GNU Mailutils

3.7.3 Synchronizatiom Mode

When given the --preserve option, movemail retains already downloaded messages in the source inbox. This means that called second time it will download both recently delivered messages and the ones it has already downloaded in the previous run. This makes little sense and a special option is provided to avoid this.

The --sync=mode defines synchronization mode, i.e. the algorithm that helps movemail decide whether a particular message has already been downloaded or not. If it has, movemail will skip that message.

The mode argument can be one of the following:

all

Assume each message is new. This is what movemail does when called without the --sync option.

uidnext

imap

Use the combination of uidvalidity and uidnext parameters of the source mailbox. This mode is mostly useful when the source is a remote mailbox accessed via IMAP4 protocol.

When using this method, movemail stores additional meta-information about each ‘source-destination’ pair of mailboxes in directory .movemail.sync, in the user’s home directory. The location of that directory can be changed using the --sync-dir option.

Example usage:

movemail --preserve --sync=uidnext imap://server mbox

uidl

Use uidl message identifiers. This method is useful if the source is a remote mailbox accessed via POP3 protocol.