complete-computing-environment/mbsync.org

mbsync for local mail storage

(provide 'cce/mbsync)
(defun cce-run-mbsync-forever ()
  (interactive)
  (cce/async-forever "date && mbsync -a" "*mbsync*" 600))
(add-hook #'after-cce-hook #'cce-run-mbsync-forever)

I have mixed feelings about using mbsync in my Email and News and Information Pipelines, I've had enough issues with mail integrity that it's useful to have a Python thing that I can muck around inside of with print statements to figure out what what the fuck my Maildir did to itself. I have negative feelings towards the way the project is operated, and the fact that the best documentation of the project is bunch of semi-hostile threads on a Sourceforge forum, and I'm not excited for Master/Slave terminology in a sync program…

But it's fast and works and so I'll try to use it again. I have a tiered architecture for my mail; because of the Universal Aggregator, on my laptops I want to always pull my mail from my central server, and so I have two configurations.

Here's the one for getting things from my server to my laptop. Most folks who set up a personal mail cache will configure Dovecot on the server to listen on a port, and set up authentication and firewalling and bla bla bla. Even if you have a VPN and manage to make sure your IMAP server is only on that VPN, you have to set up a password database or some other sort of authentication strategy, fucken sucks. Instead, I build my security on top of my SSH Configuration¹, by establishing an SSH tunnel which executes the built-in imap library executable, which provides a locally-authenticated dovecot session over standard input/output.

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  imports = [
    ./mbsync-configuration.nix
    ./imapnotify-configuration.nix
  ];
  programs.mbsync.enable = true;
  accounts.email.maildirBasePath = "/home/rrix/Maildir";
  accounts.email.accounts.fastmail = {
    address = "ryan@whatthefuck.computer";
    # aliases = [ "ry@n.rix.si" "rrix@fastmail.com" ];
    userName = "rrix@fastmail.com";
    passwordCommand = "${pkgs.rbw}/bin/rbw get fastmail_email_app";
    maildir.path = "fastmail";

    imap = {
      host = "mail.messagingengine.com";
    };
  };
}

The last time I used mbsync, I experienced issues with mail IDs in my newsrc.eld file, which Gnus uses to store which lists I am subscribed too, and also functions as a cache for message and folder states. The latter caching was what caused these issues, I believe, but it was really difficult to debug it. If this happens again, I may switch to offlineimap.

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  services.imapnotify.enable = true;
  accounts.email.accounts.fastmail.imapnotify = {
    enable = true;
    boxes = ["INBOX"];
    onNotify = ''
      set -euxo pipefail
      ${pkgs.imapfilter}/bin/imapfilter -c ${<arroyo/files/imapfilter.lua>}
      ${pkgs.isync}/bin/mbsync -a
      ${pkgs.libnotify}/bin/notify-send 'New mail received'
    '';
  };
}

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  accounts.email.accounts.fastmail.mbsync = {
    enable = true;
    subFolders = "Verbatim";

    extraConfig = {
      account = {
        Timeout = 120;
      };
    };

    groups = {
      all = {
        channels = {
          top = {
            extraConfig.Create = "near";
            patterns = [
              "INBOX"
              "1ml"
              "1ml/bcz"
              "1ml/friendsofsecurityplanner"
              "Junk Mail"
              "RecruitingSpam"
              "Sent Mail"
              "emacsconf"
              "fedora/bugs"
              "github"
              "newsletters"
              "phoenix-lug"
              "social"
            ];
          };
          rest = {
            extraConfig.Create = "near";
            patterns = [
              "*"
            ];
          };
        };
      };
    };
  };
}

---

¹

(admittedly, my SSH configuration should be refreshed)