gmailbkp

Collection of scripts to maintain a local backup of your Gmail emails.

http://github.com/goerz/gmailbkp

Author: Michael Goerz

This code is licensed under the GPL

Install

Store the scripts anywhere in your $PATH

Dependencies

• procimap

Configuration

You should create a file ~/.gmailbkp.conf in which you save the credentials for you Gmail account. An example:

[Gmail]
type = IMAP
mailbox = INBOX
server = imap.gmail.com
username = myname@gmail.com
password = mysecretpassword

Usage

The tools work in conjunction to keep a backup of your Gmail messages. Most importantly, gmailbkp-fetch.py will download emails from your Gmail account and store them locally. gmailbkp-purge.py will delete emails locally that were deleted in your Gmail account. You have to run both of these to have a full mirror of your Gmail account.

You may set up both of these file as a cron-job to run once day or so, e.g.

 0 20 * * * *  gmailbkp-fetch.py -s --maildir ~/GmailBackup
 0 22 * * * *  gmailbkp-purge.py --maildir ~/GmailBackup

This would maintain a backup of your emails in the ~/GmailBackup folder. If you want to keep a backup that protects you from accidental deletion, you might only want to run gmailbkp-fetch.py scheduled, and run gmailbkp-purge.py manually, if at all.

The remaining three scripts are for maintenance.

gmailbkp-cleanrecord.py removes entries from the record that reference non-existing eml files (in case you have accidentally deleted some of the local eml files, this allows you to you to re-download these files the next time you run gmailbkp-fetch.py)

gmailbkp-missing-emls.py lists entries in the record that have no correspondint eml file. This gives you a preview of the entries that would be deleted by gmailbkp-cleanrecord.py.

gmailbkp-showmissing.py lists the emails that are present on the server, but not in the local record. These emails will be downloaded the next time you run gmailbkp-fetch.py.

The full usage of the five scripts is as follows.

gmailbkp-fetch.py

Usage: gmailbkp-fetch.py [options] [FOLDER]

Download all the messages in a Gmail acccount to eml files in the given
FOLDER. Keep track of emails and labels in a record file

Options:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  -v                 Show status messages
  -c CONFIG          Use config file (default: ~/.gmaibkp.conf)
  -r RECORD          record file (default: record.txt). The filename is
                     relative to the given FOLDER
  -p                 Print names of newly created eml files
  -s                 Add the labels '[Gmail]/Trash' and '[Gmail]/Spam' to the
                     exclude list.
  --include=INCLUDE  Skip the labels NOT in this list (comma separated)
  --exclude=EXCLUDE  Skip the labels in this list (comma separated)
  --search=SEARCH    Only store emails that match the specified search. The
                     search string should be like the search syntax of the
                     IMAP search command (RFC3501). E.g. ('FLAGGED SINCE
                     1-Feb-1994 NOT FROM "Smith"'
  --maildir          Store eml files in a pseudo-maildir format. The folders
                     'new', 'cur', and 'tmp' will be created and all eml files
                     will be written to 'cur'. The name of the eml files are
                     not consistent with the maildir standard, but mutt will
                     be able to read the folder as a maildir mailbox
                     nonetheless
  --raise            Raise full exceptions

gmailbkp-purge.py

Usage: gmailbkp-purge.py [options] [FOLDER]

Remove all emails from the record that were deleted from the server.  Delete
all eml files that are not referenced in the record.

Options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  -v          Show status messages
  -c CONFIG   Use config file (default: ~/.gmaibkp.conf)
  -r RECORD   record file (default: record.txt)
  --local     Do not connect to the server. Only remove eml files that are not
              referenced in the record, locally
  --maildir   Look for eml files inside the 'cur' subfolder of the given
              FOLDER

gmailbkp-cleanrecord.py

Usage: gmailbkp-cleanrecord.py [options] [FOLDER]

Remove all entries from the record file that link to non-exisiting eml  files

Options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  -c CONFIG   Use config file (default: ~/.gmaibkp.conf)
  -r RECORD   record file (default: record.txt). The filename is relative to
              the given FOLDER
  --maildir   Look for eml files inside the 'cur' subfolder of the given
              FOLDER

gmailbkp-missing-emls.py

Usage: gmailbkp-missing-emls.py [options] [FOLDER]

List all the eml files that are referenced in the record file but do not exist

Options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  -c CONFIG   Use config file (default: ~/.gmaibkp.conf)
  -r RECORD   record file (default: record.txt). The filename is relative to
              the given FOLDER
  --maildir   Look for eml files inside the 'cur' subfolder of the given
              FOLDER

gmailbkp-showmissing.py

Usage: gmailbkp-fetch.py [options] [FOLDER]

List all the messages in a Gmail acccount that are not in the record file

Options:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  -c CONFIG          Use config file (default: ~/.gmaibkp.conf)
  -r RECORD          record file (default: record.txt). The filename is
                     relative to the given FOLDER
  -s                 Add the labels '[Gmail]/Trash' and '[Gmail]/Spam' to the
                     exclude list.
  --include=INCLUDE  Skip the labels NOT in this list (comma separated)
  --exclude=EXCLUDE  Skip the labels in this list (comma separated)
  --search=SEARCH    Only store emails that match the specified search. The
                     search string should be like the search syntax of the
                     IMAP search command (RFC3501). E.g. ('FLAGGED SINCE
                     1-Feb-1994 NOT FROM "Smith"'
  --raise            Raise full exceptions
  --summary          Show a summary (sender, date, subject) of the missing
                     messages