<refentryinfo>
<address><email>jgoerzen@complete.org</email></address>
<author><firstname>John</firstname><surname>Goerzen</surname></author>
- <date> $Date: 2004-07-26 10:37:45 -0500 (Mon, 26 Jul 2004) $ </date>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<arg>-a <replaceable>accountlist</replaceable></arg>
<arg>-c <replaceable>configfile</replaceable></arg>
<arg>-d <replaceable>debugtype[,...]</replaceable></arg>
+ <arg>-f <replaceable>foldername[,...]</replaceable></arg>
+ <arg>-k <replaceable>[section:]option=value</replaceable></arg>
<arg>-l <replaceable>filename</replaceable></arg>
<arg>-o</arg>
<arg>-u <replaceable>interface</replaceable></arg>
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
- <ulink url="http://quux.org/devel/offlineimap/">the &OfflineIMAP;
+ <ulink url="http://software.complete.org/offlineimap/">the &OfflineIMAP;
website</ulink>.
</para>
and corporate networks do, and most operating systems
have an IMAP
implementation readily available.
+ A special <property>Gmail</property> mailbox type is
+ available to interface with Gmail's IMAP front-end.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- You must have Python version 2.2.1 or above installed.
+ You must have Python version 2.4 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
<ulink url="http://www.python.org/">the Python website</ulink>.
- If you intend to use the Tk interface, you must have Tkinter
- (python-tk) installed. If you intend to use the SSL interface, your
+ If you intend to use the SSL interface, your
Python must have been built with SSL support.
</para>
</listitem>
IMAP server and point both &OfflineIMAP; and your mail
reader at it.
</para>
+ </listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</refsect2>
</para>
<para>
If you are not tracking Debian unstable, download the Debian .deb
- package from the <ulink url="http://quux.org/devel/offlineimap/">&OfflineIMAP; website</ulink>
+ package from the <ulink url="http://software.complete.org/offlineimap/">&OfflineIMAP; website</ulink>
and then run <command>dpkg -i</command> to install the downloaded
package. Then, skip to <xref linkend="configuration" endterm="configuration-title"> below. You will type <command>offlineimap</command> to
invoke the program.
<title>System-Wide Installation, Other</title>
<para>
Download the tar.gz version of the package from the
- <ulink url="http://quux.org/devel/offlineimap/">website</ulink>.
+ <ulink url="http://software.complete.org/offlineimap/">website</ulink>.
Then run
these commands, making sure that you are the "root" user first:
</para>
<title>Single-Account Installation</title>
<para>
Download the tar.gz version of the package from the
- <ulink url="http://quux.org/devel/offlineimap/">website</ulink>.
+ <ulink url="http://software.complete.org/offlineimap/">website</ulink>.
Then run these commands:
</para>
will debug the threading model.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term>-f <replaceable>foldername</replaceable>[,<replaceable>foldername</replaceable>]</term>
+ <listitem><para> Only sync the specified folders. The
+ <replaceable>foldername</replaceable>s are the
+ untranslated foldernames. This command-line option
+ overrides any <property>folderfilter</property>
+ and <property>folderincludes</property> options in the
+ configuration file.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term>-k [<replaceable>section</replaceable>:]<replaceable>option</replaceable>=<replaceable>value</replaceable>
+ </term>
+ <listitem><para> Override configuration file option. If
+ "section" is omitted, it defaults
+ to <property>general</property>. Any underscores "_" in
+ the section name are replaced with spaces: for instance,
+ to override option <property>autorefresh</property> in
+ the "[Account Personal]" section in the config file one
+ would use "-k Account_Personal:autorefresh=30".
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>-l
<replaceable>filename</replaceable></term>
<listitem><para>
file.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term>-q</term>
+ <listitem><para>Run only quick synchronizations. Ignore any flag
+ updates on IMAP servers.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>-h</term> <term>--help</term>
<listitem><para>Show summary of options.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
option can override the configuration file setting. The available
values for the configuration file or command-line are described
in this section.</para>
+
<refsect2>
- <title>Tk.Blinkenlights</title>
- <para>Tk.Blinkenlights is an interface designed to be sleek, fun to watch, and
+ <title>Curses.Blinkenlights</title>
+ <para>
+ Curses.Blinkenlights is an interface designed to be sleek, fun to watch, and
informative of the overall picture of what &OfflineIMAP;
is doing. I consider it to be the best general-purpose interface in
&OfflineIMAP;.
</para>
<para>
- Tk.Blinkenlights contains, by default, a small window with a row of
- LEDs, a small log, and a row of command buttons.
- The total size of the window is
- very small, so it uses little desktop space, yet it is quite
- functional. The optional, toggleable, log shows more
+ Curses.Blinkenlights contains a row of
+ "LEDs" with command buttons and a log.
+ The log shows more
detail about what is happening and is color-coded to match the color
of the lights.
</para>
- <para>
- Tk.Blinkenlights is the only user interface that has configurable
- parameters; see the example <filename>offlineimap.conf</filename>
- for more details.
- </para>
<para>
Each light in the Blinkenlights interface represents a thread
of execution -- that is, a particular task that &OfflineIMAP;
</blockquote>
</refsect2>
- <refsect2>
- <title>Curses.Blinkenlights</title>
- <para>
- Curses.Blinkenlights is an interface very similar to Tk.Blinkenlights,
- but is designed to be run in a console window (an xterm, Linux virtual
- terminal, etc.) Since it doesn't have access to graphics, it isn't
- quite as pretty, but it still gets the job done.
- </para>
- <para>Please see the Tk.Blinkenlights section above for more
- information about the colors used in this interface.
- </para>
- </refsect2>
-
- <refsect2>
- <title>Tk.VerboseUI</title>
- <para>
- Tk.VerboseUI (formerly known as Tk.TkUI) is a graphical interface
- that presents a variable-sized window. In the window, each
- currently-executing thread has a section where its name and current
- status are displayed. This interface is best suited to people running
- on slower connections, as you get a lot of detail, but for fast
- connections, the detail may go by too quickly to be useful. People
- with fast connections may wish to use Tk.Blinkenlights instead.
- </para>
- </refsect2>
-
<refsect2>
<title>TTY.TTYUI</title>
<para>
</para>
</refsect2>
+ <refsect2>
+ <title>Machine.MachineUI</title>
+ <para>
+ Machine.MachineUI generates output in a machine-parsable format.
+ It is designed for other programs that will interface
+ to OfflineIMAP.
+ </para>
+ </refsect2>
+
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
is based on one supplied by Tommi Virtanen for this feature.
</para>
<para>
- In <filename>~/.offlineimap.rc</filename>, he adds these options:
+ In <filename>~/.offlineimaprc</filename>, he adds these options:
</para>
<programlisting>[general]
pythonfile=~/.offlineimap.py
</para>
</refsect2>
</refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Signals</title>
+ <para>
+ OfflineIMAP writes its current PID into
+ <filename>~/.offlineimap/pid</filename> when it is
+ running. It is not guaranteed that this file will
+ not exist when OfflineIMAP is not running.
+ </para>
+ <!-- not done yet
+ <para>
+ You can send SIGINT to OfflineIMAP using this file to
+ kill it. SIGUSR1 will force an immediate resync of
+ all accounts. This will be ignored for all accounts
+ for which a resync is already in progress.
+ </para>
+ -->
+ </refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Errors</title>
</para>
<programlisting>rm -r ~/Folders/INBOX
-rm -r ~/.offlineimap/Account-<replaceable>AccountName</>
-rm -r ~/.offlineimap/Repository-<replaceable>RepositoryName</></programlisting>
+rm -r ~/.offlineimap/Account-<replaceable>AccountName</>/LocalStatus/INBOX
+rm -r ~/.offlineimap/Repository-<replaceable>RemoteRepositoryName</>/FolderValidity/INBOX</programlisting>
<para>
- (Of course, replace AccountName and RepositoryName
+ (Of course, replace AccountName and RemoteRepositoryName
with the names as specified
in <filename>~/.offlineimaprc</filename>).
</para>
</para>
</refsect2>
</refsect1>
- <refsect1>
- <title>Other Frequently Asked Questions</title>
- <para>There are some other FAQs that might not fit into another section
- of the document, so they are discussed here.
- </para>
-
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>What platforms does &OfflineIMAP; run on?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- It should run on most platforms supported by Python, which are quite a
- few. I do not support Windows myself, but some have made
- it work there; see the FAQ entry for that platform.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>I'm using Mutt. Other IMAP sync programs require me to use "set maildir_trash=yes". Do I need to do that with &OfflineIMAP;?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- No. &OfflineIMAP; is smart enough to figure out message deletion without this extra
- crutch. You'll get the best results if you don't use this setting, in
- fact.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>I've upgraded and now &OfflineIMAP;
- crashes when I start it up! Why?</term>
- <listitem><para>You need to upgrade your configuration
- file. See <xref linkend="upgrading.4.0"> at the end of this
- manual.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>How do I specify the names of my folders?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- You do not need to. &OfflineIMAP; is smart
- enough to automatically figure out what folders are present
- on the IMAP server and synchronize them. You can use the
- <property>folderfilter</property> and <property>foldertrans</property>
- configuration file options to request certain folders and rename them
- as they come in if you like.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>How can I prevent certain folders from being synced?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- Use the <property>folderfilter</property> option in the configuration file.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>How can I add or delete a folder?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- &OfflineIMAP; does not currently provide this feature, but if you create a new
- folder on the IMAP server, it will be created locally automatically.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Are there any other warnings that I should be aware of?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- Yes; see the Notes section below.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>What is the mailbox name recorder (mbnames) for?</term>
- <listitem><para>Some mail readers, such as Mutt, are not capable
- of automatically determining the names of your mailboxes.
- &OfflineIMAP; can help these programs by writing the names
- of the folders in a format you specify. See the example
- <filename>offlineimap.conf</filename> for details.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Can I synchronize multiple accounts with &OfflineIMAP?</term>
- <listitem><para>Sure. Just name them all in the
- <property>accounts</property> line in the <property>general</property>
- section of the configuration file, and add a per-account section
- for each one.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Does &OfflineIMAP; support POP?</term>
- <listitem><para>No. POP is not robust enough to do a completely reliable
- multi-machine synchronization like &OfflineIMAP; can do. &OfflineIMAP;
- will not support it.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Does &OfflineIMAP; support mailbox formats other than Maildir?</term>
- <listitem><para>Not at present. There is no technical reason not to; just no
- demand yet. Maildir is a superior format anyway.
- However, &OfflineIMAP; can sync between two IMAP
- servers, and some IMAP servers support other formats. You
- could install an IMAP server on your local machine and have
- &OfflineIMAP sync to that.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>[technical] Why are your Maildir message filenames so huge?</term>
- <listitem><para>&OfflineIMAP; has two relevant principles: 1) never modifying your
- messages in any way and 2) ensuring 100% reliable synchronizations.
- In order to do a reliable sync, &OfflineIMAP;
- must have a way to
- uniquely identify each e-mail. Three pieces of information are
- required to do this: your account name, the folder name, and the
- message UID. The account name can be calculated from the path in
- which your messages are. The folder name can usually be as well, BUT
- some mail clients move messages between folders by simply moving the
- file, leaving the name intact.
- </para>
- <para>
- So, &OfflineIMAP; must store both a UID folder ID. The folder ID is
- necessary so &OfflineIMAP; can detect a message moved to a different
- folder. &OfflineIMAP; stores the UID (U= number) and an md5sum of the
- foldername (FMD5= number) to facilitate this.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>What is the speed of &OfflineIMAP;'s sync?</term>
- <listitem><para>OfflineIMAP
- versions 2.0 and above contain a multithreaded system. A good way to
- experiment is by setting <property>maxsyncaccounts</property> to 3 and <property>maxconnections</property> to 3
- in each account clause.
- </para>
- <para>This lets OfflineIMAP open up multiple connections simultaneously.
- That will let it process multiple folders and messages at once. In
- most cases, this will increase performance of the sync.
- </para>
- <para>Don't set the number too high. If you do that, things might actually
- slow down as your link gets saturated. Also, too many connections can
- cause mail servers to have excessive load. Administrators might take
- unkindly to this, and the server might bog down. There are many
- variables in the optimal setting; experimentation may help.
- </para>
- <para>An informal benchmark yields these results for my setup:
- </para>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem><para>10 minutes with MacOS X Mail.app "manual cache"
- </para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>5 minutes with GNUS agent sync</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>20 seconds with OfflineIMAP 1.x</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>9 seconds with OfflineIMAP 2.x</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>3 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "cold start"</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>2 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "held connection"</para></listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Can I use &OfflineIMAP; on Windows?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- These answers have been reported by &OfflineIMAP;
- users. I do not run &OfflineIMAP; on Windows myself, so
- I can't directly address their accuracy.
- </para>
- <para>
- The basic answer is that it's possible and doesn't
- require hacking &OfflineIMAP; source code. However,
- it's not necessarily trivial. The information below is
- based in instructions submitted by Chris Walker.
- </para>
- <para>
- First, you must run &OfflineIMAP; in the <ulink
- url="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</ulink>
- environment.
- </para>
- <para>
- Next, you'll need to mount your Maildir directory in a
- special way. There is information for doing that at
- <ulink url="http://barnson.org/node/view/295"></ulink>.
- That site gives this example:
- </para>
- <programlisting>
-mount -f -s -b -o managed "d:/tmp/mail" "/home/of/mail"
- </programlisting>
- <para>
- That URL also has more details on making OfflineIMAP
- work with Windows.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
- </refsect1>
-
<refsect1>
<title>Conforming To</title>
<itemizedlist>
this as an intentional deletion of many messages and will interpret
your action as requesting them to be deleted from the server as well.
(If you don't understand this, don't worry; you probably won't
- encounter this situation)
+ encounter this situation.)
</para>
</refsect2>
<para>&OfflineIMAP; is not designed to have several instances (for instance, a cron job and an interactive invocation) run over the same
mailbox simultaneously. It will perform a check on startup and
abort if another &OfflineIMAP; is already running. If you need
- to schedule synchronizations, please use the
- <property>autorefresh</property> settings rather than cron.
+ to schedule synchronizations, you'll probably find
+ <property>autorefresh</property> settings more convenient than cron.
Alternatively, you can set a separate <property>metadata</property>
directory for each instance.
</para>
</para>
</refsect2>
- <refsect2>
- <title>Use with Evolution</title>
- <para>&OfflineIMAP; can work with Evolution. To do so, first configure
- your &OfflineIMAP; account to have
- <option>sep = /</option> in its configuration. Then, configure
- Evolution with the
- "Maildir-format mail directories" server type. For the path, you will need to
- specify the name of the top-level folder
- <emphasis>inside</emphasis> your &OfflineIMAP; storage location.
- You're now set!
- </para>
- </refsect2>
-
- <refsect2>
- <title>Use with KMail</title>
- <para>At this time, I believe that &OfflineIMAP; with Maildirs
- is not compatible
- with KMail. KMail cannot work in any mode other than to move
- all messages out of all folders immediately, which (besides being annoying
- and fundamentally broken) is incompatible with
- &OfflineIMAP;.
- </para>
- <para>
- However, I have made KMail version 3 work well with
- &OfflineIMAP; by installing an IMAP server on my local
- machine, having &OfflineIMAP; sync to that, and pointing
- KMail at the same server.
- </para>
- </refsect2>
<refsect2>
<title>Mailing List</title>
<refsect2>
<title>Bugs</title>
- <para>Reports of bugs should be sent via e-mail to the
- &OfflineIMAP; bug-tracking system (BTS) at
- offlineimap@bugs.complete.org or submitted online using
- the <ulink url="http://bugs.complete.org/">web interface</ulink>.
- </para>
<para>
- The Web site also lists all current bugs, where you can check their
- status or contribute to fixing them.
+ Reports of bugs should be reported online at the
+ &OfflineIMAP; homepage.
+ Debian users are encouraged to instead use the
+ Debian
+ bug-tracking system.
</para>
</refsect2>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>Copyright</title>
- <para>OfflineIMAP, and this manual, are Copyright © 2002, 2003 John Goerzen.</para>
+ <para>OfflineIMAP, and this manual, are Copyright © 2002 - 2006 John Goerzen.</para>
<para>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
<para>
&OfflineIMAP; may be downloaded, and information found, from its
- homepage via either <ulink url="gopher://quux.org/1/devel/offlineimap">Gopher</ulink>
- or <ulink url="http://quux.org/devel/offlineimap">HTTP</ulink>.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- &OfflineIMAP; may also be downloaded using Subversion. Additionally,
- the distributed tar.gz may be updated with a simple "svn update"
- command; it is ready to go. For information on getting OfflineIMAP
- with Subversion, please visit the
- <ulink url="http://svn.complete.org/">complete.org Subversion page</ulink>.
+ <ulink url="http://software.complete.org/offlineimap">homepage</ulink>.
</para>
</refsect1>