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decrypt

Decrypts one or more files a backup wrote, using the private key matching the public key the backup was encrypted with. See Stage 2: Encrypt for how encryption is chosen — since both age and OpenPGP are standard formats, this command is a convenience only: age -d -i KEY FILE or gpg -d FILE read the same files just as well.

./imap-backup-tool decrypt -i imap-backup-key.key FILE...

Flags

CLI flag Environment variable Description
--private-key-file, -i IMAP_BACKUP_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE Path to the private key file matching the backup's public key. Required.
--passphrase IMAP_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE Passphrase unlocking a protected OpenPGP key. Ignored for age.
--output, -o Directory to write decrypted files to (default: alongside each input).
--force Overwrite existing output files.

Reaching for the wrong key is caught up front: if a file's format doesn't match the key you gave, the command reports that instead of a decryption error, so a mismatched key doesn't just look like corrupted mail.