.\" This manpage has been automatically generated by docbook2man .\" from a DocBook document. This tool can be found at: .\" .\" Please send any bug reports, improvements, comments, patches, .\" etc. to Steve Cheng . .TH "ARCHIVEMAIL" "1" "02 November 2006" "SP" "" .SH NAME archivemail \- archive and compress your old email .SH SYNOPSIS \fBarchivemail\fR [ \fBoptions\fR ] \fB\fIMAILBOX\fB\fR\fI ...\fR .SH "DESCRIPTION" .PP \fBarchivemail\fR is a tool written in \fBpython\fR(1) for archiving and compressing old email in mailboxes. .PP By default it will read the mailbox \fIMAILBOX\fR, moving messages that are older that the specified number of days (180 by default) to a \fBmbox\fR-format mailbox in the same directory that is compressed with \fBgzip\fR(1)\&. .PP \fBarchivemail\fR supports reading \fBIMAP\fR, \fBMaildir\fR, \fBMH\fR and \fBmbox\fR-format mailboxes, but it will always write archive files to \fBmbox\fR-format mailboxes that are compressed with \fBgzip\fR(1)\&. .PP \fBarchivemail\fR has some support for being run as the root user on user mailboxes. When running as root, it will \fBseteuid\fR(2) to the owner of the mailbox it is reading, creating any archive files as that user. .SH "OPTIONS" .TP \fB -d \fINUM\fB, --days=\fINUM\fB\fR Archive messages older than \fINUM\fR days. The default is 180. This option is incompatible with the \fB--date\fR option below. .TP \fB -D \fIDATE\fB, --date=\fIDATE\fB\fR Archive messages older than \fIDATE\fR\&. \fIDATE\fR can be a date string in ISO format (eg '2002-04-23'), Internet format (eg '23 Apr 2002') or Internet format with full month names (eg '23 April 2002'). Two-digit years are not supported. This option is incompatible with the \fB--days\fR option above. .TP \fB -o \fIPATH\fB, --output-dir=\fIPATH\fB\fR Use the directory name \fIPATH\fR to store the mailbox archives. The default is the same directory as the mailbox to be read. .TP \fB -P \fIFILE\fB, --pwfile=\fIFILE\fB\fR Read IMAP password from file \fIFILE\fR instead of from the command line. Note that this will probably not work if you are archiving folders from more than one IMAP account. .TP \fB -F \fISTRING\fB, --filter-append=\fISTRING\fB\fR Append \fISTRING\fR to the IMAP filter string. For IMAP wizards. .TP \fB -s \fINAME\fB, --suffix=\fINAME\fB\fR Use the suffix \fINAME\fR to create the filename used for archives. The default is \fI_archive\fR\&. For example, if you run \fBarchivemail\fR on a mailbox called \fIexsouthrock\fR, the archive will be created with the filename \fIexsouthrock_archive.gz\fR\&. \fINAME\fR is run through the \fBpython\fR(1) \fBtime.strftime()\fR function, which means that you can specify any of the following special directives in \fINAME\fR to make archives named after the archive cut-off date: .RS .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%a\fR Locale's abbreviated weekday name. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%A\fR Locale's full weekday name. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%b\fR Locale's abbreviated month name. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%B\fR Locale's full month name. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%c\fR Locale's appropriate date and time representation. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%d\fR Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%H\fR Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%I\fR Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%j\fR Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%m\fR Month as a decimal number [01,12]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%M\fR Minute as a decimal number [00,59]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%p\fR Locale's equivalent of either AM or PM. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%S\fR Second as a decimal number [00,61]. (1) .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%U\fR 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. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%w\fR Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%W\fR 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. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%x\fR Locale's appropriate date representation. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%X\fR Locale's appropriate time representation. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%y\fR Year without century as a decimal number [00,99]. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%Y\fR Year with century as a decimal number. .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%Z\fR Time zone name (or by no characters if no time zone exists). .TP 0.2i \(bu \fB%%\fR A literal "%" character. .RE .TP \fB -S \fINUM\fB, --size=\fINUM\fB\fR Only archive messages that are \fINUM\fR bytes or greater. .TP \fB -n, --dry-run\fR 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. .TP \fB -u, --preserve-unread\fR Do not archive any messages that have not yet been read. \fBarchivemail\fR determines if a message in a \fBmbox\fR-format or \fBMH\fR-format mailbox has been read by looking at the \fBStatus\fR header (if it exists). If the status header is equal to 'RO' or 'OR' then \fBarchivemail\fR assumes the message has been read. \fBarchivemail\fR determines if a \fBmaildir\fR message has been read by looking at the filename. If the filename contains an 'S' after \fI:2,\fR then it assumes the message has been read. .TP \fB --dont-mangle\fR Do not mangle lines in message bodies beginning with "From ". When archiving a message from a mailbox not in \fBmbox\fR format, by default \fBarchivemail\fR mangles such lines by prepending a '>' to them, since mail user agents might otherwise interpret these lines as message separators. Messages from \fBmbox\fR folders are never mangled. See \fBmbox\fR(5) for more information. .TP \fB --delete\fR Delete rather than archive old mail. Use this option with caution! .TP \fB --include-flagged\fR 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. .TP \fB --no-compress\fR Do not compress any archives using \fBgzip\fR(1)\&. .TP \fB --warn-duplicate\fR Warn about duplicate \fBMessage-ID\fRs that appear in the input mailbox. .TP \fB -v, --verbose\fR Reports lots of extra debugging information about what is going on. .TP \fB -q, --quiet\fR Turns on quiet mode. Do not print any statistics about how many messages were archived. This should be used if you are running \fBarchivemail\fR from cron. .TP \fB -V, --version\fR Display the version of \fBarchivemail\fR and exit. .TP \fB -h, --help\fR Display brief summary information about how to run \fBarchivemail\fR\&. .SH "NOTES" .PP \fBarchivemail\fR requires \fBpython\fR(1) version 2.0 or later. .PP To archive an \fBIMAP\fR-format mailbox, use the format \fBimap://username:password@server/mailbox\fR to specify the mailbox. You can omit the password from the URL; use the \fB--pwfile\fR option to make \fBarchivemail\fR read the password from a file, or just enter it upon request. Substitute 'imap\&' with 'imaps\&', and \fBarchivemail\fR will establish a secure SSL connection. .PP When reading an \fBmbox\fR-format mailbox, \fBarchivemail\fR will create a lockfile with the extension \fI\&.lock\fR 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 \fBflock\fR(2)\&. \fBarchivemail\fR will also complain and abort if a 3rd-party modifies the mailbox while it is being read. .PP \fBarchivemail\fR will always attempt to preserve the mode, last-access and last-modify times of the input mailbox. However, archive mailboxes are always created with a mode of \fB0600\fR\&. .PP If \fBarchivemail\fR finds a pre-existing archive mailbox it will append rather than overwrite that archive. .PP \fBarchivemail\fR attempts to find the delivery date of a message by looking for valid dates in the following headers, in order of precedence: \fBDelivery-date\fR, \fBDate\fR and \fBResent-Date\fR\&. If it cannot find any valid date in these headers, it will use the last-modified file timestamp on \fBMH\fR and \fBMaildir\fR format mailboxes, or the date on the \fBFrom\fR line on \fBmbox\fR-format mailboxes. .PP \fBarchivemail\fR will refuse to operate on mailboxes that are symbolic links or create tempfiles or archives in world-writable directories. .SH "EXAMPLES" .PP To archive all messages in the mailbox \fIdebian-user\fR that are older than 180 days to a compressed mailbox called \fIdebian-user_archive.gz\fR in the current directory: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail debian-user\fR .fi .PP To archive all messages in the mailbox \fIdebian-user\fR that are older than 180 days to a compressed mailbox called \fIdebian-user_October_2001.gz\fR (where the current month and year is April, 2002) in the current directory: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail --suffix '_%B_%Y' debian-user\fR .fi .PP To archive all messages in the mailbox \fIcm-melb\fR that are older than the first of January 2002 to a compressed mailbox called \fIcm-melb_archive.gz\fR in the current directory: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail --date'1 Jan 2002' cm-melb\fR .fi .PP Exactly the same as the above example, using an ISO date format instead: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail --date=2002-01-01 cm-melb\fR .fi .PP To delete all messages in the mailbox \fIspam\fR that are older than 30 days: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail --delete --days=30 spam\fR .fi .PP To archive all read messages in the mailbox \fIincoming\fR that are older than 180 days to a compressed mailbox called \fIincoming_archive.gz\fR in the current directory: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail --preserve-unread incoming\fR .fi .PP To archive all messages in the mailbox \fIreceived\fR that are older than 180 days to an uncompressed mailbox called \fIreceived_archive\fR in the current directory: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail --no-compress received\fR .fi .PP To archive all mailboxes in the directory \fI$HOME/Mail\fR that are older than 90 days to compressed mailboxes in the \fI$HOME/Mail/Archive\fR directory: .nf bash$ \fBarchivemail -d90 -o $HOME/Mail/Archive $HOME/Mail/*\fR .fi .SH "TIPS" .PP Probably the best way to run \fBarchivemail\fR is from your \fBcrontab\fR(5) file, using the \fB--quiet\fR option. .PP Don't forget to try the \fB--dry-run\fR option for non-destructive testing. .SH "EXIT STATUS" .PP Normally the exit status is 0. Nonzero indicates an unexpected error. .SH "BUGS" .PP There is no support yet for reading \fBMMDF\fR or \fBBabyl\fR-format mailboxes. In fact, \fBarchivemail\fR will probably think it is reading an \fBmbox\fR-format mailbox and cause all sorts of problems. .PP \fBarchivemail\fR is still too slow, but if you are running from \fBcrontab\fR(5) you won't care. Archiving \fBmaildir\fR-format mailboxes should be a lot quicker than \fBmbox\fR-format mailboxes since it is less painful for the original mailbox to be reconstructed after selective message removal. .SH "SEE ALSO" \fBpython\fR(1), \fBgzip\fR(1), \fBmutt\fR(1), \fBprocmail\fR(1) .SH "URL" .PP The \fBarchivemail\fR home page is currently hosted at sourceforge .SH "AUTHOR" .PP This manual page was written by Paul Rodger \&. Updated by Nikolaus Schulz