Self-hosted email archiver that keeps your mailbox small and your mail safe — with the controls other archivers are missing.
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Most archivers can only mirror a whole account. SelfArchiver is built around four things they don't do:
- 📂 Selective folders — archive only the folders you choose (e.g.
Invoices,Insurance), never the spam-filled inbox. - 🎛 Rule-based filters — match by sender, subject, attachment presence and age, with read/flagged safeguards so important or unread mail is never touched.
- ⏱ Per-rule schedules — every rule runs on its own cron schedule, completely independent of the others.
- 🧹 Archive-then-delete retention — optionally delete mail from the source mailbox after it has been safely archived, so a free mailbox quota is enough.
Everything lives in one container: SQLite (with full-text search) and .eml files on a single volume. No Postgres, Redis, search engine or Tika sidecars to run.
⚠️ Status: v1.0.0. The archive-then-delete action permanently removes mail from your mailbox once archived — test with Archive only first and keep backups of anything irreplaceable.
| Sources | Connect any IMAP mailbox. Credentials are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM). |
| Folder picker | Lists the mailbox's folders and lets you tick exactly which to archive. |
| Filter | From/Subject/To contains-any, require attachment, only-read, exclude-flagged. |
| Age | Only act on mail older than N days. |
| Schedule | Per-rule cron with presets, custom expressions and a live "next run" preview. |
| Retention | Archive only or Archive, then delete from mailbox. Deletion only happens after a confirmed archive. |
| Archive | Browse + full-text search (subject, sender, recipients, body). Download any message as .eml. |
| Activity | Run history with scanned / archived / deleted counts and errors. |
| Interface | Dark or light UI, English & German (switchable in the sidebar), collapsible navigation; click an archived email to read it inline. |
| Auth | Optional single-password login for the whole UI. |
- You add an IMAP mailbox (source).
- You create one or more rules: pick folders, set a filter, choose an age threshold, a schedule and whether to delete after archiving.
- On schedule (or Run now), SelfArchiver lists messages older than the threshold in each selected folder, archives the ones matching the filter (full
.emlincl. attachments) into the database + disk, and — if enabled — deletes those messages from the mailbox.
Archiving is idempotent: a stable per-message key prevents duplicates, so re-running a rule is always safe.
git clone https://github.com/s3lfcod3r/selfarchiver.git
cd selfarchiver
cp .env.example .env
# set APP_SECRET (openssl rand -hex 32) and optionally AUTH_PASSWORD
docker compose up -dOpen http://<host>:3000.
The template lives at unraid/selfarchiver.xml. Add this repo as a template source, or paste the XML into a new container template. Set APP_SECRET (and optionally AUTH_PASSWORD) and map /data to e.g. /mnt/user/appdata/selfarchiver.
The image is published to GHCR: ghcr.io/s3lfcod3r/selfarchiver:latest.
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
PORT |
3000 |
HTTP port. |
APP_SECRET |
(auto) | Secret for encrypting mailbox passwords + signing sessions. Set and keep stable. |
AUTH_PASSWORD |
(empty) | Optional UI password. Empty = open instance. |
COOKIE_SECURE |
false |
Set to true when serving over HTTPS (behind a TLS proxy) so the session cookie is only sent over secure connections. |
TZ / CRON_TZ |
UTC |
Timezone for cron schedules. |
DATA_DIR |
/data |
SQLite DB + .eml archive location. |
LOG_LEVEL |
info |
trace…error. |
npm install
npm run dev # backend on :3000 (tsx watch)
npm run dev:web # frontend on :5173 (Vite, proxies /api)
npm run typecheck # type-check both workspaces
npm run build # build web + prepare serverStack: Node + Fastify + better-sqlite3 (FTS5) + imapflow + node-cron on the backend; React + Vite + Tailwind on the frontend. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.
- Mailbox passwords are encrypted with a key derived from
APP_SECRET. Losing/changing the secret makes them unrecoverable. - Run behind HTTPS (reverse proxy) if exposed beyond a trusted LAN, and set
AUTH_PASSWORD. - The Archive, then delete action is irreversible on the mailbox side. The archive copy remains, but treat it like any retention policy.
MIT — see LICENSE. SelfArchiver is an independent implementation; see NOTICE.md.