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/kenn-io/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.

Vector Search

msgvault can search your archive semantically using vector embeddings in addition to the default FTS5 keyword search. Point it at a self-hosted OpenAI-compatible embedding endpoint (Ollama, llama.cpp, LM Studio) and three surfaces accept either pure semantic search or BM25+vector fused via Reciprocal Rank Fusion:

• CLI: msgvault search "..." --mode vector or --mode hybrid
• HTTP: GET /api/v1/search?q=...&mode=vector or mode=hybrid
• MCP: the search_messages tool with a mode argument set to vector or hybrid

A separate MCP tool, find_similar_messages, returns nearest neighbors for a seed message. See the Vector Search guide for setup, backfill, and troubleshooting.

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

Import SMS Backup & Restore for Android (synctech-sms)

Msgvault can import XML backups produced by SMS Backup & Restore by SyncTech Pty Ltd. The Android app is listed in Google Play as SMS Backup & Restore and uses package com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore; the Pro app uses com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestorePro.

Install the Android app on the phone that owns the messages, then configure a scheduled backup:

1. Open SMS Backup & Restore.
2. Choose Set Up A Backup.
3. Include Messages, MMS media, and Call logs.
4. Choose Google Drive as the backup location.
5. Use a dedicated Drive folder for Msgvault imports.
6. Choose Incremental backups for daily operation. Full and archive backups also import correctly, but incremental backups keep each daily upload smaller.
7. Schedule the Android backup for a quiet time such as 4:00 AM.
8. Leave backup encryption off. Msgvault does not import encrypted Pro backups.

Configure Msgvault to read that Drive folder:

msgvault add-synctech-sms-drive pixel \
  --owner-phone +15550000001 \
  --folder-id 1exampleDriveFolderId \
  --google-account you@gmail.com \
  --schedule "30 4 * * *"

The folder ID is the final path segment in a Google Drive folder URL. For example, in https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1exampleDriveFolderId, the folder ID is 1exampleDriveFolderId.

Run the source immediately:

msgvault sync-synctech-sms pixel

You can also import local files, folders, or unencrypted ZIP backups:

msgvault import-synctech-sms --owner-phone +15550000001 ~/Downloads/sms-backup.xml
msgvault import-synctech-sms --owner-phone +15550000001 ~/Downloads/sms-backups/
msgvault import-synctech-sms --owner-phone +15550000001 ~/Downloads/sms-backup.zip

SMS and MMS messages appear in text-message search. Call logs are imported as searchable call records with message_type = synctech_sms_call, so missed and outgoing calls do not mix into normal text threads.

Msgvault stores Google OAuth refresh tokens under the Msgvault home directory with file permissions restricted to the current user. Tokens and client secrets are not written into config.toml, logs, README examples, or exported fixtures.

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

Google Service Accounts

Workspace admins can use a Google service account with domain-wide delegation instead of per-user OAuth tokens:

[oauth.apps.acme]
service_account_key = "/secure/path/service-account.json"

In Google Admin Console, authorize the service account client for https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly and https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify. If you will run delete-staged with permanent deletion, also authorize https://mail.google.com/. Keep the key file owner-only, for example chmod 600 /secure/path/service-account.json.

msgvault add-account you@acme.com --oauth-app acme
msgvault sync-full you@acme.com

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:

msgvault serve

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 the Web Server reference for the HTTP API.

Documentation

• Setup Guide: OAuth, first sync, headless servers
• Searching: query syntax and operators
• Search ranking across backends: how result order differs between SQLite and PostgreSQL
• PostgreSQL backend: run msgvault on PostgreSQL with pgvector semantic/hybrid search
• 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/kenn-io/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.