gmail2maildir

Python script to backup / convert a Gmail account into a Maildir from IMAP

Benefits

• Detects renamed labels (thanks to unique UIDVALIDITY identifiers)
• Doesn't waste place by using link() to point to original emails contained in [Gmail]/All Mail
• Synchronizes the whole account (contrary to some tools that just fetch the last emails): delete locally remotely deleted emails

Notes

• This will not respect the standard Maildir email filename format which is TIMESTAMP.MICROSEC.HOSTNAME but use UID instead
• This won't work on IMAP servers where mailboxes share / can share the same UIDVALIDITY

Quick start

You can either edit gmail2maildir.py to hardcode your username / password at the beginning or launch the script to get more instructions:

$ ./gmail2maildir.py 
You should create a file .account with the following format:
your email::your password

And once its done:

$ ./gmail2maildir.py 
[i] connected with username@gmail.com on imap.gmail.com:993
[i] checking [Gmail]/All Mail (1) - emails: 13107 (local) 13102 (imap)
[+] deleted 5 emails
[i] checking INBOX (2) - emails: 17 (local) 17 (imap)
[i] checking lescigales (77) - emails: 600 (local) 2363 (imap)
[+] added 200 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 400 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 600 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 800 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 1000 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 1200 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 1400 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 1600 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[+] added 1763 emails (0 KB downloaded)
[i] checking monit (13) - emails: 3 (local) 0 (imap)
[+] deleted 3 emails
[i] checking rsbac (76) - emails: 109 (local) 107 (imap)
[+] deleted 2 emails

Uses sqlite3, mailbox and imaplib Python modules.

Moving your Maildir directory

After moving your maildir directory (changing box or fs or hard drive), to avoid start over downloading all emails from Google just do the following:

• delete all records in ./email/gmail.sqlite table mails: DELETE FROM mails WHERE folder_uid != 1 (folder_uid = 1 being the '[Gmail]/All Mails' mailbox)
• delete all emails under all mailboxes except the 'username/Maildir/.[Gmail].All Mails' one

Or simply:

$ ./gmail2maildir.py clean

Come to think about it, do it BEFORE moving your directory elsewhere.

Crontab

Stealth mode baby:

$ ./gmail2maildir.py quiet
$