IMAP Copy

A simple utility to copy folders between IMAP mail servers.

It only requires standard Python 3.5 or later.

Examples

Assume you have, for example, a Gmail account and want to copy its folders to otherserver. You can use the IMAP protocol on both servers, provided IMAP access is enabled on Gmail. Generally, you can copy folders and their contents between any two IMAP-enabled email servers.

Testing the connection and credentials

Before actually copying messages, test the IMAP connection and credentials to both the source server and your otherserver; if the connection succeeds, IMAP folder names found on both servers will be listed:

python3 imapcopy.py \
  --test \
  "imap.googlemail.com:993"     "[email protected]:password" \
  "imap.otherserver.com.au:993" "username:password"

Copying messages from folders

To copy all the messages from, say, the INBOX folder of Gmail to the Inbox folder of your otherserver:

python3 imapcopy.py \
  --verbose \
  "imap.googlemail.com:993"     "[email protected]:password" \
  "imap.otherserver.com.au:993" "username:password" \
  "INBOX" "Inbox"

You can provide many folders to copy; alternating between source and destination. For example, to copy from INBOX to Inbox and from [Gmail]/Sent Mail to Sent:

python3 imapcopy.py \
  --verbose \
  "imap.googlemail.com:993"     "[email protected]:password" \
  "imap.otherserver.com.au:993" "username:password" \
  "INBOX"              "Inbox" \
  "[Gmail]/Sent Mail"  "Sent"

Copying a range of messages from a folder

Since Gmail throttles uploading and downloading email messages over IMAP, you may find the --skip and --limit options handy. For instance, If Gmail disconnects you after copying 123 email messages out of your total 1000 messages in the example shown above, you may use the following command to resume copying skipping the first 123 messages:

python3 imapcopy.py \
  –-skip 123 \
  "imap.googlemail.com:993"     "[email protected]:password" \
  "imap.otherserver.com.au:993" "username:password" \
  "INBOX" "Inbox"

Similarly, the --limit option allows you to copy only at most N messages excluding the skipped messages. For example, the following command will copy messages number 124 through 223 from Gmail:

python3 imapcopy.py \
   --skip 123 --limit 100 \
  "imap.googlemail.com:993"     "[email protected]:password" \
  "imap.otherserver.com.au:993" "username:password" \
  "INBOX" "Inbox"

Copying all folders and sub-folders from a server

The --recurse option copies the contents of a folder and its sub-folders. Also, if you use an empty string "" as the source folder, all the folders in the source server will be copied to the destination.

python3 imapcopy.py \
  --recurse \
  "imap.googlemail.com:993"     "[email protected]:password" \
  "imap.otherserver.com.au:993" "username:password" \
  ""   "Imported"

Usage

usage: imapcopy.py [-h] [-t] [-c] [-r] [-q] [-v] [-s N] [-l N] source source-auth destination destination-auth [folders ...]

positional arguments:
source                source host, e.g. imap.googlemail.com:993
source-auth           source host credentials, e.g. [email protected]:password
destination           destination host, e.g. imap.otherhoster.com:993
destination-auth      destination host credentials, e.g. [email protected]:password
folders               list of folders, alternating between source folder and destination folder

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-t, --test            do not copy, only test connections to source and destination
-c, --create-folders  create folders on destination
-r, --recurse         recurse into sub-folders
-q, --quiet           be quiet, print no output
-v, --verbose         print debug-level output
-s N, --skip N        skip the first N message(s)
-l N, --limit N       only copy at most N message(s)