archivemail

1 SP

archivemail

archive and compress your old email

    options

## Description

archivemail is a tool for archiving and compressing old email in mailboxes. By default it will read the mailbox ``

``

Messages that are flagged important are not archived or deleted unless explicitely requested with the `--include-flagged` option. Also, ``

To archive an imap://username:password@server/mailbox to specify the mailbox. You can omit the password from the --pwfile option to make `--pwfile` option is set, ``

`Warning: this automatic seteuid feature is insecure and deprecated. It will be removed from later versions of ```

## Options

`-d ```

- Archive messages older than ``

`-D ```

- Archive messages older than ``

`-o ```

- Use the directory name ``

`-P ```

- Read

`-F ```

- Append ``

`-s ```

- Use the suffix `_archive`. For example, if you run `exsouthrock`, the archive will be created with the filename `exsouthrock_archive.gz`.

  ``

- `%a` Locale's abbreviated weekday name.

- `%A` Locale's full weekday name.

- `%b` Locale's abbreviated month name.

- `%B` Locale's full month name.

- `%c` Locale's appropriate date and time representation.

- `%d` Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].

- `%H` Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23].

- `%I` Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12].

- `%j` Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366].

- `%m` Month as a decimal number [01,12].

- `%M` Minute as a decimal number [00,59].

- `%p` Locale's equivalent of either AM or PM.

- `%S` Second as a decimal number [00,61]. (1)

- `%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.

- `%w` Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6].

- `%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.

- `%x` Locale's appropriate date representation.

- `%X` Locale's appropriate time representation.

- `%y` Year without century as a decimal number [00,99].

- `%Y` Year with century as a decimal number.

- `%Z` Time zone name (or by no characters if no time zone exists).

- `%%` A literal "%" character.

`-S ```

- Only archive messages that are ``

`-n, --dry-run`

- Don't 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.

`-u, --preserve-unread`

- Do not archive any messages that have not yet been read. `:2,` then it assumes the message has been read.

`--dont-mangle`

- Do not mangle lines in message bodies beginning with "From ". When archiving a message from a mailbox not in ' to them, since mail user agents might otherwise interpret these lines as message separators. Messages from

`--delete`

- Delete rather than archive old mail. Use this option with caution!

`--copy`

- 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 ``

`--include-flagged`

- 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.

`--no-compress`

- Do not compress any archives.

`--warn-duplicate`

- Warn about duplicate

`-v, --verbose`

- Reports lots of extra debugging information about what is going on.

`-q, --quiet`

- Turns on quiet mode. Do not print any statistics about how many messages were archived. This should be used if you are running ``

`-V, --version`

- Display the version of ``

`-h, --help`

- Display brief summary information about how to run ``

## Notes

`.lock` so that procmail will not deliver to the mailbox while it is being processed. It will also create an advisory lock on the mailbox using &flock;. ``

``

``

A conversion from other formats to &mbox; will silently overwrite existing

###

When ``

``

####

`RFC`

2882 (Internet Message Format) rules for the local-part of email addresses in mind. So, rather than enforcing an imap://"username@bogus.com":"password"@imap.bogus.com/mailbox . 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.

# Examples

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:

    bash$ archivemail debian-user

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:

    bash$ archivemail --suffix '_%B_%Y' debian-user

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:

    bash$ archivemail --date'1 Jan 2002' cm-melb

Exactly the same as the above example, using an ISO date format instead:

    bash$ archivemail --date=2002-01-01 cm-melb

To delete all messages in the mailbox `spam` that are older than 30 days:

    bash$ archivemail --delete --days=30 spam

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:

    bash$ archivemail --preserve-unread incoming

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:

    bash$ archivemail --no-compress received

To archive all mailboxes in the directory `$HOME/Mail` that are older than 90 days to compressed mailboxes in the `$HOME/Mail/Archive` directory:

    bash$ archivemail -d90 -o $HOME/Mail/Archive $HOME/Mail/*

To archive all mails older than 180 days from the given $HOME/Mail/Archive directory, quoting the password and reading it from the environment variable `PASSWORD`:

    bash$ archivemail -o $HOME/Mail/Archive imaps://user:'"'$PASSWORD'"'@example.org/INBOX

Note the protected quotes.

## Tips

Probably the best way to run `--quiet` option. Don't forget to try the `--dry-run` and perhaps the `--copy` option for non-destructive testing.

## Exit Status

Normally the exit status is 0. Nonzero indicates an unexpected error.

## Bugs

If an imap://user@example.com/folder/subfolder and `imap://user@example.com/folder.subfolder` will be archived in `subfolder_archive.gz` and `folder.subfolder_archive.gz`, respectively, although they might refer to the same

``

``

## See Also

- &python;, &gzip;, &mutt;, &procmail;

## Url

The `sourceforge`

## Author

This manual page was written by Paul Rodger <paul at paulrodger dot com>. Updated and supplemented by Nikolaus Schulz microschulz@web.de