Re: One way back-up of imap server

[Naveen Nathan <naveen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The concern in the previous thread was with deleting messages from the 
> server when they are accidentally deleted from the local machine. Since 
> your concern is for the reverse, it might be even easier to deal with 
> it ... just write a little script to hardlink all the mail to another 
> directory before syncing.

I do one-way syncs frequently for single account backup purposes. I'd of course
first use test accounts first before doing anything major.

This is an excerpt from my .offlineimaprc:

[Account tum]
localrepository = local-tum
remoterepository = tum

[Repository local-tum]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/Mail/tum/

[Repository tum]
type = IMAP
remotehost = [hostname]
remoteuser = [user]
remotepass = [pass]
expunge = no
sep = .

I first created ~/Mail/tum/ and I believe I just do offlineimap -a tum.
I know some IMAP servers are very flexible and unique in what they do, like
Cyrus. Not sure if this is a possibility, but you could try and have a user
subscribe to the full mailbox hierarchy and just pull all the mail for all
accounts w/ only read-only access. May at least sto possible damage.

Anyways good luck.