mbsyncloop

mbsyncloop combines mbsync and goimapnotify to create a persistent service which waits for new mail and immediately fetches it when available, similar to offlineimap. At its simplest, it just runs in a loop which fetches all mail every 15 minutes, but it can be configured to watch some or all mailboxes using IMAP IDLE to immediately trigger mail fetching as it comes in.

Installation

mbsyncloop is a standalone script, it just needs to be somewhere on your $PATH. It requires perl, mbsync, and goimapnotify to be installed.

Configuration

Configuration is read from ~/.config/mbsyncloop/config.json if available. All configuration is optional, although you will need a working mbsyncrc file with certain things configured (described below). Valid keys for the mbsyncloop config are:

{
    "mbsync_config": "~/.mbsyncrc",
    "boxes": ["INBOX", "personal"],
    "box_patterns": ["^(?!old\\.)"],
    "on_new_mail": "notmuch new | grep -v '^No new mail\\.$'",
    "poll_interval": "900"
}

mbsync_config: File to read mbsync configuration from. Defaults to ~/.mbsyncrc.
boxes: List of IMAP mailboxes to be immediately notified of changes to. If unset, defaults to watching all mailboxes on the server (although see box_patterns).
box_patterns: If boxes is unset, mbsyncloop will request a list of all mailboxes on the server and use that list. If you set box_patterns, it will filter that list to only include mailboxes that match one of the (PCRE) regular expressions given by box_patterns. If box_patterns is unset, all mailboxes will be watched.
on_new_mail: If set, this command will be run after mbsync completes successfully. By default, no command will be run.
poll_interval: Number of seconds to wait between full syncs. Defaults to 900.

In addition to config.json, mbsyncloop reads configuration from your mbsyncrc. Your mbsyncrc should contain a MaildirStore and an IMAPStore, and the IMAPStore should have Host, User, and PassCmd configured. Additionally, Port and SSLType will be used if present. mbsyncloop will extract those options and use them to configure goimapnotify to talk to the same server.