Can I backup my IMAP Gmail account locally using only Alpine?

Question

I recently discovered cli email clients and have fallen in love with their speed and simplicity. After playing around with mutt and alpine I decided I favor alpine. I am a Gmail IMAP user and have many years of emails that I'd like to store locally. Is there a more or less convenient way to retain IMAP functionality and backup only the emails that haven't been backed up already on a weekly basis? I have alpine setup with my Gmail with IMAP and it's working great. I'm just wondering if there is a way to make an offline backup or "archive" locally on my computer while retaining the multi device access that IMAP offers. I apologize if this has been asked before, I did search for it and did not find my answer. Thank you for reading.

Answer 1

Alpine isn't very suited for this – it's for reading mail, not automating backups. Try OfflineIMAP; it will not conflict with Alpine's access.

[general]
  accounts = Gmail
[Account Gmail]
  localrepository = backup
  remoterepository = Gmail
[Repository backup]
  type = Maildir
  localfolders = ~/Backup/mail
[Repository Gmail]
  type = Gmail
  remoteuser = example@gmail.com
  readonly = True