goimapsync

goimapsync

goimapsync is a tool to synchronize IMAP server(s) with local maildir.

Introduction

The goimapsync is a tool to bi-directionally sync local Maildir snapshot to IMAP servers of your choice. It supports the following set of actions:

• sync to fetch and sync local maildir with IMAP server(s)
• fetch-new to fetch new messages from IMAP
• fetch-all to fetch all messages from IMAP
• move to move mail(s) on IMAP server to given folder and message id, e.g. move message on IMAP to Spam folder

The goimapsync reproduces (some) functionality of fetchmail, procmail offlineimap, or similary tools. Even though these tools work great a certain level of expertise is required to setup properly a working environment. The goimapsync is Go-based tool, with build-in concurrentcy which can compile into static executable. It should be used mostly with mutt Email client to fetch and sync your emails from IMAP servers and local maildir.

Configuration and setup

To build the code just use Go-lang:

# build the code
git clone https://github.com/vkuznet/goimapsync
cd goimapsync
go build

To run the code

# get help
goimapsync -help

# fetch mails from given IMAP folder
goimapsync -config config.json -op=fetch -folder=MyFolder

# sync mails form local maildir to IMAP
goimapsync -config config.json -op=sync

# move given mail id in IMAP server to given folder
goimapsync -config config.json -op=move -mid=123 -folder=MyFolder

goimapsync configuration

The configuration is rather trivial, please provide your configuration file using the following structure:

{
    "servers": [
        {
            "name": "NameOfYourImapServer, e.g. gmail",
            "URI":"imap.gmail.com:993",
            "Username": "username@gmail.com",
            "Password": "userpassword",
            "useTls": true
        },
        {
            "name": "NameOfYourImapServer, e.g. proton",
            "URI":"127.0.0.1:1143",
            "Username": "username@protonmail.com",
            "Password": "hashstringOfTheProtonBridge",
            "useTls": false
        }
    ],
    "commonInbox": true,
    "maildir": "/some/path/Mail/Test"
}

Here, you can specify different IMAP servers, use or not common Inbox (if commonInbox is false the Inbox from individual IMAP servers will be kept separately), and useTls defines either to use or not TLS connection to your IMAP server. For ProtonMail we can use ProtonBridge on your machine and connect to it w/o TLS (it will encrypt your outgoing mails anyway).

Next, if you want to encrypt your configuration, just use the following:

# define output file
ofile=$HOME/.goimapsync.gpg
# define your gpg key
key=bla-bla-bla
# define your input config file
ifile=config.json
# encrypt your config file
gpg -o $ofile -e -r $key $ifile

# perform sync operation using your encrypted config file
gpg -d -o $HOME/.goimapsync.gpg | goimapsync -op=sync -config -

Integration with mutt Email client

To setup everything with mutt email client please put your goimapsync executable in your PATH and perform two actions:

• prepare fetchmail.sh script to run goimapsync, e.g.

#!/bin/bash
gpg -d -o - $HOME/.mutt/goimapsync.gpg | $HOME/bin/goimapsync -op=sync -config - 2>&1 1>& /tmp/goimapsync.log

Here I speficy how I'd like to run goimapsync

• you may assign mutt key to run it at your convenience, e.g. you may assign J key to mark messages as junk (i.e. move them to spam folder on your IMAP server)

# replace paths to suits your environment
macro index,pager J  "<pipe-entry>cat | grep -i message-id > /Users/vk/.cache/mutt/mail.html && gpg -d -o - $HOME/.mutt/goimapsync.gpg | $HOME/bin/goimapsync -config - -folder=\"Spam\" -mid=/Users/vk/.cache/mutt/mail.html<enter><delete-message>" "mark message as junk"

or assign key o to fetch and sync your mails

macro index o "<sync-mailbox><shell-escape>/Users/vk/bin/fetchmail.sh<enter>" "run fetchmail to sync inbox"

Then, fire up your mutt client and enjoy your Emails.