plete.org/offlineimap@complete.org/2003/04/msg00012.html.gz> of the
problem there.
- USE WITH MS EXCHANGE SERVER
- Several users have reported problems with Microsoft Exchange servers in
- conjunction with OfflineIMAP. This generally seems to be related to
- the Exchange servers not properly following the IMAP standards.
-
- Mark Biggers has posted some information <URL:http://lists.com-
- plete.org/offlineimap@complete.org/2005/09/msg00011.html.gz> to the
- OfflineIMAP mailing list about how he made it work.
-
- Other users have indicated that older (5.5) releases of Exchange are so
- bad that they will likely not work at all.
-
- I do not have access to Exchange servers for testing, so any problems
- with it, if they can even be solved at all, will require help from
- OfflineIMAP users to find and fix.
-
-OTHER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
- There are some other FAQs that might not fit into another section of
- the document, so they are discussed here.
-
- What platforms does OfflineIMAP run on?
- 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.
-
- I'm using Mutt. Other IMAP sync programs require me to use "set
- maildir_trash=yes". Do I need to do that with OfflineIMAP?
- 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.
-
- I've upgraded and now OfflineIMAP crashes when I start it up! Why?
- You need to upgrade your configuration file. See [XRef to
- UPGRADING.4.0] at the end of this manual.
-
- How do I specify the names of my folders?
- You do not need to. OfflineIMAP is smart enough to automati-
- cally figure out what folders are present on the IMAP server and
- synchronize them. You can use the folderfilter and nametrans
- configuration file options to request certain folders and rename
- them as they come in if you like.
-
- How can I prevent certain folders from being synced?
- Use the folderfilter option in the configuration file.
-
- How can I add or delete a folder?
- OfflineIMAP does not currently provide this feature, but if you
- create a new folder on the IMAP server, it will be created
- locally automatically.
-
- Are there any other warnings that I should be aware of?
- Yes; see the Notes section below.
-
- What is the mailbox name recorder (mbnames) for?
- Some mail readers, such as Mutt, are not capable of automati-
- cally 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 offlineimap.conf for
- details.
-
- Can I synchronize multiple accounts with OfflineIMAP?
- Sure. Just name them all in the accounts line in the general
- section of the configuration file, and add a per-account section
- for each one.
-
- Does OfflineIMAP support POP?
- No. POP is not robust enough to do a completely reliable multi-
- machine synchronization like OfflineIMAP can do. OfflineIMAP
- will not support it.
-
- Does OfflineIMAP support mailbox formats other than Maildir?
- 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.
-
- [technical] Why are your Maildir message filenames so huge?
- OfflineIMAP has two relevant principles: 1) never modifying your
- messages in any way and 2) ensuring 100% reliable synchroniza-
- tions. In order to do a reliable sync, OfflineIMAP must have a
- way to uniquely identify each e-mail. Three pieces of informa-
- tion 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.
-
- So, OfflineIMAP must store both a UID folder ID. The folder ID
- is necessary so OfflineIMAP can detect a message moved to a dif-
- ferent folder. OfflineIMAP stores the UID (U= number) and an
- md5sum of the foldername (FMD5= number) to facilitate this.
-
- What is the speed of OfflineIMAP's sync?
- OfflineIMAP versions 2.0 and above contain a multithreaded sys-
- tem. A good way to experiment is by setting maxsyncaccounts to
- 3 and maxconnections to 3 in each account clause.
-
- This lets OfflineIMAP open up multiple connections simultane-
- ously. That will let it process multiple folders and messages
- at once. In most cases, this will increase performance of the
- sync.
-
- 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.
-
- An informal benchmark yields these results for my setup:
-
- o 10 minutes with MacOS X Mail.app "manual cache"
-
- o 5 minutes with GNUS agent sync
-
- o 20 seconds with OfflineIMAP 1.x
-
- o 9 seconds with OfflineIMAP 2.x
-
- o 3 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "cold start"
-
- o 2 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "held connection"
-
- Can I use OfflineIMAP on Windows?
- These answers have been reported by OfflineIMAP users. I do not
- run OfflineIMAP on Windows myself, so I can't directly address
- their accuracy.
-
- The basic answer is that it's possible and doesn't require hack-
- ing OfflineIMAP source code. However, it's not necessarily
- trivial. The information below is based in instructions submit-
- ted by Chris Walker.
-
- First, you must run OfflineIMAP in the Cygwin
- <URL:http://www.cygwin.com/> environment.
-
- Next, you'll need to mount your Maildir directory in a special
- way. There is information for doing that at
- <URL:http://barnson.org/node/view/295>. That site gives this
- example:
-
- mount -f -s -b -o managed "d:/tmp/mail" "/home/of/mail"
-
-
- That URL also has more details on making OfflineIMAP work with
- Windows.
-
CONFORMING TO
o Internet Message Access Protocol version 4rev1 (IMAP 4rev1) as speci-
fied in RFC2060 and RFC3501
o CRAM-MD5 as specified in RFC2195
- o Maildir as specified in the Maildir manpage
+ o Maildir as specified in the Maildir manpage
<URL:http://www.qmail.org/qmail-manual-html/man5/maildir.html> and
the qmail website <URL:http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html>.
NOTES
DELETING LOCAL FOLDERS
- OfflineIMAP does a two-way synchronization. That is, if you make a
- change to the mail on the server, it will be propagated to your local
+ OfflineIMAP does a two-way synchronization. That is, if you make a
+ change to the mail on the server, it will be propagated to your local
copy, and vise-versa. Some people might think that it would be wise to
- just delete all their local mail folders periodically. If you do this
- with OfflineIMAP, remember to also remove your local status cache
- (~/.offlineimap by default). Otherwise, OfflineIMAP will take this as
+ just delete all their local mail folders periodically. If you do this
+ with OfflineIMAP, remember to also remove your local status cache
+ (~/.offlineimap by default). Otherwise, OfflineIMAP will take 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
+ 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)
MULTIPLE INSTANCES
- 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 syn-
- chronizations, please use the autorefresh settings rather than cron.
- Alternatively, you can set a separate metadata directory for each
+ 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 syn-
+ chronizations, please use the autorefresh settings rather than cron.
+ Alternatively, you can set a separate metadata directory for each
instance.
COPYING MESSAGES BETWEEN FOLDERS
- Normally, when you copy a message between folders or add a new message
- to a folder locally, OfflineIMAP will just do the right thing. How-
+ Normally, when you copy a message between folders or add a new message
+ to a folder locally, OfflineIMAP will just do the right thing. How-
ever, sometimes this can be tricky -- if your IMAP server does not pro-
- vide the SEARCH command, or does not return something useful,
- OfflineIMAP cannot determine the new UID of the message. So, in these
- rare instances, OfflineIMAP will upload the message to the IMAP server
- and delete it from your local folder. Then, on your next sync, the
- message will be re-downloaded with the proper UID. OfflineIMAP makes
- sure that the message was properly uploaded before deleting it, so
+ vide the SEARCH command, or does not return something useful,
+ OfflineIMAP cannot determine the new UID of the message. So, in these
+ rare instances, OfflineIMAP will upload the message to the IMAP server
+ and delete it from your local folder. Then, on your next sync, the
+ message will be re-downloaded with the proper UID. OfflineIMAP makes
+ sure that the message was properly uploaded before deleting it, so
there should be no risk of data loss.
- USE WITH EVOLUTION
- OfflineIMAP can work with Evolution. To do so, first configure your
- OfflineIMAP account to have sep = / in its configuration. Then, con-
- figure Evolution with the "Maildir-format mail directories" server
- type. For the path, you will need to specify the name of the top-level
- folder inside your OfflineIMAP storage location. You're now set!
-
- USE WITH KMAIL
- At this time, I believe that OfflineIMAP with Maildirs is not compati-
- ble 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.
-
- 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.
-
MAILING LIST
There is an OfflineIMAP mailing list available. To subscribe, send the
text "Subscribe" in the subject of a mail to offlineimap-request@com-
<URL:http://lists.complete.org/offlineimap@complete.org/>.
BUGS
- Reports of bugs should be sent via e-mail to the OfflineIMAP mailing
- list at offlineimap at complete dot org. Debian users are encouraged
- to instead use the Debian bug-tracking system.
+ Reports of bugs should be reported online at the OfflineIMAP homepage.
+ Debian users are encouraged to instead use the Debian bug-tracking sys-
+ tem.
UPGRADING TO 4.0
If you are upgrading from a version of OfflineIMAP prior to 3.99.12,
from the server and then you can continue using it like normal.
COPYRIGHT
- OfflineIMAP, and this manual, are Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 John
+ OfflineIMAP, and this manual, are Copyright (C) 2002 - 2006 John
Goerzen.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
OfflineIMAP may be downloaded, and information found, from its homepage
<URL:http://software.complete.org/offlineimap>.
- 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 Subver-
- sion, please visit the complete.org Subversion page
- <URL:http://svn.complete.org/>.
-
SEE ALSO
mutt(1), python(1)
-John Goerzen 29 November 2006 OFFLINEIMAP(1)
+John Goerzen 01 December 2006 OFFLINEIMAP(1)