If it's of interest, I have an automated container of it that builds whenever any of imapbackup's dependencies, or the base ruby:alpine image, are updated.
I think the author packages an all-dependencies-included executable for windows that you're given access when you pay for support and all that, but it's in fact perl.
I remember using this program a bunch of times during the years (and I think I've paid at least once) and remember using CPAN when configuring it.
Same except for like 15 years ago lol. Migrated 50,000+ local imap users into a cloud mail service. Used incrementals to do most of the work in the weeks leading up then a final sync per batch of 10k users. Worked like a champ.
IANAL, but the problem with these types of licenses (e.g. WTFPL, Beerware, etc) is that they lack any liability/warranty clauses. If you want a simple, open-as-possible license, you should generally just go with MIT or a similar (and well-known) license.
Instead of migrating from server to server — and remaining on computers I don’t own - I download locally which it looks this tool doesn’t do. I use mbsync/isync which is fast and reliable. https://isync.sourceforge.io/
It looks like a lot more flexible than this tool, although I only use it for local downloads. But I believe it allows for arbitrary trafficking of mail files between imap servers, local stores, etc.
I use it as a sync tool for each new mail I receive.
My domain provider offers to me a very small mailbox. Enough for a couple of mails but way too small to use as an IMAP server.
So I run a dovecot IMAP server on my RPI and trigger for each new mail imapsync to copy mails over to my dovecot and delete mails on my small mailbox. Works like a charm and allows me to have a virtually infinite sized mailbox for very little money. Plus, all my mails are in my home under my control instead of lying on some server somewhere.
I'm disappointed to see this posted by you. The developer of imapsync, Gilles, has created a fantastic piece of software and deserves all the sales he can get. Sharing private links like this undermines his hard work and effort.
- I earn my leaving from imapsync buyers but less likely on donators, as a measured fact.
- Donations work 1/100 less than payments, ie, for $1 from donators I get $100 of buyers.
- I don't make the github release, Nicolas does, and Nicolas doesn't include the .exe binary in the repository, it is a common rule in free and open source software guidelines. I do not blame Nicolas about this.
- Nicolas does a good job, a basic copy of imapsync mainstream repository where releasecheck is off and whatever he wants, like exe trash, I'm ok with that.
- Don't worry, my income won't suffer, as people don't read. The no-dowload link on the main imapsync web site is just a payment incentive. It works. It works enough to make me concentrate my work life on imapsync and their users.
Don't worry, my income won't suffer, as people don't read.
The classic "lazy/stupid tax" technique. I remember coming across a site selling downloads of popular open-source software (which is legal per the licenses, and IIRC part of the sales was actually donated to the original project) a while ago.
This looks to me like they originally made it available for free and then changed their mind. The developer is well within their right to do so, but don't be surprised that people find it confusing and try to avoid paying for it.
It was free with a request for donations, and he sold consultancy for people with big tasks or who might need quick detailed support (corporates using it to migrate large mail servers etc.). I remember donating a bit many years ago when it made our (a small company at the time) migration between mail systems much easier than it otherwise might have been, and I'd used it personally for backup & migration before that.
Looking at it for the first time in a long while, there isn't really much difference now – it is still free to use, the old licence still holds (https://imapsync.lamiral.info/LICENSE), he is perfectly happy with people using it freely, he still accepts donations and offers paid support. There is the convenience tax of the single-exe Windows build not being available by default (though nothing to stop someone else making one if they want to do that and support it, there are docker images that would qualify if you already have docker of some colour installed), I don't remember that existing at all back way back when. There also an online version to save you installing it at all (no use to some due to data safety due-diligence matters, but likely very handy for many home users), that is only free up to a point (fair enough, bandwidth isn't a free resource beyond a point that the service must be well beyond). Some also say he makes it less obvious how free it is on the home page, but I _really_ don't see that when I look at that page, it isn't exactly hidden…
I absolutely do not trust mail tools with a modern website. Tools of this caliber should not be advertised on sites with CSS. When it comes to mail, you don’t want something retail-facing or flashy, you want something that works and doesn’t change.
Notmuchmail.org? Mutt.org? The website is black Times on white background? Cool, it must be a good UNIXy quality tool.
Haven't used this tool for many years, but when I needed to help a friend migrate his business email from the email services provided by a web host to Google Workspace (or whatever it was called at the time) this tool worked perfectly (admittedly, only about 3 fairly tame mailboxes).
I had less luck with this around 12 years ago doing a migration from whatever the UW mailserver is to Office365. Probably an Office/Exchange related issue, but it was a big headache.
I do remember using it for another succcessful migration, and the author being quite helpful.
An alternative that works relatively well is to use thunderbird to synchronize all emails from the account to migrate, then drag them towards the new account.
Doing that there's one issue I ran into, which is that GMail has a mail size limit of 25 MB whereas iCloud Mail only allows 20 MB, and I have a nontrivial number of emails with attachments just in between. If someone has a good solution for this other than manually removing or somehow shrinking (e.g. images) attachments, I'd be interested.
IIRC I used the imapsync --maxsize option, then hand-processed the relatively few (in my case) emails which had larger attachments. In my Google Workspace mail, I believe I searched emails using larger:19M has:attachment.
bought this a few years back to handle some cpanel imap <-> Gmail sync. Simply gets the job done. No nonsense tool that makes do without overhyped promo and flashy website, a rare breed these days. Highly recommended.
It can sync, incrementally backup and/or restore e-mail accounts.
It runs great as a container, does its job and exits. If anyone wants an ARM version, I maintain a container at [1].
[0]: https://github.com/joeyates/imap-backup
[1]: https://hub.docker.com/r/bayindirh/imap-backup