gmail-to-fastmail: keep your Gmail labels in sync on Fastmail

2026-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

I moved to Fastmail some time ago, but like many of us I kept one foot in Gmail: Fastmail's "fetch" tool keeps duplicating my incoming Gmail into my Fastmail account — a backup, an escape plan, and a bridge for family members who are not quite ready to leave Gmail yet.

But there was a hole: the labels I add on Gmail after the initial migration (manually, or with my rules) were never reproduced on Fastmail. So I wrote gmail-to-fastmail, a single Go binary that incrementally syncs your Gmail labels to Fastmail.

How it works🔗

It reads your Gmail via IMAP (read-only, X-GM-LABELS), and applies the labels on Fastmail via JMAP (a more efficient variant of IMAP), in batches of 10 000. Progress is kept in a local SQLite database, so each run resumes where the last one stopped — once caught up, a run takes about 15 seconds. Perfect for cron.

What it does🔗

Labels mapped: your Gmail labels become Fastmail labels, created on demand, never deleted.
Categories: Gmail's system categories (Inbox, Updates, Social...) become underscore-prefixed labels _Inbox, _Updates, _Social...
Trash: emails deleted on Gmail are not deleted on Fastmail, just labelled _Trash — a backup of your deleted mail, with an easy way to "empty the bin".
Local cache: unchanged emails are skipped, so Fastmail's API is left in peace.
Mirror mode: -m/-M optionally imports emails missing on Fastmail, not just labels. There are more options, detailed on the GitGub repository.

Installation, Usage, and more info🔗

See the GitHub repository.

Why Go?🔗

Because it is a single self-contained binary with no runtime dependencies — you know my thing about that. No Python env, no node_modules, no nothing. Free (MIT).

Also, AI co-written: don't like, don't use.

mailpixtracker: a lightweight bash CGI to track emails

2026-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

When I send an email, did the recipient read it? So I wrote mailpixtracker, a small self-hosted CGI script that tracks when your emails are opened, via the classic invisible 1x1 pixel trick.

Think of MailTracker or MailTrack, but without all the marketing machinery: no account on a third-party server, no spyware concerns, no "business intelligence" dashboards. Just three bash scripts on your own web server.

How it works🔗

You create a new tracker with an optional name on your mailpixtracker page. It gives you a tiny HTML snippet to paste in your email such as:

<img src='https://my.mailpixtracker.org/_/12-I5rHJCFap' width=1 height=1>

When someone opens your email and their mailer loads images, your server logs the request: date, IP, hostname, user-agent. No data ever leaves your server.

Features🔗

No accounts: The URL is the authentication, via Capability URLs. The admin URL is your unguessable "password" — share it with nobody and you are safe.
Plain files: Logs are tab-separated text, one line per open. No database.
Colored logs: Each distinct IP gets its own perceptually-spaced color, so you can spot repeat readers at a glance. Your own opens (while composing the email) show in dim grey, so they do not pollute the picture.
New entries highlighted: Entries added since your last visit get a yellow marker.
Notes field: Each tracker has an editable name and notes — handy to remember what you sent, to whom, and when.
Guest accounts: Create isolated spaces for different purposes (work, family, surfing...) with admin (you) accounts, or guest accounts that you can just give to others with a link. Non-admin guests only see their own trackers.
Geolocalization (optional): With the MaxMind databases installed, logs show the organization and country of each reader.

Caveats🔗

Email tracking is not foolproof. Most mailers now prompt before loading images, so people can read your email without ever triggering the tracker. Mailpixtracker will not tell you everything — but when it does fire, it is accurate, and the logs are all yours.

Also note that it is a tool for personal curiosity, not for marketing analytics: it has no click tracking, no A/B testing, no "campaigns". If you want that, there are plenty of SaaS products; this one is the lazy, self-hosted, private alternative.

Install🔗

For instructions, see the code is at github.com/ColasNahaboo/mailpixtracker, it is multi-licensed (MIT, Apache 2.0, MPL 2.0, LGPL v3, GPL v3) — pick whichever suits your project.

Colas.Nahaboo.net - email

gmail-to-fastmail: keep your Gmail labels in sync on Fastmail

How it works🔗

What it does🔗

Installation, Usage, and more info🔗

Why Go?🔗

mailpixtracker: a lightweight bash CGI to track emails

How it works🔗

Features🔗

Caveats🔗

Install🔗