How can I launch Thunderbird from Command Line and Auto Check IMAP Email?

Question

I want to use Thunderbird as an IMAP client to backup Gmail and would prefer to run it from a CRON... Basically want to wake it up, sync IMAP folders than shutdown... I tried offlineIMAP with no success and it seems that Thunderbird is a reasonable solution.

What would the command line settings be to have it check, download, then shutdown?

Solution

Perhaps fetchmail would be better suited to what you're trying to accomplish? http://www.fetchmail.info/

Comments

[Allan]

If you want to backup Gmail you need to use POP not IMAP as IMAP only shows you what is on your server it doesn't download anything.

[Amanda]

@Allan, that isn't strictly true. You can download IMAP content for later use, however, if a message is deleted from Gmail, when you sync your local imap it'll be deleted locally, too.