GitPedia

Offlineimap

Read/sync your IMAP mailboxes (python2) [LEGACY: move to offlineimap3]

From OfflineIMAP·Updated June 24, 2026·View on GitHub·

[offlineimap]: http://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap [offlineimap3]: http://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap3 [website]: http://www.offlineimap.org [wiki]: http://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap/wiki [blog]: http://www.offlineimap.org/posts.html The project is written primarily in Python, distributed under the Other license, first published in 2012. It has gained significant community traction with 1,857 stars and 360 forks on GitHub. Key topics include: emails, imap, mailboxes, maildir, mutt.

Latest release: v6.5.6-rc1v6.5.6, release candidate #1
May 25, 2014View Changelog →

Financial contributors: Financial Contributors on Open Collective

Links:

OfflineIMAP

"Get the emails where you need them."

IMPORTANT NOTE: This repository is for python2 only. The support for offlineimap3
is happening in Official offlineimap for python3.

I'll still lazily maintain this legacy offlineimap but users should definitely go with
offlineimap3.

Description

OfflineIMAP is software that downloads your email mailbox(es) as local
Maildirs
. OfflineIMAP will synchronize both sides via IMAP.

Why should I use OfflineIMAP?

IMAP's main downside is that you have to trust your email provider to
not lose your email. While certainly unlikely, it's not impossible.
With OfflineIMAP, you can download your Mailboxes and make you own backups of
your Maildir.

This allows reading your email offline without the need for your mail
reader (MUA) to support IMAP operations. Need an attachment from a
message without internet connection? No problem, the message is still there.

Project status and future

The offlineimap project was forked to
offlineimap3 to support python3. Contributions are welcome to
this project.

Contributors

Code Contributors

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute].
<a href="https://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap/graphs/contributors"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/contributors.svg?width=890&button=false" /></a>

Financial Contributors

Become a financial contributor and help us sustain our community. [Contribute]

Individuals

<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/individuals.svg?width=890"></a>

Organizations

Support this project with your organization. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. [Contribute]

<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/0/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/0/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/1/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/1/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/2/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/2/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/3/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/3/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/4/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/4/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/5/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/5/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/6/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/6/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/7/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/7/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/8/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/8/avatar.svg"></a>
<a href="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/9/website"><img src="https://opencollective.com/offlineimap-organization/organization/9/avatar.svg"></a>

License

GNU General Public License v2.

Downloads

You should first check if your distribution already packages OfflineIMAP for you.
Downloads releases as tarball or zipball.

If you are running Linux Os, you can install offlineimap with:

  • openSUSE zypper in offlineimap
  • Arch Linux pacman -S offlineimap
  • fedora dnf install offlineimap

Feedbacks and contributions

The user discussions, development, announcements and all the exciting stuff take
place on the mailing list.
While not mandatory to send emails, you can
subscribe here.

Bugs, issues and contributions can be requested to both the mailing list or the
official Github project. Provide the following information:

  • system/distribution (with version)
  • offlineimap version (offlineimap -V)
  • Python version
  • server name or domain
  • CLI options
  • Configuration file (offlineimaprc)
  • pythonfile (if any)
  • Logs, error
  • Steps to reproduce the error

The community

Requirements & dependencies

  • Python v2.7.x

  • six (required)

  • rfc6555 (required)

  • imaplib2 >= 2.57 (optional)

  • gssapi (optional), for Kerberos authentication

  • portalocker (optional), if you need to run offlineimap in Cygwin for Windows

  • Python v3: See the offlineimap3 fork of
    offlineimap.

Documentation

All current and updated documentation is on the community's website.

Read documentation locally

You might want to read the documentation locally. Get the sources of the website.
For the other documentation, run the appropriate make target:

sh
$ ./scripts/get-repository.sh website $ cd docs $ make html # Requires rst2html $ make man # Requires a2x (http://asciidoc.org) $ make api # Requires sphinx

Contributors

Showing top 12 contributors by commit count.

View all contributors on GitHub →

This article is auto-generated from OfflineIMAP/offlineimap via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 6/27/2026