapsync mailing-list (see below section Mailing-List).
Buy imapsync source code
Buy latest imapsync Perl source code for 30 EUR
+ One year of imapsync updates without extra payment.
+ 30 days money-back guarantee!
+ A little support.
30 EUR is equal to around 40 USD, no problem to pay in USD (or any currency) with paypal:
The Perl imapsync source code will run anywhere a Perl interpreter can run: any Unix, Linux, Windows, or Mac OS operating system.
You will receive a download link just after the payment.
Buy professional support for imapsync
You will be able to expose your issues by email or phone and to converse until your issues are solved.
For 180 EUR buy imapsync support by the developper who wrote and maintains imapsync.
180 EUR is equal to around 230 USD, no problem to pay in USD (or any currency) with paypal:
Buy standalone imapsync.exe for win32
Struggle free from source code and Perl installation by
buying the latest win32 standalone imapsync.exe for 30 EUR
+ One year of imapsync updates without extra payment.
+ 30 days money-back guarantee!
+ A little support.
30 EUR is equal to around 40 USD, no problem to pay in USD (or any currency) with paypal:
You will receive a download link just after the payment.
Documentation
Read the INSTALL file to know how to install imapsync on your system.
The README file has many tips to understand imapsync and succeed in your migration or backup.
The FAQ file presents Frequently Asked Questions (and not so frequently asked ones).
The TODO file list what may be coded or done in the future.
See also the wanted section.
All the people I thank are in the CREDITS file.
What you can do with imapsync is listed in COPYING.
The imapsync mailing list
The public mailing-list may be the best way to get free support.
You can write to the mailing-list even if you're not subscribed to it.
In that case you will receive a confirmation message each time you post (to avoid spam).
To write on the mailing-list, the address is:
imapsync@linux-france.org
To subscribe, send a message to:
imapsync-subscribe@listes.linux-france.org
To unsubscribe, send a message to:
imapsync-unsubscribe@listes.linux-france.org
To contact the person in charge for the list:
imapsync-request@listes.linux-france.org
The list archives are available at
http://linux-france.org/prj/imapsync_list/
So consider that the list is public, anyone can see your post.
Use a pseudonym or do not post to
this list if you want to stay private.
Thank you for your participation to the imapsync mailing-list!
WANTED!
I fix bugs as soon as possible and I code new features when I find them useful.
Don't hesitate to ask for them.
Some features and their time to be done evaluation:
| DONE | Feature | Time guessed | Time spent |
|---|
| No | Backup to files | 20 hours | 60 min |
| No | Efficient Gmail backup | 20 hours | 80 min |
| No | Better error reporting | 5 hours | 0 min |
Lists of imap server software failures and success stories
Let's start with reported failure stories over the past.
Maybe new imapsync releases can run successfully with them.
Don't hesitate to have a try, I will help you and make efforts to switch them to the success list.
- DBMail 0.9, 2.0.7 (GPL). But most other DBMail releases are supported (see below)
- Imail 7.04 (maybe).
- MailEnable 1.54 (Proprietary) but MailEnable 4.23 is supported.
- (2011) MDaemon 12.0.3 as host2 but MDaemon is supported as host1. MDaemon is simply buggy with the APPEND IMAP command with any IMAP email client.
Now the long reported success stories list: 46 different imap server softwares supported!
[host1] means "source server" and [host2] means "destination server":
- 1und1 H mimap1 84498 [host1]
- a1.net imap.a1.net IMAP4 Ready [host1]
- Archiveopteryx 2.03, 2.04, 2.09, 2.10 [host2], 3.0.0 [host2]
(OSL 3.0) http://www.archiveopteryx.org/
- Axigen Mail Server Version 8.0.0
- BincImap 1.2.3 (GPL) (http://www.bincimap.org/)
- CommuniGatePro server (Redhat 8.0) (Solaris), CommuniGate Pro 5.2.17[host2] (CentOS 5.4)
- 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,
v2.3.1-Invoca-RPM-2.3.1-2.8.fc5 [host1],
v2.3.7,
(http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/)
- David Tobit V8.
- 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 [host1]
- dkimap4 [host1]
- Domino (Notes) 4.61[host1], 6.5, 5.0.6, 5.0.7, 7.0.2, 6.0.2CF1, 7.0.1[host1], 8.0.1[host1]
- 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/)
- Eudora WorldMail v2
- Gimap (Gmail imap) [host1] [host2]
- GMX IMAP4 StreamProxy.
- Godaddy IMAP (since Godaddy runs Courier)
- Groupwise IMAP (Novell) 6.x and 7.0. Buggy so see the FAQ.
- hMailServer 5.3.3 [host2], 4.4.1 [host1], HMAILSERVER 5.3.2-B1769 on windows 2003 [hsot2]
- iPlanet Messaging server 4.15, 5.1, 5.2
- IMail 7.15 (Ipswitch/Win2003), 8.12, 11.03 [host1]
- Kerio 7.2.0P1 [host1]
- MailEnable 4.23 [host1][host2], 4.26 [host1][host2], 5 [host1]
- MDaemon 7.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.1, 9.5.4 (Windows server 2003 R2 platform), 12 [host2], 12.0.3 [host1]
- Mercury 4.1 (Windows server 2000 platform)
- Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, 6.0.6249.0[host1], 6.0.6487.0[host1],
6.5.7638.1 [host2], 6.5 [host1], Exchange 2007 SP1 (with Update Rollup 2),
Exchange2007-EP-SP2,
Exchange 2010 RTM (Release to Manufacturing) [host2],
Exchange 2010 SP1 RU2 [host2]
- Mirapoint server 4.1.9-GA [host1]
- Netscape Mail Server 3.6 (Wintel)
- Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 7
- OpenMail IMAP server B.07.00.k0
- OpenWave
- Oracle Beehive [host1]
- 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, Smarter Mail 5.0 Enterprise, Smarter Mail 5.5 [host1].
- 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, 6.3
- 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
- VMS, Imap part of TCP/IP suite of VMS 7.3.2
- Yahoo [host1]
- Zimbra-IMAP 3.0.1 GA 160, 3.1.0 Build 279, 4.0.5, 4.5.2, 4.5.6,
Zimbra 5.0.24_GA_3356.RHEL4 [host1], 5.5, 6.x
Similar softwares
Online IMAP migration services
I have no share in these free or paid services.
I don't think they use imapsync.
Prices are given par mailbox and may be outdated (december 2011).
This document last modified on
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