archivemail.1

'\" t
.\"     Title: archivemail
.\"    Author: [see the "Author" section]
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.75.2 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 5 July 2011
.\"    Manual: archivemail user manual
.\"    Source: archivemail 0.9.0
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "ARCHIVEMAIL" "1" "5 July 2011" "archivemail 0\&.9\&.0" "archivemail user manual"
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.SH "NAME"
archivemail \- archive and compress your old email
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP \w'\fBarchivemail\fR\ 'u
\fBarchivemail\fR [\fBoptions\fR] {\fIMAILBOX\fR...}
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
is a tool for archiving and compressing old email in mailboxes\&. By default it will read the mailbox
\fIMAILBOX\fR, moving messages that are older than the specified number of days (180 by default) to a
\fBmbox\fR(5)\-format mailbox in the same directory that is compressed with
\fBgzip\fR(1)\&. It can also just delete old email rather than archive it\&.
.PP
By default,
\fBarchivemail\fR
derives the archive filename from the mailbox name by appending an
_archive
suffix to the mailbox name\&. For example, if you run
\fBarchivemail\fR
on a mailbox called
exsouthrock, the archive will be created with the filename
exsouthrock_archive\&.gz\&. This default behavior can be overridden with command line options, choosing a custom suffix, a prefix, or a completely custom name for the archive\&.
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
supports reading
IMAP,
Maildir,
MH
and
mbox\-format mailboxes, but always writes
mbox\-format archives\&.
.PP
Messages that are flagged important are not archived or deleted unless explicitly requested with the
\fB\-\-include\-flagged\fR
option\&. Also,
\fBarchivemail\fR
can be configured not to archive unread mail, or to only archive messages larger than a specified size\&.
.PP
To archive an
IMAP\-format mailbox, use the format
\fIimap://username:password@server/mailbox \fR
to specify the mailbox\&.
\fBarchivemail\fR
will expand wildcards in
IMAP
mailbox names according to
[RFC 3501], which says:
\(lqThe character "*" is a wildcard, and matches zero or more characters at this position\&. The character "%" is similar to "*", but it does not match a hierarchy delimiter\&.\(rq
You can omit the password from the
URL; use the
\fB\-\-pwfile\fR
option to make
\fBarchivemail\fR
read the password from a file, or alternatively just enter it upon request\&. If the
\fB\-\-pwfile\fR
option is set,
\fBarchivemail\fR
does not look for a password in the
URL, and the colon is not considered a delimiter\&. Substitute
\fIimap\fR
with
\fIimaps\fR, and
\fBarchivemail\fR
will establish a secure
SSL
connection\&. See below for more
IMAP
peculiarities\&.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
\fB\-d \fR\fB\fINUM\fR\fR, \fB\-\-days=\fR\fB\fINUM\fR\fR
.RS 4
Archive messages older than
\fINUM\fR
days\&. The default is 180\&. This option is incompatible with the
\fB\-\-date\fR
option below\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-D \fR\fB\fIDATE\fR\fR, \fB\-\-date=\fR\fB\fIDATE\fR\fR
.RS 4
Archive messages older than
\fIDATE\fR\&.
\fIDATE\fR
can be a date string in ISO format (eg
\(lq2002\-04\-23\(rq), Internet format (eg
\(lq23 Apr 2002\(rq) or Internet format with full month names (eg
\(lq23 April 2002\(rq)\&. Two\-digit years are not supported\&. This option is incompatible with the
\fB\-\-days\fR
option above\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-o \fR\fB\fIPATH\fR\fR, \fB\-\-output\-dir=\fR\fB\fIPATH\fR\fR
.RS 4
Use the directory name
\fIPATH\fR
to store the mailbox archives\&. The default is the same directory as the mailbox to be read\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-P \fR\fB\fIFILE\fR\fR, \fB\-\-pwfile=\fR\fB\fIFILE\fR\fR
.RS 4
Read
IMAP
password from file
\fIFILE\fR
instead of from the command line\&. Note that this will probably not work if you are archiving folders from more than one IMAP account\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-F \fR\fB\fISTRING\fR\fR, \fB\-\-filter\-append=\fR\fB\fISTRING\fR\fR
.RS 4
Append
\fISTRING\fR
to the
IMAP
filter string\&. For
IMAP
wizards\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-p \fR\fB\fINAME\fR\fR, \fB\-\-prefix=\fR\fB\fINAME\fR\fR
.RS 4
Prefix
\fINAME\fR
to the archive name\&.
\fINAME\fR
is expanded by the
\fBpython\fR(1)
function
\fBtime\&.strftime()\fR, which means that you can specify special directives in
\fINAME\fR
to make an archive named after the archive cut\-off date\&. See the discussion of the
\fB\-\-suffix\fR
option for a list of valid
\fBstrftime()\fR
directives\&. The default is not to add a prefix\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-s \fR\fB\fINAME\fR\fR, \fB\-\-suffix=\fR\fB\fINAME\fR\fR
.RS 4
Use the suffix
\fINAME\fR
to create the filename used for archives\&. The default is
_archive, unless a prefix is specified\&.
.sp
Like a prefix, the suffix
\fINAME\fR
is expanded by the
\fBpython\fR(1)
function
\fBtime\&.strftime()\fR
with the archive cut\-off date\&.
\fBtime\&.strftime()\fR
understands the following directives:
.TP
%a
Locale\*(Aqs abbreviated weekday name\&.
.TP
%A
Locale\*(Aqs full weekday name\&.
.TP
%b
Locale\*(Aqs abbreviated month name\&.
.TP
%B
Locale\*(Aqs full month name\&.
.TP
%c
Locale\*(Aqs appropriate date and time representation\&.
.TP
%d
Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31]\&.
.TP
%H
Hour (24\-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23]\&.
.TP
%I
Hour (12\-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12]\&.
.TP
%j
Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366]\&.
.TP
%m
Month as a decimal number [01,12]\&.
.TP
%M
Minute as a decimal number [00,59]\&.
.TP
%p
Locale\*(Aqs equivalent of either AM or PM\&.
.TP
%S
Second as a decimal number [00,61]\&. (1)
.TP
%U
Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]\&. All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0\&.
.TP
%w
Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6]\&.
.TP
%W
Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]\&. All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0\&.
.TP
%x
Locale\*(Aqs appropriate date representation\&.
.TP
%X
Locale\*(Aqs appropriate time representation\&.
.TP
%y
Year without century as a decimal number [00,99]\&.
.TP
%Y
Year with century as a decimal number\&.
.TP
%Z
Time zone name (or by no characters if no time zone exists)\&.
.TP
%%
A literal
\(lq%\(rq
character\&.
.sp
.RE
.PP
\fB\-a \fR\fB\fINAME\fR\fR, \fB\-\-archive\-name=\fR\fB\fINAME\fR\fR
.RS 4
Use
\fINAME\fR
as the archive name, ignoring the name of the mailbox that is archived\&. Like prefixes and suffixes,
\fINAME\fR
is expanded by
\fBtime\&.strftime()\fR
with the archive cut\-off date\&. Because it hard\-codes the archive name, this option cannot be used when archiving multiple mailboxes\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-S \fR\fB\fINUM\fR\fR, \fB\-\-size=\fR\fB\fINUM\fR\fR
.RS 4
Only archive messages that are
\fINUM\fR
bytes or greater\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-dry\-run\fR
.RS 4
Don\*(Aqt write to any files \-\- just show what would have been done\&. This is useful for testing to see how many messages would have been archived\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-preserve\-unread\fR
.RS 4
Do not archive any messages that have not yet been read\&.
\fBarchivemail\fR
determines if a message in a
mbox\-format or
MH\-format mailbox has been read by looking at the
Status
header (if it exists)\&. If the status header is equal to
\(lqRO\(rq
or
\(lqOR\(rq
then
\fBarchivemail\fR
assumes the message has been read\&.
\fBarchivemail\fR
determines if a
maildir
message has been read by looking at the filename\&. If the filename contains an
\(lqS\(rq
after
:2,
then it assumes the message has been read\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-dont\-mangle\fR
.RS 4
Do not mangle lines in message bodies beginning with
\(lqFrom\ \&\(rq\&. When archiving a message from a mailbox not in
mbox
format, by default
\fBarchivemail\fR
mangles such lines by prepending a
\(lq>\(rq
to them, since mail user agents might otherwise interpret these lines as message separators\&. Messages from
mbox
folders are never mangled\&. See
\fBmbox\fR(5)
for more information\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-delete\fR
.RS 4
Delete rather than archive old mail\&. Use this option with caution!
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-copy\fR
.RS 4
Copy rather than archive old mail\&. Creates an archive, but the archived messages are not deleted from the originating mailbox, which is left unchanged\&. This is a complement to the
\fB\-\-delete\fR
option, and mainly useful for testing purposes\&. Note that multiple passes will create duplicates, since messages are blindly appended to an existing archive\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-all\fR
.RS 4
Archive all messages, without distinction\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-include\-flagged\fR
.RS 4
Normally messages that are flagged important are not archived or deleted\&. If you specify this option, these messages can be archived or deleted just like any other message\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-no\-compress\fR
.RS 4
Do not compress any archives\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-warn\-duplicate\fR
.RS 4
Warn about duplicate
Message\-IDs that appear in the input mailbox\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
.RS 4
Reports lots of extra debugging information about what is going on\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-debug\-imap=\fR\fB\fINUM\fR\fR
.RS 4
Set
IMAP
debugging level\&. This makes
\fBarchivemail\fR
dump its conversation with the
IMAP
server and some internal
IMAP
processing to
stdout\&. Higher values for
\fINUM\fR
give more elaborate output\&. Set
\fINUM\fR
to 4 to see all exchanged
IMAP
commands\&. (Actually,
\fINUM\fR
is just passed literally to
imaplib\&.Debug\&.)
.RE
.PP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
.RS 4
Turns on quiet mode\&. Do not print any statistics about how many messages were archived\&. This should be used if you are running
\fBarchivemail\fR
from cron\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
.RS 4
Display the version of
\fBarchivemail\fR
and exit\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
.RS 4
Display brief summary information about how to run
\fBarchivemail\fR\&.
.RE
.SH "NOTES"
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
requires
\fBpython\fR(1)
version 2\&.3 or later\&. When reading an
mbox\-format mailbox,
\fBarchivemail\fR
will create a lockfile with the extension
\&.lock
so that
\fBprocmail\fR(1)
will not deliver to the mailbox while it is being processed\&. It will also create an advisory lock on the mailbox using
\fBlockf\fR(2)\&. The archive is locked in the same way when it is updated\&.
\fBarchivemail\fR
will also complain and abort if a 3rd\-party modifies the mailbox while it is being read\&.
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
will always attempt to preserve the last\-access and last\-modify times of the input mailbox\&. Archive mailboxes are always created with a mode of
0600\&. If
\fBarchivemail\fR
finds a pre\-existing archive mailbox it will append rather than overwrite that archive\&.
\fBarchivemail\fR
will refuse to operate on mailboxes that are symbolic links\&.
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
attempts to find the delivery date of a message by looking for valid dates in the following headers, in order of precedence:
Delivery\-date,
Received,
Resent\-Date
and
Date\&. If it cannot find any valid date in these headers, it will use the last\-modified file timestamp on
MH
and
Maildir
format mailboxes, or the date on the
From_
line on
mbox\-format mailboxes\&.
.PP
When archiving mailboxes with leading dots in the name,
\fBarchivemail\fR
will strip the dots off the archive name, so that the resulting archive file is not hidden\&. This is not done if the
\fB\-\-prefix\fR
or
\fB\-\-archive\-name\fR
option is used\&. Should there really be mailboxes distinguished only by leading dots in the name, they will thus be archived to the same archive file by default\&.
.PP
A conversion from other formats to
\fBmbox\fR(5)
will silently overwrite existing
Status
and
X\-Status
message headers\&.
.SS "IMAP"
.PP
When
\fBarchivemail\fR
processes an
IMAP
folder, all messages in that folder will have their
\eRecent
flag unset, and they will probably not show up as
\(lqnew\(rq
in your user agent later on\&. There is no way around this, it\*(Aqs just how
IMAP
works\&. This does not apply, however, if you run
\fBarchivemail\fR
with the options
\fB\-\-dry\-run\fR
or
\fB\-\-copy\fR\&.
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
relies on server\-side searches to determine the messages that should be archived\&. When matching message dates,
IMAP
servers refer to server internal message dates, and these may differ from both delivery time of a message and its
Date
header\&. Also, there exist broken servers which do not implement server side searches\&.
.sp
.it 1 an-trap
.nr an-no-space-flag 1
.nr an-break-flag 1
.br
.ps +1
\fBIMAP URLs\fR
.RS 4
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR\*(Aqs
IMAP
URL
parser was written with the
RFC
2882 (Internet Message Format) rules for the
local\-part
of email addresses in mind\&. So, rather than enforcing an
URL\-style encoding of non\-ascii
and reserved characters, it allows to double\-quote the username and password\&. If your username or password contains the delimiter characters
\(lq@\(rq
or
\(lq:\(rq, just quote it like this:
\fIimap://"username@bogus\&.com":"password"@imap\&.bogus\&.com/mailbox\fR\&. You can use a backslash to escape double\-quotes that are part of a quoted username or password\&. Note that quoting only a substring will not work, and be aware that your shell will probably remove unprotected quotes or backslashes\&.
.PP
Similarly, there is no need to percent\-encode non\-ascii
characters in
IMAP
mailbox names\&. As long as your locale is configured properly,
\fBarchivemail\fR
should handle these without problems\&. Note, however, that due to limitations of the
IMAP
protocol, non\-ascii
characters do not mix well with wildcards in mailbox names\&.
.PP

\fBarchivemail\fR
tries to be smart when handling mailbox paths\&. In particular, it will automatically add an
IMAP
NAMESPACE
prefix to the mailbox path if necessary; and if you are archiving a subfolder, you can use the slash as a path separator instead of the
IMAP
server\*(Aqs internal representation\&.
.RE
.SH "EXAMPLES"
.PP
To archive all messages in the mailbox
debian\-user
that are older than 180 days to a compressed mailbox called
debian\-user_archive\&.gz
in the current directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail debian\-user\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To archive all messages in the mailbox
debian\-user
that are older than 180 days to a compressed mailbox called
debian\-user_October_2001\&.gz
(where the current month and year is April, 2002) in the current directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-suffix \*(Aq_%B_%Y\*(Aq debian\-user\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To archive all messages in the mailbox
cm\-melb
that are older than the first of January 2002 to a compressed mailbox called
cm\-melb_archive\&.gz
in the current directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-date=\*(Aq1 Jan 2002\*(Aq cm\-melb\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
Exactly the same as the above example, using an
ISO
date format instead:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-date=2002\-01\-01 cm\-melb\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To delete all messages in the mailbox
spam
that are older than 30 days:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-delete \-\-days=30 spam\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To archive all read messages in the mailbox
incoming
that are older than 180 days to a compressed mailbox called
incoming_archive\&.gz
in the current directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-preserve\-unread incoming\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To archive all messages in the mailbox
received
that are older than 180 days to an uncompressed mailbox called
received_archive
in the current directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-no\-compress received\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To archive all mailboxes in the directory
$HOME/Mail
that are older than 90 days to compressed mailboxes in the
$HOME/Mail/Archive
directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-d90 \-o $HOME/Mail/Archive $HOME/Mail/*\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
To archive all mails older than 180 days from the given
IMAP
INBOX
to a compressed mailbox
INBOX_archive\&.gz
in the
$HOME/Mail/Archive
directory, quoting the password and reading it from the environment variable
\fBPASSWORD\fR:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-o $HOME/Mail/Archive imaps://user:\*(Aq"\*(Aq$PASSWORD\*(Aq"\*(Aq@example\&.org/INBOX\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
Note the protected quotes\&.
.PP
To archive all mails older than 180 days in subfolders of
foo
on the given
IMAP
server to corresponding archives in the current working directory, reading the password from the file
~/imap\-pass\&.txt:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
bash$ \fBarchivemail \-\-pwfile=~/imap\-pass\&.txt imaps://user@example\&.org/foo/*\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.SH "TIPS"
.PP
Probably the best way to run
\fBarchivemail\fR
is from your
\fBcrontab\fR(5)
file, using the
\fB\-\-quiet\fR
option\&. Don\*(Aqt forget to try the
\fB\-\-dry\-run\fR
and perhaps the
\fB\-\-copy\fR
option for non\-destructive testing\&.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
.sp
Normally the exit status is 0\&. Nonzero indicates an unexpected error\&.
.SH "BUGS"
.sp
If an IMAP mailbox path contains slashes, the archive filename will be derived from the basename of the mailbox\&. If the server\*(Aqs folder separator differs from the Unix slash and is used in the IMAP URL, however, the whole path will be considered the basename of the mailbox\&. E\&.g\&. the two URLs \fBimap://user@example\&.com/folder/subfolder\fR and \fBimap://user@example\&.com/folder\&.subfolder\fR will be archived in subfolder_archive\&.gz and folder\&.subfolder_archive\&.gz, respectively, although they might refer to the same IMAP mailbox\&.
.sp
\fBarchivemail\fR does not support reading MMDF or Babyl\-format mailboxes\&. In fact, it will probably think it is reading an mbox\-format mailbox and cause all sorts of problems\&.
.sp
\fBarchivemail\fR is still too slow, but if you are running from \fBcrontab\fR(5) you won\*(Aqt care\&. Archiving maildir\-format mailboxes should be a lot quicker than mbox\-format mailboxes since it is less painful for the original mailbox to be reconstructed after selective message removal\&.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
\fBmbox\fR(5), \fBcrontab\fR(5), \fBpython\fR(1), \fBprocmail\fR(1)
.SH "URL"
.sp
The \fBarchivemail\fR home page is currently hosted at \m[blue]\fBsourceforge\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2
.SH "AUTHOR"
.sp
This manual page was written by Paul Rodger <paul at paulrodger dot com>\&. Updated and supplemented by Nikolaus Schulz microschulz@web\&.de
.SH "NOTES"
.IP " 1." 4
sourceforge
.RS 4
\%http://archivemail.sourceforge.net
.RE