#!/bin/cat
$Id: FAQ.Big_Mailbox.txt,v 1.4 2019/07/31 10:37:15 gilles Exp gilles $

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https://imapsync.lamiral.info/FAQ.d/FAQ.Big_Mailbox.txt


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            Imapsync tips to deal with huge mailboxes
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Questions answered in this FAQ are:

Q. How to deal with huge mailboxes, whose size is over dozens of GB?

Now the questions again with their answers.

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Q. How to deal with huge mailboxes, whose size is over dozens of GB?

R1. It should be ok with imapsync.  

In case imapsync seems to stall when sizing the folders or before
syncing a huge folder and you wander wether it is doing something or
just frozen, you can add option --debugimap. Option --debugimap shows
what is currently done, it's quite a big output but it helps waiting,
saying to ourselves "ok it's long but it's working, let's wait a
little more".  The real purpose of --debugimap is to show genuine IMAP
commands used and their responses. The problem with --debugimap is
that it is very verbose and so with a big mailbox it generates a very
BIG logfile.

R2. If it is not ok with imapsync then consider spliting the whole 
sync into smaller chunks using --search

For example, select messages only for a given year:

...
..imapsync ... --search "SENTSINCE 1-Jan-2017 SENTBEFORE 31-Dec-2017"
  imapsync ... --search "SENTSINCE 1-Jan-2018 SENTBEFORE 31-Dec-2018"
  imapsync ... --search "SENTSINCE 1-Jan-2019 SENTBEFORE 31-Dec-2019"

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