Here are some example configurations for various situations.

Multiple Accounts with Mutt

This example shows you how to set up OfflineIMAP to synchronize multiple accounts with the mutt mail reader.

Start by creating a directory to hold your folders by running mkdir ~/Mail. Then, in your ~/.offlineimaprc, specify:

accounts = Personal, Work

Make sure that you have both an [Account Personal] and an [Account Work] section. The local repository for each account must have different localfolder path names. Also, make sure to enable [mbnames].

In each local repository section, write something like this:

localfolders = ~/Mail/Personal

Finally, add these lines to your ~/.muttrc:

source ~/path-to-mbnames-muttrc-mailboxes
folder-hook Personal set from="youremail@personal.com"
folder-hook Work set from="youremail@work.com"
set mbox_type=Maildir
set folder=$HOME/Mail
spoolfile=+Personal/INBOX

That’s it!

UW-IMAPD and References

Some users with a UW-IMAPD server need to use OfflineIMAP’s “reference” feature to get at their mailboxes, specifying a reference of ~/Mail or #mh/ depending on the configuration. The below configuration (originally from docwhat@gerf.org) shows using a reference of Mail, a nametrans that strips the leading Mail/ off incoming folder names, and a folderfilter that limits the folders synced to just three:

[Account Gerf]
localrepository = GerfLocal
remoterepository = GerfRemote

[Repository GerfLocal]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/Mail

[Repository GerfRemote]
type = IMAP
remotehost = gerf.org
ssl = yes
remoteuser = docwhat
reference = Mail
# Trims off the preceeding Mail on all the folder names.
nametrans = lambda foldername: \
re.sub('^Mail/', '', foldername)
# Yeah, you have to mention the Mail dir, even though it
# would seem intuitive that reference would trim it.
folderfilter = lambda foldername: foldername in [
    'Mail/INBOX',
    'Mail/list/zaurus-general',
    'Mail/list/zaurus-dev',
    ]
maxconnections = 1
holdconnectionopen = no

pythonfile Configuration File Option

You can have OfflineIMAP load up a Python file before evaluating the configuration file options that are Python expressions. This example is based on one supplied by Tommi Virtanen for this feature.

In ~/.offlineimaprc, he adds these options:

[general]
pythonfile=~/.offlineimap.py
[Repository foo]
foldersort=mycmp

Then, the ~/.offlineimap.py file will contain:

prioritized = ['INBOX', 'personal', 'announce', 'list']

def mycmp(x, y):
    for prefix in prioritized:
        xsw = x.startswith(prefix)
        ysw = y.startswith(prefix)
        if xsw and ysw:
            return cmp(x, y)
        elif xsw:
            return -1
        elif ysw:
            return +1
    return cmp(x, y)

def test_mycmp():
    import os, os.path
    folders=os.listdir(os.path.expanduser('~/data/mail/tv@hq.yok.utu.fi'))
    folders.sort(mycmp)
    print folders

This code snippet illustrates how the foldersort option can be customized with a Python function from the pythonfile to always synchronize certain folders first.