Backup IMAP email account

[clivejo]

Does anyone know a quick, easy way to take a backup of an IMAP email account? Can it be done via ftp or the file manager?

[ebobro]

Since you mentioned IMAP account. I'm assuming the account has been set-up in an email client like MS Outlook or Thunderbird.

There many ways of backing up. One quick and easy way is not to use IMAP but POP account. This will download your email messages into your machine that serves as your back-up

Another back-up I do is I backup my emails into my gmail account. I create an IMAP of my gmail in my email client and I make copy of my emails either in my POP or IMAP accounts. This way I have a readable back-up of all my emails including the sent item in the gmail.

Another back-up I do is thru FTP. Create an FTP account, In the path browser for the "/mail" directory. You have to press the "Up" to view the main directories. This type of backup is unreadable and it have to be uploaded back to the server if you want to read this.

[clivejo]

I like to use IMAP as it allows me to access my emails on multiple devices and anywhere I want via webmail. I have been looking for a tool I could use on Ubuntu that would sync with the IMAP folder and only download the new messages.

So far I been going into the Control Panel and navigating to my mail folder then zipping the mail account in question and downloading it. One of my accounts is 200-300Mb zipped so this is time comsuming which is why I favour a tool that downloads only new mail.