If you installed Spanning Backup for G Suite after November, 2016, then no, you do not need to have IMAP enabled for Spanning to successfully back up your data, as we moved to using a different Google API, which doesn't require IMAP being enabled.

If you installed Spanning Backup for G Suite in November, 2016 or before, then yes, you need to have IMAP enabled in your G Suite account.  Spanning Backup uses IMAP to access your Gmail data, so if you're backing up Gmail you must have IMAP enabled in order for the backup to be successful.

IMAP needs to be enabled for both the Gmail account as a whole, as well as each of the email labels that you want backed up.  To enable IMAP for your Gmail account as a whole, follow these steps: 

1. Log into your Gmail account
2. Click the 'Gear' icon in the upper-right corner of the screen and select Settings
3. Select the 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' tab
4. Ensure that Enable IMAP is enabled

To enable IMAP for each email label that you want backed up, follow these steps:

1. Log into your Gmail account
2. Click the 'Gear' icon in the upper-right corner of the screen and select Settings
3. Select the 'Labels' tab
4. Ensure that the 'Show in IMAP' box is checked for each email label that you want to have backed up.

If you have any additional questions, please reach out to support@spanning.com.