How to Setup GMVault Gmail Backup on Linux

There are a couple of ways in which we can back up our Gmail on windows, Linux, or mac but GMvault is probably the most reliable and feature-rich option.

GMvault is an open-source tool that is used for backing up your emails and protecting your valuable information. It has plenty of features which make it stand out amongst its competitors. Some of its features are:

• Highly customizable.
• Available on different platforms.
• It has its filesystem as its database, which makes access to emails very easy.
• Handles all the IMAP errors of Gmail.
• Encryption of saved emails.
• Open-source.

Let us set up a GMvault Gmail backup on Linux, the distro that we will be using in this article will be ubuntu.

Steps to set up GMvault Gmail backup

Step 1:  Downloading and Installing Gmvault

For this article we will be going to use a source distribution that is python based, so make sure to install python on the Linux system.

apt-get install python python-setuptools

After it is installed, download GMvault from its official website:

wget https://bitbucket.org/gaubert/gmvault-official-download/downloads/gmvault-v1.9.1-src.tar.gz

The package can be seen by using the ls command:

Step 2: Extracting the tar file

Extract the tar file shown above:

tar -zxvf  gmvault-v1.9.1-src.tar.gz

Step 3: Installing Gmvault 

Now go to the directory where Gmvault is installed and execute the following command:

python setup.py install

Now as GMvault is installed we will start the process of backing up our Gmail account.

To see the available options on gmvault type:

gmvault -h

Step 4: Sync your Gmail account with Gmvault:

Now we will sync our Gmail account with GMvault:

gmvault sync <your_email_address>

After this, you will be asked to allow access to Gmvault to your google account, grant access, and receive the token.

Enter this token in the command line and press ok.

 Now that the authentication is done, you can sync(backup) your emails with Gmail, Type the below command:

gmvault sync –type quick <your_email>

Note:  By default GMvault stores all the emails in the $HOME/gmvault-db directory.