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Summary

My problem: I want to read email offline with my choice of client (mutt), but I want actions like moving emails, etc. to be kept in two-way snc with an imap server.

My question: Is there a straightforward way to do this while still using standard tools like fetchmail, procmail, etc.?

Details

I have a gmail account. For various reasons - some institutional - I need to be able to read this mail from a mail client; I want my 'inbox' to be clean, much like I would keep it with a traditional local mail setup, and for anything I 'archive' to be searchable. If I move an email to a folder in the web client, I'd like my local inbox to take this into account.

When possible, I want to be able to read this mail from mutt. Previously I used mutt's native imap functionality, but mutt has to make a connection to the server each time you run it; the connection often drops while I'm reading mail and mutt is open in the background; it only keeps a cache of message headers, and loading new messages requires a round-trip to the server; if I send a message, I have to wait for it to be acknowledged over STMP before I can look at any other messages.

Is there some way around this? I don't consider fat clients like Thunderbird to be a solution: I require terminal access, I like to be able to grep my mail, I make good use of procmail's filtering capabilities, and I prefer decoupled systems.

As mentioned above, fetchmail, procmail and sendmail get me almost there - but not quite to being able to keep my activity in sync between clients.

Am I missing something? I've looked at the FreeBSD handbook's section on email and a bunch of blog posts but nothing seems to bring it all together in this way.

By the way, I run Arch Linux and Debian.

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  • 6
    Have you considered offlineimap or isync? They both work well...
    – jasonwryan
    Apr 14, 2013 at 6:20
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    Just to help out @jasonwryan's comment: offlineimap.org & isync.sourceforge.net
    – slm ♦
    Apr 14, 2013 at 21:28
  • Thanks. I found isync, now named absync. It's working well!
    – Cera
    Apr 14, 2013 at 23:30

2 Answers 2

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OfflineIMAP and isync are both programs that integrate well with mutt and will satisfy your other criteria.

OfflineIMAP is written in Python and isync in C; both are very quick.

Both programs are well documented and straightforward to set up; isync perhaps slightly easier.

There is one significant difference between the functionality of each that is worth bearing in mind: you can use mbsync (isync's executable) to repopulate a remote IMAP maildir1 from a local copy, OfflineIMAP cannot do this. [Amendment: from v6.4.0, OfflineIMAP has the createfolders option to create folders on the remote repository].

The Arch Wiki has pages on both, with example configurations and use cases.2

1. In the event, hypothetically, you inadvertently delete your remote mail store and need to recover from a backup on a local machine...
2. isync and OfflineIMAP.

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  • I second the isync/mbsync idea. OfflineImap is not reliable enough for me with my Gmail account (I'm subscribed to several high-traffic mailing lists and OfflineImap was getting stuck very often).
    – Serge Broslavsky
    Jun 8, 2014 at 19:34
  • The stated difference does not seem to hold true anymore (for OfflineIMAP, see: createfolder) ?
    – Nikos Alexandris
    Apr 5, 2015 at 16:39
  • @NikosAlexandris Yes: this was introduced in 6.4.0. I'll update my answer, thanks for the prompt.
    – jasonwryan
    Apr 5, 2015 at 18:55
  • On-Off topic: another difference is that mbsync can't handle UTF8 stuff, while there is a Python solution for offlineimap (see Greek characters in mutt's sidebar for example. Wish mbsync could do it, or I'll try to offer a Python based solution for it as well, if possible. OfflineIMAP's give's me problems lately (UID validity related, as well as creating duplicate messages once I remove the readonly = true option.
    – Nikos Alexandris
    Apr 5, 2015 at 20:58
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Maybe the following http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/the-homely-mutt/#getting-email excellently written post from Steve Losh will help you

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    It would be better to repeat the relevant parts of the information the link provides here and use the link as a reference for more detail. That way your answer stays useful even if the link goes away at some point.
    – Anthon
    May 19, 2013 at 6:14

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