DOVEADM-DICT(1)

💖 DOVEADM-DICT — the dict manual, but make it a group chat 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about doveadm-dict — it lives in the Dovecot manual (section 1, the big-girl commands section, iykyk) and it's literally all about dictionary manipulation. Commands related to dictionary manipulation, to be exact. slay. ✨

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dict command [-u user] [OPTIONS] config-filter-name [args]

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mail dict command [OPTIONS] config-filter-name [args]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so doveadm dict and doveadm mail dict are the two little icons you use to query and modify dictionary entries. that's the whole job. 💅

the doveadm mail dict version can be run within a specific user context, which is highkey useful when, say, a userdb lookup returns user-specific dict settings. other than that vibe difference, the two commands behave identically. no cap.

🎀 config-filter-name

this is the filter name to use when looking up the dict settings. think things like mail_attribute, quota_clone. 🍓

and yes, you can also pass an empty filter name and just spell out the dict settings yourself using the -o parameters. main character energy tbh.

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🌈 GLOBAL OPTIONS 🌈

these are the global doveadm(1) options, and there are a lot of them, so buckle up buttercup:

• -D — Enables verbosity and debug messages. 👀
• -O — Do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version, but can be overridden with -o. 🙈
• -k — Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just the import_environment setting.
• -v — Enables verbosity, including progress counter. (yes, a lil progress bar moment 💅)
• -i instance-name — If you're running multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on this instance name. See the instance_name setting for more info. 👑
• -c config-file — Read configuration from the given config-file. By default it first reads the config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. You can also point this at the config socket of some instance running a compatible version. 🔥
• -o setting=value — Overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. To override multiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times. (stack 'em, bestie)
• -f formatter — Specifies the formatter for formatting the output. Supported formatters are:
  • flow — prints each line with key=value pairs.
  • json — prints a JSON array of JSON objects.
  • pager — prints each key: value pair on its own line and separates records with form feed character (^L).
  • tab — prints a table header followed by tab separated value lines.
  • table — prints a table header followed by adjusted value lines.

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💜 OPTIONS 💜

🫶 doveadm dict command-specific options

• -u user — The user to use.

🫶 doveadm mail dict command-specific options

• -A — If the -A option is present, the command will be performed for all users. Using this option in combination with system users from userdb { driver = passwd } is not recommended, because it contains also users with a lower UID than the one configured with the first_valid_uid setting. 😭

When the SQL userdb module is used, make sure that the userdb_sql_iterate_query setting setting matches your database layout.

When using the LDAP userdb module, make sure that the userdb_fields setting and userdb_ldap_iterate_fields setting settings match your LDAP schema. Otherwise doveadm(1) will be unable to iterate over all users.

• -F file — Execute the command for all the users in the file. This is similar to the -A option, but instead of getting the list of users from the userdb, they are read from the given file. The file contains one username per line. 📄
• -S socket_path — The option's argument is either an absolute path to a local UNIX domain socket, or a hostname and port (hostname:port), in order to connect a remote host via a TCP socket.

This allows an administrator to execute doveadm(1) mail commands through the given socket. 🔌

• -u user/mask — Run the command only for the given user. It's also possible to use '*' and '?' wildcards (e.g. -u *@example.org). ⭐

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👑 COMMANDS 👑

🌸 get

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dict get [-u user] config-filter-name key

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mail dict get [-A | -u user | -F file] [-S socket_path] config-filter-name key

Fetch a key from a dictionary. 🎀

• key — The key to fetch.

🌸 iter

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dict iter [-u user] [-1RV] config-filter-name prefix

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mail dict iter [-A | -u user | -F file] [-S socket_path] [-1RV] config-filter-name prefix

Find the keys matching the a prefix in a dictionary. 🔍

• -1 — Exact match.
• -R — Recurse.
• -V — Don't print values, just key names
• prefix — The key prefix to look for.

List keys into the dictionary.

🌸 inc

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dict inc [-u user] [-t timestamp-msecs] config-filter-name key diff

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mail dict inc [-A | -u user | -F file] [-S socket_path] [-t timestamp-msecs] config-filter-name key diff

Increment the value of a numeric key in the keys into the dictionary. ➕

• -t timestamp-msecs — Set the timestamp also.
• key — The key to increment.
• diff — The amount of the increment.

🌸 set

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dict set [-u user] [-t timestamp-msecs] [-e expire-secs] config-filter-name key value

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mail dict set [-A | -u user | -F file] [-S socket_path] [-t timestamp-msecs] [-e expire-secs] config-filter-name key value

Set/create keys into the dictionary. ✨

• -t timestamp-msecs — Set the timestamp also.
• -e expire-secs — Set the key duration also.
• key — The key to set.
• value — The value to set.

🌸 unset

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] dict unset [-u user] [-t timestamp-msecs] config-filter-name key

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] mail dict unset [-A | -u user | -F file] [-S socket_path] [-t timestamp-msecs] config-filter-name key

Remove a key from the dictionary. 🗑️ (bye babe)

• -t timestamp-msecs — Set the timestamp also.
• key — The key to unset.

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😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

found a bug? first of all, mood. report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List ⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩. Information about reporting bugs is available at: ⟨https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html⟩

ngl bestie, they really want that doveconf -n output. don't make them ask twice. 🫶

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💖 SEE ALSO 💖

• doveadm(1)

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and that's the whole page, babes. this was DOVEADM-DICT(1) from the Dovecot manual, revision f979264, dated April 2026. mwah, go forth and manipulate some dictionaries. 💅✨🎀