With the addition of the direct_imap_backup=1 feature (Disabled by default) http://www.directadmin.com/features.php?id=1834 DA can backup the /home/user/imap folder directly into the tar.gz backup file. The issue is that for Admin or Reseller accounts that might not have a domain, this can cause an error: Error Compressing the backup file admin.root.admin.tar.gz : /bin/tar: imap: Cannot stat: No such file or directory /bin/tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors So if the feature is enabled, do a check before including the imap folder.