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jgoerzen@complete.org

JohnGoerzen $Date: 2003-01-07 16:45:16 -0600 (Tue, 07 Jan 2003) $ offlineimap 1 John Goerzen OfflineIMAP Powerful IMAP/Maildir synchronization and reader support offlineimap -1 -P profiledir -a accountlist -c configfile -d debugtype[,...] -o -u interface offlineimap -h--help &OfflineIMAP; is a tool to simplify your e-mail reading. With &OfflineIMAP;, you can read the same mailbox from multiple computers. You get a current copy of your messages on each computer, and changes you make one place will be visible on all other systems. For instance, you can delete a message on your home computer, and it will appear deleted on your work computer as well. &OfflineIMAP; is also useful if you want to use a mail reader that does not have IMAP support, has poor IMAP support, or does not provide disconnected operation. &OfflineIMAP; is FAST; it synchronizes my two accounts with over 50 folders in 3 seconds. Other similar tools might take over a minute, and achieve a less-reliable result. Some mail readers can take over 10 minutes to do the same thing, and some don't even support it at all. Unlike other mail tools, &OfflineIMAP; features a multi-threaded synchronization algorithm that can dramatically speed up performance in many situations by synchronizing several different things simultaneously. &OfflineIMAP; is FLEXIBLE; you can customize which folders are synced via regular expressions, lists, or Python expressions; a versatile and comprehensive configuration file is used to control behavior; two user interfaces are built-in; fine-tuning of synchronization performance is possible; internal or external automation is supported; SSL and PREAUTH tunnels are both supported; offline (or "unplugged") reading is supported; and esoteric IMAP features are supported to ensure compatibility with the widest variety of IMAP servers. &OfflineIMAP; is SAFE; it uses an algorithm designed to prevent mail loss at all costs. Because of the design of this algorithm, even programming errors should not result in loss of mail. I am so confident in the algorithm that I use my own personal and work accounts for testing of &OfflineIMAP; pre-release, development, and beta releases. Of course, legally speaking, &OfflineIMAP; comes with no warranty, so I am not responsible if this turns out to be wrong. &OfflineIMAP; operates by maintaining a hierarchy of mail folders in Maildir format locally. Your own mail reader will read mail from this tree, and need never know that the mail comes from IMAP. &OfflineIMAP; will detect changes to the mail folders on your IMAP server and your own computer and bi-directionally synchronize them, copying, marking, and deleting messages as necessary. If you have already installed &OfflineIMAP; system-wide, or your system adminstrator has done that for you, your task for setting up &OfflineIMAP; for the first time is quite simple. You just need to set up your configuration file, make your folder directory, and run it! You can quickly set up your configuration file. The distribution includes a file offlineimap.conf.minimal (Debian users may find this at /usr/share/doc/offlineimap/examples/offlineimap.conf.minimal) that is a basic example of setting of &OfflineIMAP;. You can simply copy this file into your home directory and name it .offlineimaprc (note the leading period). A command such as cp offlineimap.conf.minimal ~/.offlineimaprc will do it. Or, if you prefer, you can just copy this text to ~/.offlineimaprc: [general] accounts = Test [Test] localfolders = ~/Test remotehost = examplehost remoteuser = jgoerzen Now, edit the ~/.offlineimaprc file with your favorite editor. All you have to do is specify a directory for your folders to be in (on the localfolders line), the host name of your IMAP server (on the remotehost line), and your login name on the remote (on the remoteuser line). That's it! To run &OfflineIMAP;, you just have to say offlineimap -- it will fire up, ask you for a login password if necessary, synchronize your folders, and exit. See? You can just throw away the rest of this finely-crafted, perfectly-honed manual! Of course, if you want to see how you can make &OfflineIMAP; FIVE TIMES FASTER FOR JUST $19.95 (err, well, $0), you have to read on! If you are reading this document via the "man" command, it is likely that you have no installation tasks to perform; your system administrator has already installed it. If you need to install it yourself, you have three options: a system-wide installation with Debian, system-wide installation with other systems, and a single-user installation. You can download the latest version of &OfflineIMAP; from the &OfflineIMAP; website. In order to use &OfflineIMAP;, you need to have these conditions satisfied: Your mail server must support IMAP. Most Internet Service Providers and corporate networks do, and most operating systems have an IMAP implementation readily available. You must have Python version 2.2.1 or above installed. If you are running on Debian GNU/Linux, this requirement will automatically be taken care of for you. If you do not have Python already, check with your system administrator or operating system vendor; or, download it from the Python website. If you intend to use the Tk interface, you must have Tkinter (python-tk) installed. If you intend to use the SSL interface, your Python must have been built with SSL support. Have a mail reader that supports the Maildir mailbox format. Most modern mail readers have this support built-in, so you can choose from a wide variety of mail servers. This format is also known as the "qmail" format, so any mail reader compatible with it will work with &OfflineIMAP;. If you are tracking Debian unstable, you may install &OfflineIMAP; by simply running the following command as root: apt-get install offlineimap If you are not tracking Debian unstable, download the Debian .deb package from the &OfflineIMAP; website and then run dpkg -i to install the downloaded package. Then, skip to below. You will type offlineimap to invoke the program. Download the tar.gz version of the package from the website. Then run these commands, making sure that you are the "root" user first: tar -zxvf offlineimap_x.y.z.tar.gz cd offlineimap-x.y.z python2.2 setup.py install On some systems, you will need to use python instead of python2.2. Next, proceed to below. You will type offlineimap to invoke the program. Download the tar.gz version of the package from the website. Then run these commands: tar -zxvf offlineimap_x.y.z.tar.gz cd offlineimap-x.y.z When you want to run &OfflineIMAP;, you will issue the cd command as above and then type ./offlineimap.py; there is no installation step necessary. &OfflineIMAP; is regulated by a configuration file that is normally stored in ~/.offlineimaprc. &OfflineIMAP; ships with a file named offlineimap.conf that you should copy to that location and then edit. This file is vital to proper operation of the system; it sets everything you need to run &OfflineIMAP;. Full documentation for the configuration file is included within the sample file. &OfflineIMAP; also ships a file named offlineimap.conf.minimal that you can also try. It's useful if you want to get started with the most basic feature set, and you can read about other features later with offlineimap.conf. Most configuration is done via the configuration file. Nevertheless, there are a few command-line options that you may set for &OfflineIMAP;. -1 This is a test This is also a test. Foo bar.