You'll need to choose a path on your computer where your backups will be saved, we'll use ./my-data here.

If you have just one account, you can do as follows

docker run \
  --volume ./my-data:/data \
  --dns 8.8.8.8 \
  ghcr.io/joeyates/imap-backup:latest \
  imap-backup single backup \
    --email me@example.com \
    --password mysecret \
    --server imap.example.com \
    --path /data/me_example.com

Podman will work exactly the same.

Notes:

• If you're using Docker, add --user $(id -u):$(id -g) so that the files created by the container are owned by you and not by root,
• Pass imap-backup the --password-environment-variable=VARIABLE_NAME or --password-file=FILE option to avoid having your password in the command line history:

docker run --env THE_PASSWORD=$THE_PASSWORD \
  ... \
  imap-backup single backup \
    --password-environment-variable=THE_PASSWORD \
    ...

or

docker run \
  ... \
  imap-backup single backup \
    --password-file=/data/password.txt \
    ...

If you have multiple accounts, you can create a configuration file.

You'll need to choose a path on your computer where your configuration will be saved, we'll use ./my-config here.

First, run the menu-driven setup program to configure your accounts

docker run \
  --volume ./my-config:/config \
  --volume ./my-data:/data \
  --dns 8.8.8.8 \
  --tty \
  --interactive \
  ghcr.io/joeyates/imap-backup:latest \
  imap-backup setup \
    --config /config/imap-backup.json

Then, run the backup

docker run \
  --volume ./my-config:/config \
  --volume ./my-data:/data \
  --dns 8.8.8.8 \
  ghcr.io/joeyates/imap-backup:latest \
  imap-backup backup \
    --config /config/imap-backup.json

If you have Homebrew, do this:

brew install imap-backup

• Rubygem

gem install imap-backup --no-document

If that doesn't work, see the detailed installation instructions.

If you want to use imap-backup directly from the source code, see here.