GitHub - wesm/msgvault: Archive a lifetime of email and chat. Offline search, analytics, and AI query over your full message history. Powered by DuckDB (original) (raw)

msgvault

Documentation · Setup Guide · Interactive TUI

Alpha software. APIs, storage format, and CLI flags may change without notice. Back up your data.

Archive a lifetime of email. Analytics and search in milliseconds, entirely offline.

Why msgvault?

Your messages are yours. Decades of correspondence, attachments, and history shouldn't be locked behind a web interface or an API. msgvault downloads a complete local copy and then everything runs offline. Search, analytics, and the MCP server all work against local data with no network access required.

Currently supports Gmail and IMAP sync, plus offline imports from MBOX exports and Apple Mail (.emlx) directories.

Features

• Full Gmail backup: raw MIME, attachments, labels, and metadata
• IMAP sync: archive mail from any standard IMAP server
• MBOX / Apple Mail import: import email from MBOX exports or Apple Mail (.emlx) directories
• Interactive TUI: drill-down analytics over your entire message history, powered by DuckDB over Parquet — connects to a remote msgvault serve instance or runs locally
• Full-text search: FTS5 with Gmail-like query syntax (from:, has:attachment, date ranges)
• MCP server: access your full archive at the speed of thought in Claude Desktop and other MCP-capable AI agents
• DuckDB analytics: millisecond aggregate queries across hundreds of thousands of messages in the TUI, CLI, and MCP server
• Incremental sync: History API picks up only new and changed messages
• Multi-account: archive several Gmail and IMAP accounts in a single database
• Resumable: interrupted syncs resume from the last checkpoint
• Content-addressed attachments: deduplicated by SHA-256

Installation

macOS / Linux:

curl -fsSL https://msgvault.io/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://msgvault.io/install.ps1 | iex"

The installer detects your OS and architecture, downloads the latest release from GitHub Releases, verifies the SHA-256 checksum, and installs the binary. You can review the script (bash, PowerShell) before running, or download a release binary directly from GitHub.

To build from source instead (requires Go 1.25+ and a C/C++ compiler for CGO and to statically link DuckDB):

git clone https://github.com/wesm/msgvault.git cd msgvault make install

Conda-Forge:

You can install msgvault from conda-forge using Pixi or Conda:

pixi global install msgvault conda install -c conda-forge msgvault

Quick Start

Prerequisites: You need a Google Cloud OAuth credential before adding an account. Follow the OAuth Setup Guide to create one (~5 minutes).

msgvault init-db msgvault add-account you@gmail.com # opens browser for OAuth msgvault sync-full you@gmail.com --limit 100 msgvault tui

Commands

See the CLI Reference for full details.

Importing from MBOX or Apple Mail

Import email from providers that offer MBOX exports or from a local Apple Mail data directory:

msgvault init-db msgvault import-mbox you@example.com /path/to/export.mbox msgvault import-mbox you@example.com /path/to/export.zip # zip of MBOX files msgvault import-emlx # auto-discover Apple Mail accounts msgvault import-emlx you@example.com ~/Library/Mail/V10 # explicit path

Configuration

All data lives in ~/.msgvault/ by default (override with MSGVAULT_HOME).

~/.msgvault/config.toml

[oauth] client_secrets = "/path/to/client_secret.json"

[sync] rate_limit_qps = 5

See the Configuration Guide for all options.

Multiple OAuth Apps (Google Workspace)

Some Google Workspace organizations require OAuth apps within their org. To use multiple OAuth apps, add named apps to config.toml:

[oauth] client_secrets = "/path/to/default_secret.json" # for personal Gmail

[oauth.apps.acme] client_secrets = "/path/to/acme_workspace_secret.json"

Then specify the app when adding accounts:

msgvault add-account you@acme.com --oauth-app acme msgvault add-account personal@gmail.com # uses default

To switch an existing account to a different OAuth app:

msgvault add-account you@acme.com --oauth-app acme # re-authorizes

MCP Server

msgvault includes an MCP server that lets AI assistants search, analyze, and read your archived messages. Connect it to Claude Desktop or any MCP-capable agent and query your full message history conversationally. See the MCP documentation for setup instructions.

Daemon Mode (NAS/Server)

Run msgvault as a long-running daemon for scheduled syncs and remote access:

Configure scheduled syncs in config.toml:

[[accounts]] email = "you@gmail.com" schedule = "0 2 * * *" # 2am daily (cron) enabled = true

[server] api_port = 8080 bind_addr = "0.0.0.0" api_key = "your-secret-key"

The TUI can connect to a remote server by configuring [remote].url. Use --local to force local database when remote is configured. See docs/api.md for the HTTP API reference.

Documentation

• Setup Guide: OAuth, first sync, headless servers
• Searching: query syntax and operators
• Interactive TUI: keybindings, views, deletion staging
• CLI Reference: all commands and flags
• Multi-Account: managing multiple Gmail accounts
• Configuration: config file and environment variables
• Architecture: SQLite, Parquet, and attachment storage
• MCP Server: AI assistant integration
• Troubleshooting: common issues and fixes
• Development: contributing, testing, building

Community

Join the msgvault Discord to ask questions, share feedback, report issues, and connect with other users.

Development

git clone https://github.com/wesm/msgvault.git cd msgvault make install-hooks # install pre-commit hook (requires prek) make test # run tests make lint # run linter (auto-fix) make install # build and install

Pre-commit hooks are managed by prek (brew install prek).

License

MIT. See LICENSE for details.