Installing imapsync on Debian-derived Linux

EDIT: I’ve moved my blog — follow me at https://italianprogrammer.pizza

One of the most awesome tools I’ve found in my side job as WebMaster, is imapsync, a fantastic tool to migrate IMAP mailboxes across different providers.

The main problem tho is that the package does not come pre-compiled, and lacks of proper instructions for installing it, if you’re a newbie.

Here’s a simple guide on Installing it

Method 1: My Automated Script

I’ve developed an automated script that will automatically download and install all the dependencies needed and automatically installs imapsync in your /usr/bin directory.

To simply one-click install imapsync, run this:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blacksoulgem95/imapsync-installer/main/installer.sh | sudo bash

To check what the script does, here it's hosted on GitHub.

Method 2: Manual installation

To manually install imapsync, we’d need to first install its required dependencies.

Remember to run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade to update your system before proceeding.

Step 1: Install APT Dependencies

sudo apt-get -y install git rcs make makepasswd cpanminus apt-file
 
sudo apt-get -y install gcc libssl-dev libauthen-ntlm-perl \
     libclass-load-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl liburi-perl \
     libdata-uniqid-perl libdigest-hmac-perl libdist-checkconflicts-perl \
     libfile-copy-recursive-perl libio-compress-perl libio-socket-inet6-perl \
     libio-socket-ssl-perl libio-tee-perl libmail-imapclient-perl \
     libmodule-scandeps-perl libnet-ssleay-perl libpar-packer-perl \
     libreadonly-perl libsys-meminfo-perl libterm-readkey-perl \
     libtest-fatal-perl libtest-mock-guard-perl libtest-pod-perl \
     libtest-requires-perl libtest-simple-perl libunicode-string-perl \
     libencode-imaputf7-perl libfile-tail-perl libregexp-common-perl \
     libregexp-common-email-address-perl libregexp-common-perl \
     libregexp-common-time-perl libtest-deep-fuzzy-perl libtest-deep-perl \
     libtest-deep-json-perl libtest-deep-perl libtest-deep-type-perl \
     libtest-deep-unorderedpairs-perl libtest-modern-perl libtest-most-perl

Step 2: Install Python modules

sudo cpanm Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA Crypt::OpenSSL::Random --force
sudo cpanm Mail::IMAPClient JSON::WebToken Test::MockObject 
sudo cpanm Unicode::String Data::Uniqid

Step 3: update apt-cache

apt-file update

Step 4: Clone and build imapsync

The build process will automatically mount imapsync in your /usr/bin directory so that is ready to use immediately.

git clone https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync.git
 
cd imapsync
mkdir -p dist
sudo make install

Now you have a working imapsync on your Debian-based linux distro of your choice 🙂 to run it, try

imapsync \
--host1 mail.host.it \ # from this mail server
--user1 "info@host.it" \
--password1 myBeautifulFakePassword \
--ssl1 \ # the --ssl{1|2} Flag serves to let imapsync know that you're connecting to SSL secured hosts
--host2 mail.newhost.it \ # to this mail server
--user2 "info@newhost.it" \
--password2 anotherBeautifulPassword \
--ssl2 --addheader # the --addheader helps in copying messages without header (eg. Drafts)