From 8466d625f02f1c866b79d66e8d8e954b4dde63b6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: John Goerzen
Several users have reported problems with Microsoft Exchange - servers in conjunction with OfflineIMAP. This generally - seems to be related to the Exchange servers not properly - following the IMAP standards. -
Mark Biggers has posted some information - to the OfflineIMAP mailing list about how he made it work. -
Other users have indicated that older (5.5) releases of - Exchange are so bad that they will likely not work at all. -
I do not have access to Exchange servers for testing, so any - problems with it, if they can even be solved at all, will - require help from OfflineIMAP users to find and fix. -
There are some other FAQs that might not fit into another section - of the document, so they are discussed here. -
It should run on most platforms supported by Python, which are quite a - few. I do not support Windows myself, but some have made - it work there; see the FAQ entry for that platform. -
No. OfflineIMAP is smart enough to figure out message deletion without this extra - crutch. You'll get the best results if you don't use this setting, in - fact. -
You need to upgrade your configuration - file. See at the end of this - manual. -
You do not need to. OfflineIMAP is smart - enough to automatically figure out what folders are present - on the IMAP server and synchronize them. You can use the - folderfilter and nametrans - configuration file options to request certain folders and rename them - as they come in if you like. -
Use the folderfilter option in the configuration file. -
OfflineIMAP does not currently provide this feature, but if you create a new - folder on the IMAP server, it will be created locally automatically. -
Yes; see the Notes section below. -
Some mail readers, such as Mutt, are not capable - of automatically determining the names of your mailboxes. - OfflineIMAP can help these programs by writing the names - of the folders in a format you specify. See the example - offlineimap.conf for details. -
Sure. Just name them all in the - accounts line in the general - section of the configuration file, and add a per-account section - for each one. -
No. POP is not robust enough to do a completely reliable - multi-machine synchronization like OfflineIMAP can do. OfflineIMAP - will not support it. -
Not at present. There is no technical reason not to; just no - demand yet. Maildir is a superior format anyway. - However, OfflineIMAP can sync between two IMAP - servers, and some IMAP servers support other formats. You - could install an IMAP server on your local machine and have - OfflineIMAP sync to that. -
OfflineIMAP has two relevant principles: 1) never modifying your - messages in any way and 2) ensuring 100% reliable synchronizations. - In order to do a reliable sync, OfflineIMAP - must have a way to - uniquely identify each e-mail. Three pieces of information are - required to do this: your account name, the folder name, and the - message UID. The account name can be calculated from the path in - which your messages are. The folder name can usually be as well, BUT - some mail clients move messages between folders by simply moving the - file, leaving the name intact. -
So, OfflineIMAP must store both a UID folder ID. The folder ID is - necessary so OfflineIMAP can detect a message moved to a different - folder. OfflineIMAP stores the UID (U= number) and an md5sum of the - foldername (FMD5= number) to facilitate this. -
OfflineIMAP - versions 2.0 and above contain a multithreaded system. A good way to - experiment is by setting maxsyncaccounts to 3 and maxconnections to 3 - in each account clause. -
This lets OfflineIMAP open up multiple connections simultaneously. - That will let it process multiple folders and messages at once. In - most cases, this will increase performance of the sync. -
Don't set the number too high. If you do that, things might actually - slow down as your link gets saturated. Also, too many connections can - cause mail servers to have excessive load. Administrators might take - unkindly to this, and the server might bog down. There are many - variables in the optimal setting; experimentation may help. -
An informal benchmark yields these results for my setup: -
10 minutes with MacOS X Mail.app "manual cache" -
5 minutes with GNUS agent sync
20 seconds with OfflineIMAP 1.x
9 seconds with OfflineIMAP 2.x
3 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "cold start"
2 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "held connection"
These answers have been reported by OfflineIMAP - users. I do not run OfflineIMAP on Windows myself, so - I can't directly address their accuracy. -
The basic answer is that it's possible and doesn't - require hacking OfflineIMAP source code. However, - it's not necessarily trivial. The information below is - based in instructions submitted by Chris Walker. -
First, you must run OfflineIMAP in the Cygwin - environment. -
Next, you'll need to mount your Maildir directory in a - special way. There is information for doing that at - http://barnson.org/node/view/295. - That site gives this example: -
mount -f -s -b -o managed "d:/tmp/mail" "/home/of/mail" -
That URL also has more details on making OfflineIMAP - work with Windows. -
OfflineIMAP can work with Evolution. To do so, first configure
- your OfflineIMAP account to have
- sep = /
in its configuration. Then, configure
- Evolution with the
- "Maildir-format mail directories" server type. For the path, you will need to
- specify the name of the top-level folder
- inside your OfflineIMAP storage location.
- You're now set!
-
At this time, I believe that OfflineIMAP with Maildirs - is not compatible - with KMail. KMail cannot work in any mode other than to move - all messages out of all folders immediately, which (besides being annoying - and fundamentally broken) is incompatible with - OfflineIMAP. -
However, I have made KMail version 3 work well with - OfflineIMAP by installing an IMAP server on my local - machine, having OfflineIMAP sync to that, and pointing - KMail at the same server. -
Reports of bugs should be sent via e-mail to the - Reports of bugs should be reported online at the + OfflineIMAP mailing list at offlineimap at complete - dot org. Debian users are encouraged to instead use the +> homepage. + Debian users are encouraged to instead use the Debian bug-tracking system.
OfflineIMAP, and this manual, are Copyright © 2002, 2003 John Goerzen.
OfflineIMAP, and this manual, are Copyright © 2002 - 2006 John Goerzen.This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by @@ -2201,7 +1755,7 @@ CLASS="APPLICATION" >
OfflineIMAP may also be downloaded using Subversion. Additionally, - the distributed tar.gz may be updated with a simple "svn update" - command; it is ready to go. For information on getting OfflineIMAP - with Subversion, please visit the - complete.org Subversion page.